A HANGMAN'S SUICIDE

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4626, 19 January 1894, Page 3

A HANGMAN'S SUICIDE

The Mourn Episode.

Jones, the hangman, committed suicide in Melbourne gaol on Saturday morning, the 7th inst, saya the Sydney Ttltgraph, by outting his throat with a razor. Since his appointment aa hangman, about ten years ago, he has hanged fuurteen

persons, and he has taken such a delight in his terrible work that he would have bsen the last mau from whom to expect fine feelings; bat it transpires that Jones had a weak spot, and thut was his aversion to hanging a woman, Ever since there was a prospect of the condemned woman Frances Knorr being brought to the scaffold, Jones, whose proper name was Thomas Porier, endeavored to shirk the work, and went about in a melancholy mood; and wien he received the news tbat he had to execute the woman, he was greatly upset,

His custom was to report himself at the Melbourne gaol at 9 o'clock every morning. When he went to the gaol on the Friday morning he oom» plained to the officials that his neigh" hours had discoverd who he was, and had taunted him, and he said he could not stand it, together with the prospect of hanging a woman. He then broke down and sobbed; but before he left the gaol he was mure composed, On his arrival at the gaol on Saturday morning, when ho had to take up his .quarters in the gaol until, the gruesomo oeremony was over, he did not

display any signs of melancholy, and intimated that he would go to bis quarters at the northern end of the gaol. About a quarter of an hour afterwards the chief clerk Bent for Jonea, but the warder found his room lookedon the inside. Another key was secured, and on entering, Jonei was found in a pool of blood on the floor of the bathroom. He appears to have set about hiß self-destruction in the roost determined manner. His coat was hanging on a peg and a small flask of whiskey was in the bath, He had evidently bent over the bath and hacked his throat with the razor, and then, owing to loss of blood rolled on the floor. He leaves a wife and two children.

The authorities deny the truth of' the statement that the hangman Jones committed auioide because lib would not hang ihe woman Knorr. They say he suffered from congestion of the brain, accelerated by drink.