<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</SPAN><br/> <span class="smaller">The Executioner at Home.<br/> <span class="smcap">By H. Snowden Ward.</span></span></h2>
<div class="drop">
<ANTIMG src="images/dropj.png" width-obs="73" height-obs="76" alt="J" /></div>
<p class="afterdrop"><span class="fstwd"><span class="hidden">J</span>ames</span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Of this trait I have had many proofs. For instance,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</SPAN></span>
I know that on some occasions when he has been due
to start for a place of execution, his repugnance to the
task has been so great that his wife and her mother
have been obliged to use the greatest possible force of
persuasion to prevent him shirking his duty. Another
instance of this characteristic appeared when I was
overhauling his manuscript and cuttings for the purpose
of this book. I came across a copy of a poem “For one
under Sentence of Death,” and made some enquiry about
it. I found that the lines were some which Mr. Berry
had copied from a Dorchester newspaper, and that for
a long time it had been his habit to make a copy of
them, to send to the chaplain in every case where a
prisoner was sentenced to death, with a request that
they should be read to the prisoner. This was continued
until the governor of one of the gaols resented
the sending of such a poem to the chaplain, and
intimated that in all cases the chaplain was best able
to judge of what was necessary for the condemned man,
and did not need any outside interference. After this
Mr. Berry sent no more poems, but he kept one or two
copies by him, and I think that it may interest the reader.</p>
<h3>LINES FOR ONE UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH.</h3>
<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">My brother,—Sit and think,</div>
<div class="i2">While yet some hours on earth are left to thee;</div>
<div class="i0">Kneel to thy God, who does not from thee shrink,</div>
<div class="i2">And lay thy sins on Christ, who died for thee.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">He rests His wounded hand</div>
<div class="i2">With loving kindness, on thy sin-stained brow,</div>
<div class="i0">And says—“Here at thy side I ready stand,</div>
<div class="i2">To make thy scarlet sins as white as snow.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">“I did not shed My blood</div>
<div class="i2">For sinless angels, good and pure and true;</div>
<div class="i0">For hopeless sinners flowed that crimson flood,</div>
<div class="i2">My heart’s blood ran for you, my son, for you.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">“Though thou hast grieved me sore,</div>
<div class="i2">My arms of mercy still are open wide,</div>
<div class="i0">I still hold open Heaven’s shining door,</div>
<div class="i2">Come then—take refuge in My wounded side.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">“Men shun thee—but not I,</div>
<div class="i2">Come close to me—I love my erring sheep.</div>
<div class="i0">My blood can cleanse thy sins of blackest dye,</div>
<div class="i2">I understand, if thou canst only weep.”</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</SPAN></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Words fail thee—never mind,</div>
<div class="i2">Thy Saviour can read e’en a sigh, or tear;</div>
<div class="i0">I came, sin-stricken heart, to heal and bind,</div>
<div class="i2">And died to save thee—to My heart thou’rt dear.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Come now—the time is short,</div>
<div class="i2">Longing to pardon and to bless, I wait;</div>
<div class="i0">Look up to Me, My sheep so dearly bought,</div>
<div class="i2">And say, “forgive me, e’er it is too late.”</div>
</div>
<p class="right">E. B. C.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The soft-heartedness of Mr. Berry’s nature would
quite unfit him for his post if it were not that he possesses
a strong resolution, and can control his feelings
when he finds duty warring against inclination.</p>
<p>In personal appearance he is a kindly-looking man,
thickset and muscular, with a florid complexion and
sandy hair. He stands 5ft. 8½in. high, weighs 13 stones,
and does not look the sort of man to willingly injure
anyone. The appearance of his right cheek is somewhat
marred by a long, deep scar, extending downwards from
the corner of the eye, which has given rise to one or
two sensational stories from the pens of imaginative
newspaper men. The scar was caused by the kick of a
horse which he attempted to ride when he was a boy
about ten years old. The horse was young, unbroken
and vicious, and its kick narrowly missed being fatal.
Across his forehead is another great scar, the result of
a terrible blow received when arresting a desperate
character in a Bradford public-house. The man was
one of a gang of six, and his comrades helped him to
violently resist arrest, but Berry stuck to his captive
until he was safely locked in the Bradford Town Hall,
and the six men all had to “do time” for the assault.</p>
<p>Mr. Berry was born on February 8th, 1852, at
Heckmondwike, in Yorkshire. His father was a wool-stapler,
holding a good position in the district. Young
Berry’s education was obtained at the Wrea Green
School, near Lytham, where he gained several prizes
for his writing and drawing. His writing ability was
useful to him later in life, when he was employed by a
lithographer, to write “copper-plate” transfers. In
1874 he was married, and has had six children. Of
these, two boys and a girl died while young, and two
boys and a girl are living.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>The “executioner’s office,” as Mr. Berry likes to
call it on his official communications, is a house just off
City Road, Bradford. It is one of six owned by Mr.
Berry. When he first took the position of executioner
some of his neighbours were so prejudiced against the
work, that they refused to live “next door to a hangman,”
and as landlords naturally object to losing two or
three tenants for the sake of keeping one, Mr. Berry
was obliged to move once or twice, and came to the
conclusion that he had better be his own landlord.
The prejudice which then existed has been lived down,
and there is now no difficulty in letting neighbouring
houses to respectable tenants.</p>
<p>The house in Bilton Place is furnished just the
same as hundred of other houses in the district that are
occupied by better-class artisans, and there is nothing
at all gloomy or gruesome about the place. In fact,
there is no indication of the business of the occupant.
There are, in the front room, two frames of small photographs,
which are really portraits of some of the
murderers who have been executed by Mr. Berry, but
the frames bear no inscription. In a glass-fronted sideboard,
too, there are a few handsome electro goblets,
cruet stands and similar articles that have been given
to Mr. Berry by some of his admirers, but no one would
connect them with his business. In drawers and
cupboards about the place there are (or were, for they
have now gone to Madame Tussaud’s) a large number
of relics and mementos of executions and other incidents.
Amongst them is the great knife, once used by the
executioner of Canton for the beheading of nine pirates.
This was obtained in exchange for a rope with which
several persons had been hanged. These relics were
all stowed well away, and were not by any means “on
show,” though the executioner did not object to producing
them if a personal friend wished to see them.</p>
<p>In conversation Mr. Berry is fluent, apt in anecdote
and illustration, and full of a subtle Yorkshire humour
which he cannot entirely shake off even when talking
on serious subjects. He has a very good memory for
facts, and is very observant, so that he is always ready
with a personal experience or observation on almost any<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</SPAN></span>
topic. His tastes are simple. His favourite occupations
are fishing and otter hunting, of both of which sports
he is passionately fond. Frequently when going to an
execution in a country town he takes his rod and basket,
and gets a half-day’s fishing before or after the execution.
He seems to like the sport on account of its quiet and
contemplative nature, and says that he enjoys the fishing
even if he never gets a nibble.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</SPAN></span></p>
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