floor room. An engraving made of the scene had a very large sale. The customs of the different nations vary as to the mode of appointing an executioner. The work is distasteful to most men, but still there has never been a time when the law miscarried through want of an execu tioner. When Charles П was beheaded, two men appeared on the scaffold, both closely masked, to prevent recognition, and it was generally reported that both men had volun teered for the work. Until 186 1 there was an official with the title " Headsman of the Tower," but for more than a century the office had been a sinecure, as his duty was confined to the Tower, and only those who were condemned to die in the old fortress fell beneath his stroke. The last executions in the Tower were in 1746, when three Scotch lords, marnock were Balmerino, beheaded Lovat, for favoring and Kilthe
name of Jack Ketch has been used in Eng land as the designation of the holder of the office. The English hangmen of the last two centuries have not been noted for their fine feelings or culture, in fact there are many instances on record of hangmen be coming murderers, and suffering themselves the penalty which they had so often been the agents of administering. In France the office of executioner was hereditary for several centuries. In 1685 a young man of aristocratic family fell in love with and married the daughter of the exe cutioner. His family discarded him and the king confiscated much of his landed property and ordered that he should be come executioner on the death of his fatherin-law. The Sansons held the office for seven generations, and, strange to say, they were all men of very refined natures and of high intellectual ability. When in 1847 Henry Sansón was relieved from his position by the government, his mother threw herself in his arms and exclaimed: "Blessed be this day, my son! It frees you from the son inheritance wrote theof memoirs your fathers." of his family Henry aSanfew
pretensions of Prince Charles Edward, grandson of James II. Like many state offices, that of execu tioner seems to have been hereditary in England. Shakespeare speaks of " heredi tary hangmen " ( Coriolanus, act ii, sc. l). years later under the title of " Seven gener The London executioner of the time of ations of Executioners." The French execu James I was named Gregory Brandon, and tioner is designated officially and popularly the name Gregory was used as the familiar as Monsieur de Paris. He receives a salary designation of the executioner for many of four-thousand francs and an additional sum years. Brandon claimed that his office was of nine-thousand francs for expenses, besides many perquisites. one of great merit and he applied to the col lege of heralds for a coat-armorial, and There are no official executioners in the successfully demanded that he be designated United States, unless the State electrician "esquire " 'by virtue of his office. There is of New York can be so designated. The now no official executioner in England. sentence is carried into effect by the sheriff The city prison of Newgate retains a man or by some one engaged by him, generally to inflict the extreme penalty, paying him a some official of the prison. small wage as a retainer and giving him a Voltaire was the father of the epigram, stipulated sum for each execution. The " The worst use to which you can put a sheriffs of other counties generally hire 'him man is to hang him," and it is a great and whenever an execution is ordered within debatable question whether civilization will their jurisdiction. much longer tolerate the putting to death of any criminals. We have limited the num In 1682 the hangman was named John or ber of crimes for which the penalty is exJack Ketch and, to the present time, the
