Once a Jolly Hangman Read Online Free PDF Page B

execution rate proportionate to its population in the world - higher than Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. The fear of the gallows and the malevolent spectre of its mysterious, enigmatic hangman - so death penalty advocates maintain - has kept Singapore a relatively crime free and safe place to live, raise families and, just as importantly, do business.
    An incomparable aficionado of the British way of hanging is Darshan Singh who joined the colonial service as a prison officer in 1957. Using the so-called Table of Drops devised by the nineteenth century cobbler-turned-hangman, William Marwood, Darshan Singh was taught by B. Seymour, the last British colonial hangman. The Table of Drops, advocates of the death penalty assured everyone, was the most 'humane' method in preventing slow strangulation or decapitation if the calculations - body weight and height determined the length of the drop - were correct.
    The purpose of my hoped-for meeting with this gentleman was not only to talk about his long, secret career but in particular the imminent execution of Nguyen. It was an execution that was promising to create a storm of protests across Australia and many parts of the world. I was new to Singapore in 2003 and all this made me more and more curious about the man who was to hang Nguyen even though at that time the trial process had not been completed. It seemed a foregone conclusion, however. Nguyen had been caught with 4.2 kilograms of heroin - way above the 15 grams minimum that mandates the death penalty in Singapore. His days were obviously numbered.
    My interest in the death penalty and all that it means was probably inspired by the fact that I grew up just a few miles from a notorious British execution spot - Gallows Corner in Essex - where, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, public hangings were a regular form of weekend entertainment just before the pubs opened. Of course, this was long before radio, movies, television and premier league football. There was a need to relax from back-breaking and boring jobs in the soul-destroying factories of industrial England. There was little else to do. This was fun to many Britons - a regular boozy weekend carnival of the most appalling kind. These condemned prisoners were not always vicious criminals or notorious masked and armed highwaymen such as Dick Turpin who also ended up on the gallows. Some were mere horse thieves, burglars or pick pockets, like 'Jenny Diver' of Mack the Knife notoriety who took advantage of spectators at these gory spectacles and robbed them as the condemned swung from the gallows.
    Of course, the death penalty in Britain and more than two-thirds of the countries in the world has now been abolished in law or in practice.
    Some countries retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes such as murder but can be considered abolitionist in practice in that they have not executed anyone during the past ten years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions. The list also includes countries which have made an international commitment not to use the death penalty. Amnesty International figures show that during the past decade, an average of over three countries a year have abolished the death penalty in law or, having done so for ordinary offences, have gone on to abolish it for all offences.
    The original idea of having public executions in Britain was to frighten people to death to ensure they obeyed the law, to always be good, hardworking, upright God-fearing citizens. It didn't seem to work, however. People still murdered, robbed, raped, burgled, stole sheep and horses, chopped down trees and picked pockets - all crimes which attracted the death penalty equally in those days. Much to the chagrin of many fans of the sport' public executions were banned in 1889 not only because they were suddenly deemed unseemly' or uncivilised' but also because the British establishment decided that putting people to death ought