My Experiences as an Executioner

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James Berry. My Experiences as an Executioner

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. The Executioner at Home.By H. Snowden Ward

CHAPTER II. How I became an Executioner

CHAPTER III. My First Execution.1

CHAPTER IV. My Method of Execution. CALCULATIONS AND APPARATUS

CHAPTER V. My Method of Execution. THE PROCEEDINGS

CHAPTER VI. Other Methods of Execution

CHAPTER VII. Two Terrible Experiences

CHAPTER VIII. How Murderers Die

CHAPTER IX. From the Murderer’s point of view

CHAPTER X. On Capital Punishment

CHAPTER XI. Hanging: From a Business Point of View

CHAPTER XII. The Press and the Public

CHAPTER XIII. Incidents and Anecdotes

Appendix. The Trouble with “Answers” Limited

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James Berry, though regarded by some people as a monster, and by others as a curiosity, is very much like any other working-man when one comes to know him. He is neither a paragon of perfection, nor an embodiment of all vice – though different classes of people have at times placed him under both these descriptions. His character is a curious study – a mixture of very strong and very weak traits, such as is seldom found in one person. And although one of his weak points is his Yorkshire open-hearted frankness, which he tries to control as much as possible, the man who has only been with him a few days has not by any means got to the depths of his character. His wife has said to me more than once: – “I have lived with him for nineteen years, but I don’t thoroughly know him yet,” and one can quite understand it, as his character is so many-sided and in some respects contradictory. This partly accounts for the varying and contradictory views of his personality which have been published in different papers.

His strongest point is his tender-heartedness. Perhaps this may be doubted, but I state the fact from ample knowledge. Mr. Berry’s occupation was not by any means taken up from a love of the ghastly, or any pleasure in the work. Even in his business as executioner his soft-heartedness has shown itself, for though it has never caused him to flinch on the scaffold, it has led him to study most carefully the science of his subject, and to take great pains to make death painless.

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At home Mr. Berry devotes himself largely to mechanical pursuits. At the present time he is working a patent which he bought recently, and has the topmost room of his house fitted as a mechanic’s workshop, with lathe, bench, etc. In spare time he devotes a good deal of attention to his pigeons and rabbits, for he is an ardent fancier, and keeps a large number of live pets.

In allowing, in the case of convict Conway, who weighed 11 stones 2 lbs., 1 stone for the head, I may be allowing too much; it is a mere guess. If his head weighed 9 lbs., the drop ought to have been 4 ft. 10 in.

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