THE EXECUTION OF FLANAGAN.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 492, 17 April 1869, Page 3

THE EXECUTION OF FLANAGAN.

The execution of the man Michael Flanagan, recently condemned to death for the murder Mr Thomas "Wood Hull, sergeant of police at Hamilton, took place on Wednesday week within the walls of the Melbourne Gaol. Flanagan held out to the last that Mr Hull's death was accidentally caused. After his sentence he conducted himself with great quietness. He was somewhat unmanned on Tuesday, when his wife, three children, and sister, came to bid him their last adieu, but even at this interview he was greatly sustained by his wife, who refused to distress him by her tears, and reserved them for private indulgence in the Governor's room afterwards. His few last hours were borne with more fortitude, and he braced himself to meet his fate like a man. At four a.m. on Wednesday, he rose, shaved himself carefully, and then took oft' his prison clothes, and dressed himself in his old familiar mounted-police uniform. When the sheriff", Mr C. Faire, accompanied by Mr J. B. Oastieau, the governor of the gaol, came to the condemned cell, and intimated that his .last hour had come, Flanagan accepted the announcement calmly, and followed them to the drop, which is only three steps from the cell door. When there his nerves failed him, and he shook visibly, though he strove to follow the prayers repeated by the rev. chaplain and his assistant. He interrupted them to look at the crowd below, to see if any friends w ere there, but none were present, and even his wife had been properly refused admittance. Apparently loth to lose eight of the world, he objected to the white cap being drawn over his face, and even prolonged his parting shake of the priest's hands, but in a moment after the drop fell, and all was over. The man died instantaneously, and never moved or gave any sign of animation. Dr Barker, as usual, was present to direct the executioner to adopt the means for a merciful death, and as in the case of Cunningham and, Whelan, the last criminals who suffered in this way, the neck was instantaneously broken by the fall. Flanagan was a fine weU-built man. He was born in Ireland, and was thirty-six years of age. After spending several years in the Irish constabulary, he sailed to Victoria in 1859, in the ship Ocean Chief. Shortly after his arrival, he entered the Victorian police force, from which he was being, in fact, dismissed, for drunkenness and other misdemeanours, when he shot down his sergeant.