Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 12 (April 1, 1930)

The Last Ride

The Last Ride.

They had some curious ways, those old-timers whose memories we revere in N.Z. For example, the public exhibition they made of poor devils about to be hanged. The p.d.'s deserved all they got, no doubt, but the Authorities rubbed it in hard. A venerable lady up north, still living, told me of a spectacle she witnessed in Auckland in her childhood. She saw a manacled criminal taken through the town in a cart from the gaol in Queen Street to the jetty in Official Bay, where he was put on board a boat with an armed crew. He was sitting on his coffin in the cart, and when he was transhipped to the boat the coffin was put on board alongside him. He was a man condemned to die for the murder of a family at the North Shore. They took him to the scene of the murder—he had burned down the house to hide his crime—and they hanged him there. The great idea was, no doubt, to strike terror into the hearts of the evil-disposed, and make them think twice about picking and stealing and so on. But what a catch nowadays it would be for the “movies”!

* * *