Not merry, the life of an executioner is often profitable. Robert Elliott executes for the state prisons of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey. He gets $150 per corpse. One day last week he earned $900. Early in the morning, while a crowd cheered, tooted auto horns and exploded flashlights, he executed three men at Charlestown, Mass., then took a train for Sing Sing. It was late when he arrived. The condemned men lay awake in their uncurtained cells in the harshly lighted, white-painted death-house. A Negro was singing a song. That afternoon the black man had tried to commit suicide with a rope made of four towels knotted together. They took the towels away from him, draped a fresh one over his shoulders. As they led him to the death chamber a voice said, “If I could get hold of that towel around your neck, buddy, I’d save the executioner a job on you.” Robert Elliott received the Negro, adjusted electrodes in the slit trouser leg, saw the straps buckled, turned on the current. The Negro twitched furiously for a moment, then sat quite still. Two more Negroes, condemned with the first for the murder of a watchman during a robbery, and betrayed by him to the police, followed. His day’s work done, Robert Elliott went to bed.
In Moscow, in solitary confinement at gloomy Buterka Prison, Ignace Ghabin, sentenced to death last year (but later commuted) because he had served Tsar Nicholas as imperial hangman, died. He had hanged 645 men, many of them “innocent political prisoners” of the 1905 revolution. At executions Mr. Ghabin always wore dress clothes, white gloves, black mask. His pay: $2,500 per annum; $50 bonus per corpse.
Leg
In a gasoline station in Trenton, N. J., one Edward Frommel, a man with a hickory leg, sat smoking. It was late at night. In a cigar box over Mr. Frommel’s head lay a wad of dirty bills, a week’s gas receipts. He was thinking of the money and hoping that his partner would come back soon, so that they could take it home to-gether. There are bandits in Trenton. . . . Suddenly, on the door of the gas station, boomed a loud knock. Mr. Frommel jumped up. As he opened the door he saw two Trenton bandits with guns, scowls, masks, caps and sweaters. Terrified, Edward Frommel fell back in a sitting posture. The thieves leaped at the door, shoved it fiercely back upon the hickory leg of Edward Frommel. The bandits cursed. Mr. Frommel screamed. Wedged between the door and the floor, the leg kept out the ruffians
Grimm Skunk
In Mount Prospect, 111., one Ernest Grimm, farmer, killed a skunk that nad long haunted the adjoining farm of his cousin, Edward Grimm. With clothespin on nose, Ernest Grimm skinned the skunk, hung the pelt in his barn. In the night Edward Grimm made off with the pelt. A skunk caught on his land, he remarked when he met his cousin next day, was his skunk. Words followed. In the lonely barnyard, Grimm fought Grimm. Ernest, with a slap of his hand, broke the nose, already inflamed, of Edward. Edward brought suit for $5,000 for assault and battery. “I’ve skinned one skunk,” he said, “and now I’ll skin another.” Last week a jury gave Edward $350.
Able Cain
In Albany, Ore., one Harry Cain was spelling his name over the telephone. “C,” he said, “for cabbage, A for, A for. . . .” “A for Abel,” roared his jocular landlady into the transmitter. “Cain is his name, Cain. You know the man who ‘killed his brother—this is the man.” Neither observed the new boarder who, listening furtively, thought the woman was reporting a murder, who slunk down the street, described Mr. Cain to a policeman. A few hours later Harry Cain, stewing, roaring, was lugged off to jail for “murder.”
Jimmy, Bobbie
In Clearfield, Pa., Mr. and Mrs Arthur Lewis, childless, were wakened by the cries of a baby. Under a window, deftly jimmied, lay a basket with a baby and a note in it.
“Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lewis: My name is Bobbie. I was born in Detroit, Mich., on Aug. 31, 1926. My parents are dead. Please keep me and love me.”
The couple kept the baby.
Knot Hole
At Goose Creek, Tex., one Ernest Hightower, 19, defying local convention, would not wait with other males outside the church to “date” his girl after services, but pressed his mouth to a knot hole and spat in at the small brother of his inamorata. He “would uv hollered” but did not think he would be heard as there was “consid’ble shouting going on inside the church.” The object of the expectoration was to attract the urchin’s attention and have him “date” the sister. But the urchin, startled by a sudden moist impact on his eye, whooped and ran out of church. Other worshipers, already excited, got more excited. The meeting broke up. Spitter Hightower was arrested, was put in jail.
Sherlockery
In Jersey City, N. J., a motor truck showing no lights plunged down a dim street, knocked over Mrs. Anna Meade, 60, rumbled off leaving her dead on the pavement. No bystander perceived the license number. But a splinter of glass was picked up. Police asked for reports on motor trucks with a crumpled right fender and cracked headlight. Dozens of such were found but the splinter of glass fitted no cracked headlight until the coal truck of one Harry E. Davis was examined. Here the splinter fitted exactly and on the mudguard was a cloth shred match-ing the late Mrs. Meade’s black coat. Driver Davis was held, admitted having felt an impact while driving drunk.
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