HORRIBLE SCENE AT AN EXECUTION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 145, 17 November 1870, Page 7

HORRIBLE SCENE AT AN EXECUTION.

On Thuraja|rweek, a man named Andrew Carr was executed in Dublin under circumstances of a most horrible nature. Carr was a native of /Kildare, and while young he enlisted in the 87th Regiment. He had received an excellent education, and being inanly-looking, and through, good conduct, rapidly rose to the rank of JjJolour-Sergeant. While quartered in xullamore, he became intimately acquainted with the person who was afterwards to be his victim, but who was then the respectable daughter of a fanner in the neighbourhood. The regiment having been ordered abroad, the unfortunate girl, finding herself disgraced, proceeded to Dublin, where she resided in the lowest locality in the city, known as Bull Lane. During the next two years, Carr served in the Indian and Chinese campaigns with distinction, but, on h.s return, he went to reside with the girl Murphy for a time. A quarrel having arisen, they separated and immediately afterwards Carr was reduced to the ranks for some reason. Having ret red on a pension of BJ . per day, in May last, after serving for twentyfive years, he again went to live with thgf, woman ; and one day, while both v/§rjS, drunk, Carr almost decapitated the unvr fortunate wretch. He at once gave himself up to the police and confessed the crime, for which he was sen tensed to^be, hung. He was extremely penitent .aft&si the trial, and did not appear as if hecj&wSl, to live. The Dublin Freeman gives the* following account of the feartul-, scene, which attended his death : — Tc pt^pare for his execution, one of the "foudows looking out on one of the exercise yards of the Bridewell was taken away and the bars removed. This window was to serve as a doorway to enter on a Wooden scaffold, in the centre of which was a trap door, beneath a beam to which the rope was to be attached, with provision made to allow a fall of fourteen feet to the wretched culprit, with the view of abridging his sufferings as much aff possible. The window leading to the g allows was one on the landing on the stairway lead ing from one of the doors of the chapel. The rope was passed through the thickness of the wall into a schieve in a projecting beam and secured to a spar above the bannisters. The coil of rope above the noose was loosely tied with twine, which would at once give way when th° strain camenpon it. The executionerwa* secured from one of the low haunts or the city, and every precaution was tnkjn to prevent any blunder in the horrib'e scena which was to be enacted ; a id. f>r the purpose of testing the proper w irking ot th ; odious machinery, a sack of meal, weighing, 2 cwt., was placed on the drop on the previous night and placed within the noose ; the drop bolt was pulled and the sack fell, and the rope broke. Another rope was procured and duly tested, and everything appeared ready for the execution. On Thursday morning at eight o'clock the prisoner, accompanied by the Roman Catholic chaplain, and other officials, appeared on the scaffold. When the pinioning straps were adjusted, the convict walked out on the drop, nor did he dis- " * ' -•*• — — ™«noM nr emotion v - *•> • adjii,j..'( , ,m»»i »r.» r . •vL'.-s c<\,n i , „i;* been \-uKec 1 oV-feS-they !v ;4 >:■:'• *V"* °i tho«*«N&xicir, €h« chai-li;in. j who ato'v L«yTinr to iLe la^i, bi«t ir'r ' affectior.aV., , far" -' ' ; s*d cv th *. bell of the pns ■ , ■. ■— . t" ' '- was drawn by the executioner, cvi! Liv drop fell. Down came the wretched man, and when the rope stretched with a kind of burring sound, the headless body of him who but a few seconds before was full of vigorous life rolled over in the bloody shingle with which the yard was covered, and soon after the head, encased in the gore saturatad cap which covered it, fell from flfe noose beside the lifeless corpse, from the neck of which protruded the lacerated muscles and bleeding vessels which had been wrenched asunder in the terrible fall. Unspeakable horror was depicted in every face and so quick and appalling was the fearful circumstance that for a considerable time no person moved from the place where they had been standing, arid as the empty noose of the rope swung to and fro in the morning breeze, Andrew Carr had passed away for ever from his crimes and sorrows. All who had been present, save those whose duties compelled them to remain, took their departure at once from the prison. After a considerable time had elapsed, the pinioned and headless trunk was removed from the pool of gore, in which it had lain, to the deadhouse, where also the cap containing the head of the convict was removed to await the inquest which was held at twelve o'clock. The following verdict was returned by the jury :—": — " We find that the said Andrew Carr was duly executed in Richmond Bridewell on the 28th July 1870, in accordace with the sentence of law. We are of opinibn that the separation of the head from the body, which took place at the execution, wa? the result of accident, for which the prison officials are in no wise to blame'" — " Scotsman," Aug. 6th 1870.