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William Ernest Henley
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
William Ernest Henley
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 12:46 pm |        | Hi, all:
In a previous post, I noted that prior to writing "Jeckyll and Hyde," Robert Louis Stevenson had collaborated with William Ernest Henley in writing the play "Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life" (published 1880).
News from the United States today is that executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh left behind a written last statement, in lieu of an oral one, a word for word copy of William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus," a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit, that ends with the lines: "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
Here is the whole poem:
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
More information on Henley (1849-1903) and his works is available at http://www.wcupa.edu/_academics/sch_cas.eng/fletcher/project.htm
Chris George |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 02:48 pm | | Hi Chris,
Indeed, McVeigh had mentioned several times his passion for this particular poem and had (mis)quoted it in the press on a few earlier occasions as well.
He apparently felt that the poem spoke to his feelings about the struggle against the US government and his fighting the good fight for freedom and his dying like a soldier. He particularly loved the "My head is bloody, but unbowed" line, which has apparently also become something of a slogan for the militia and self-professed vigilante justice groups of the extreme right, here in the US, especially after Waco and Ruby Ridge.
A local columnist here in St. Pete put together a column today reading the whole poem and relating it to the tragic events of Oklahoma and to the strange and twisted life and ideas of Timothy M.
William Ernest Henley and right wing paramilitary freaks. Odd where people find their inspiration.
Bye for now,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 02:51 pm | | Hi, John:
Thanks for your input. It is indeed interesting and alarming how people with twisted ideas can find their inspiration in otherwise noble sentiments.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 03:54 pm | | Hi, John:
As dastardly and evil as was McVeigh's crime of blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the worst act of terrorism in the United States to date, his attachment to the Henley poem and the fact that he left "Invictus" as a testament when he died appears to tell us that he viewed the act of demolishing the building, with its kindergarten full of youngsters and the adults who would also die, as a glorious act. One wonders, if one accepts the view that, as some think, Jack harbored had a hatred of prostitutes, he viewed his crimes in a similar light. If the Ripper had been caught and sentenced to be executed, would he, like McVeigh, have thought of his death as glorious?
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Diana
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 03:56 pm | | | I would love to know something about McVeigh's childhood. |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 04:40 pm | | Hi Chris,
Interesting question. Of course, McVeigh felt he was in a war. And he used the U.S. Defense Department's own frightening and obscene phrase for the inevitable civilian casualties in a war -- "collateral damage" -- to describe the unfortunate people who were in the Federal Building that day.
He was a soldier, and after seeing what (for him) was evidence that the US government had begun waging war on its own people (the deaths in Waco and at Ruby Ridge), he took up arms to defend his own liberty and freedom. Unfortunately, in any war, innocent people die. But good soldiers remain bloody but unbowed. McVeigh's use of the poem I think was prompted by his peculiar politics of absolute individual rights and the rhetoric of proudly dying for one's cause. I'm not sure Jack's actions were quite the same -- even if he was in fact a moral crusader -- unless of course he came with a particular religious fervor attached, and then he too might have found inspiration in the poem and thought he was dying for having done God's work.
Diana,
Tim McVeigh actually had a surprisingly normal childhood and a fairly stable and even happy adolescence, a "good Catholic middle-class upbringing" (whatever that means) as I understand it. He did, from an early age, show an avid interest in his grandfather’s guns, though. After high school, he joined the military and he went to the Gulf War.
Something happened there, apparently, and he started to become disillusioned with his old sense of duty and patriotism. He felt, he said, like his country was acting in the manner of a "schoolyard bully" in Iraq and disapproved of how he saw the local people being treated.
When he got home, he started drifting around the country and becoming more and more involved with survivalist groups and the extreme right wing organizations that preach that the US government is actually trying to take away all of our rights and freedoms and that it has now become the enemy. Of course, psychologically this is all more complex. These groups must have made him feel like he had sympathetic friends and a shared community -- they offered an extended family and gave him emotional support and at the same time confirmed his own suspicions about the dangerous tactics of the US government.
Then, he was deeply moved by the events at Waco and at Ruby Ridge and became convinced, after reading a couple of well-known books about the battle against the Federal government and (linked often to that battle) the need for the protection of white rights, that it was time for some action. What he did in Oklahoma, then, was a military action, in the name of freedom. His bombing day was even carefully chosen. He committed his act on the anniversary of the storming at Waco.
Unfortunately, Tim was not an isolated psycho or the member of a small group of nutcases. Tim was a part of a large-scale, well-organized, fully financed group of paramilitary organizations that now exist in almost every state in the US and that have established an impressive and readily accessible presence right here on the internet, where they routinely and effectively offer their own ideology of separatism and Aryanism and the means and the instructions for creating all sorts of havoc. And their numbers are steadily increasing according to recent FBI reports.
Just a pleasant thought on this pleasant day,
--John |
Author: Rachel Henderson
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 05:33 pm | | Just to add a little.
I have just watched a programme on McVeigh on BBC1 (UK) which was interesting (to me) for the comparison between US and UK victim involvement in trial, sentence and ecxecution of justice. Apparently McVeigh had some kind of nervous breakdown after his return from the Gulf and was rejected for the Green Berets on psychological grounds. His sister's best friend said that he was ill at that point and should never have tried to enter special forces training.
His use of "collateral damage" was discussed, as was his refusal to apologise. Both were connected to his time as a soldier, as in he felt that he had done nothing wrong, and that collateral damage is an OK phrase to use if a government is bombing Iraq or Serbia, so why not the US.
I was left feeling that he was not an intrinsically evil man (but having no religion I have to say I don't believe in a primal evil) but an exceptionally misguided one, with no moral sense but what he picked up from the army and was subsequently perverted by the militia.
I only hope his death has not given these groups a new martyr whose death should be commemorated in more bloodshed.
Rachel |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 09:23 pm | | All day, I have been thinking of whether a case
can be made to preserve the lives of people like
McVeigh or Jack? Both are multiple murderers,
though McVeigh brought down a building and killed
scores, while Jack killed four or five or six
or seven or as many as ten prostitutes over a
period of at least four months, at most three
years. No doubt people who hate capital punishment will blanketly say neither deserved
to die, as man should not shed the blood of man.
This, unfortunately, does seem to ignore the
fact that the murderers gleefully shed the blood
themselves. In fact, it is one of the aggrevating
things about the anti-death penalty supporters
that they frequently gloss over the sufferings
and death of the victims and their families and
friends, or give a mealy-mouthed statement that
they "feel" for those who suffered. It is impossible to empathize like that, unless you
have suffered a similar loss. The result, to me,
is that the anti-death penalty supporters end
up echoing the mean-spirited comment of another
multiple murderer, George Joseph Smith: "When
they're dead, they're dead!"
But can a case be intelligently made for keeping
these creatures alive? The grandmother of two
infants that McVeigh slaughtered said she did not
feel his execution brought her closure...she would
always feel the pain of the emptiness of loss in
those two little lives. Another survivor felt that if McVeigh had been let to live he might have
eventually told who was involved with him.
That is doubtful. First McVeigh saw himself as
a soldier in a war to destroy a society he feared
and hated. Soldiers don't rat on their allies and
pals. Second, it is nearly impossible to find
cases where criminals in prison actually made
admissions. Only one came out in recent years,
when David Berkowitz (now a born-again Christian)
made some remarks that he had help in his summer
of terror in New York City in 1977. It may be
true, but it may also be an attempt by a desperate
man to try to throw off some of the shame that
is now his reputation on others, for most of those
named were conveniently dead. The majority of
criminals in prison never admit anything, because
they may have forlorn hopes of some future pardon
or parole. Why ruin it by a confession?
What about the possibility of psychological
progress by studying the living monsters? Imagine
Jack being psychoanalyzed or McVeigh being studied
to understand the paranoid paramilitary fanatic.
Well, the problem there is that the researches
haven't exactly resulted in much that is useful.
Most criminals in prison figure out, very quickly,
what psychobabel will please the therapist or
psychologist who questions them. The better therapists and psychologists know when their
chains are being pulled, but many don't. The
best example of how this "profits us" is seen
in the day or so before Ted Bundy got executed
in 1989, when (confronted with the imminent
nature of his death)his nerve cracked. He promised all law enforcement agencies to cooperate with them in helping to solve long
unsolved killings he was involved in. His desperate hope was that enough law enforcement
agencies across country would demand his death
sentence be put on hold, or reduced to life
imprisonment. It did not work, and in a final
panic, he tried to explain his behavior was due
to the violence and sexism in American culture,
especially in pornography. It may be true, but
it is also possible that he simply was an evil
man, and could not bring himself to say so.
In than he is like McVeigh, the soldier, or (in
an earlier period) Jean - Baptiste Troppman, who
was an Alsachian "patriot"and would nor reveal who
was behind the murder of Jean Kinck and his family
because of worthy motives. It is impossible to
find a killer who sees his or her actions as
wrong...if they could see this, their consciences
would prevent them from performing the actions.
Bundy nearly collapsed, but would not accept full
blame. Berkowitz feels religion now protects him.
Manson, when he is asked and decides to talk,
insists he is happy in his life, and the real
prison is on the outside.
Jack would have probably been the same. He was
superior to the women of the streets, the refuse
of urban life in his day. His treatment of Mary
Kelly demonstrates this - it is not the act of
simple hatred for one person, but demolishing
a human being into an unrecognizeable lump of
flesh. Similar to reducing a government office
structure into rubble with a truck of explosive
nitrate fertilizer. Had he been caught, he would
have been quiet, coldly polite, and unrepentant.
While it is doubtful if he would have been sentenced to Broadmoor (Neill Cream, four years
later, was very similar, and he ended up at the
end of a rope), had he been sentenced to an
asylum or prison for the rest of his life Jack
would have smiled to himself in his cell at his
last "victory" over his society and its guardians,
now forced to keep him alive for the term of his
regular natural life.
Jeff |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 09:48 pm | | Hi Jeff,
One small thought I would offer is cribbed from Santayana. He reminded us that as a culture, in our understandable desire for justice and revenge, we must be very careful not allow our hatred to make us become too much like the very thing we hate.
But it is a difficult problem indeed.
I, for one, would like to see neuroscientists and those who study the chemistry of the brain be given access to certain sorts of horrific or psychopathic killers (in exchange, say, for keeping them alive), to see what might be learned, using the latest imaging and scanning technologies and diagnostic equipment, about any physical constructions and manifestations which might contribute to the sociopathic personality.
But the ethical questions here as well are deep and profound.
It is a day for thought, though.
Thanks,
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 06:12 am | | Dear John,
A post-Gothic tinkering with the human eternal- verities? I believe the Moscow Institute for Forensic Medicine...and the Central Intelligence Agency had a bash during the 60/70's. Unsurprisingly...the enemy was just like us!
Rosey:-) |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 07:28 am | | Hi All,
McVeigh apparently couldn't cope with the fact that governments can rise above 'thou shalt not kill' when it suits (such as in the Gulf or at Waco), and cause innocent individuals to die at the hands of their fellow man, whether it be in the name of war, justice or revenge. He showed the world all too graphically how two wrongs can never make a right, by murdering a group of innocents, and trying to suggest that his killings were no worse, no more indiscriminate, than those the government sanctions all the time. His attempt to make such a point resulted, finally, in yet another government-endorsed killing – this time himself. And so it goes on - the subjective assessment by an individual, or a large group of individuals, of what constitutes the justified killing of another human being.
The grandmother who will never get over that terrible day, and who got precious little comfort from McVeigh's execution, is now working on trying to forgive him, because she believes this is the only way she will get to see her little grandsons again in the next life. She hopes God will be patient with her because she admits it's going to be a long hard road ahead. I wish her well. But I'm not sure I could ever forgive anyone who took the life of someone close to me, and felt not a speck of remorse, because he considered other people's lives worth sacrificing to make the world sit up and take notice of his own 'ideals'. I’m also not sure how I would feel if the killer of my loved one was being considered for the death penalty, and I had to ask myself whether I wanted him to die or not to die. Being the miserable coward that I am, my gut reaction is one of relief - gratitude even - that I wouldn't even have to think about it here in the UK – our own Big Brother took that particular burden from my shoulders when I was a child, the same age as one of the Moors murderers' little victims.
I wonder how those who support capital punishment, and also believe in God, feel about the responsibility for killing the guilty in society. Do those who make, uphold and carry out such laws need to be forgiven at some point, in the same way that poor grandmother feels she must try to forgive the killer of the innocents?
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 07:45 am | | Dear Rosey,
Yes, I know the history and the implications. But neuroscience and the relating technology have come a long way in thirty years and besides, I'm not suggesting looking for the "enemy," politically or morally; I'm suggesting a renewed interest in the electronic and chemical movements and make-up of the brain that might contribute to sociopathic behavior. I know already that my own behavior changes when I take certain little pills -- and it does so because of what happens in my brain -- the amount of serotonin that is produced and where it goes and the patterns in which my neurons fire are being altered by the chemical. The result, as you may know, is a "different" me. When I took the drug, I no longer felt compelled, for instance, to repeatedly straighten the fringes on the area rugs in my old apartment, or to wash my car over and over again. Of course, this behavior originally had a non-chemical component as well. But the chemical imbalance was detectable. I'd still be interested to learn, using the diagnostic tools we now have, if there are significant differences in certain neurochemicals and patterns in someone who develops the strong compulsion to kill or begins to hear the voices that must be served.
This would be a bit different and much more serious science than the tragic experiments with certain drugs and misunderstood therapy techniques employed by the CIA and its Soviet counterpart during the Cold War.
At least I think so.
Of course, there are still very serious problems with this approach, Rosey. I, for instance, stopped taking my own little blue pills years ago, because in addition to making me not to want to repeat my compulsive behaviors, they also made me not want to do much of anything, and, even worse, made me not feel much of anything. This was unacceptable for me.
So yes, somewhere Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess (and even Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mary Shelley) are still laughing.
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 07:58 am | | Hi Caz,
Yes, the problems are extraordinarily difficult and complicated. And the history of our species is a history of extraordinary violence and returned violence of course. I mentioned to someone yesterday in an e-mail that I think we have still only barely begun to understand what we are and the limits and ingredients of our "humanity." I have been writing about the Holocaust, in epistemological terms -- how it can be "thought" -- elsewhere and for other reasons, and my better half has this week been teaching the effects of the First World War and the horrors of the trenches and the gas and the panic and the unthinkable death at an unthinkable scale upon those who returned to tell us the stories and to chronicle their own fragmentation and nightmares. And this is all just the last ninety years or so.
And concerning your thoughts about the State ending lives as punishment: Of course, here in the US, the issue is even more complicated since all the numbers clearly tell us that certain classes and colors of people are far more likely to receive the sentence than others, and that having a whole bunch of money makes a whole bunch of difference. And recent use of DNA science has turned up at least a couple of people in the last few years who were sitting on death row but who could not possibly have done the crime.
Unsettling stuff. And it's too early in the morning for all of this. Besides, I have to go meet a young poet and try and tell her something I'm not sure I can tell her -- how to be a better young poet.
Have a fine day,
--John |
Author: Tom Wescott
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 02:34 pm | | Hello all,
I live in Oklahoma, and I remember the day of the bombing very well. I went to the site. A whole neighborhood without windows. I remember the news saying 'no casualties', then '3 casualties', and for the next couple of days the total kept climbing. It just about made me sick. Timothy McVeigh shared a cell block with Ted Kaszinski (sp?) and even the Unabomber thought what Timothy did was sick. He ignored him for months and released a letter stating his feeling that Timothy's method of self-expression was grossly inhumane. Now, when the Unabomber is calling you twisted, you know you've got problems.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:28 pm | | Dear Tom,
Strange but true. Your Presidents honor our bombers (UK)!!!!
Perplexed,
Rosey :-) |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:55 pm | | Yeah. Many of us here in the UK have cause to remember - and fear in the future - days and days and days of indiscriminate bombings, Tom. We can certainly empathise with the memory of your own experience.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 09:47 pm | | Dear Caroline,
Years ago I read Beyond Belief, Emlyn Williams'
chronicle of the Moor Murders of Hindley and
Bradley. He had described how the children had
been tortured to death, and how the two pigs who
killed them had taped their cries of pain and
terror, which all in the court could hear. Williams mentioned that they could not be executed
due to the ending of capital punishment in England. Then he adds that God or fate operates
in mysterious ways. Someone close to one of the
two creeps (I think the stepfather of Bradley)
suddenly died of a heart attack. Of course,
Williams never demonstrated if this death had
any effect on the killer...he might not have cared.
Jeff |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 03:23 am | | Hi Jeff,
What creates a monster? If one believes in God, I guess they would say God. As I am not religious, I tend to think the parents of the monster need looking at, as well as the brain of the monster, and then all the others around the monster during his/her formative years, then after that, the society in which the monster has grown.
A highly complex business, deciding how many should bear some responsibility for one person's actions in life. Perhaps the whole world should be examined?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 09:02 pm | | Dear Caroline,
I imagine that every monster who ever lived was
the product of his or her environment from birth.
But at some point the failure of society and
parents drops off. Could a strict upbringing
by parents, members of the sect called "The
Peculiar People", really excuse the activities
of a John George Haigh in murdering six people
and dissolving their bodies in acid, solely for
profit. Can a Victorian upbringing - however
hard - entitle any creature with that glut in
Miller's Court? At some point individual responsibility has to take over.
Perhaps the whole world should be examined, but
I still suspect crime would continue even with
the headiest dose of tender loving care given to
everyone. Sooner or later somebody would be
disappointed or resentful.
Jeff |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 05:27 am | | Hi Jeff,
I wasn't talking 'excusing' or 'entitling'. Of course, any adult criminal has to take full responsibility, punishment-wise, after the fact, according to the known laws of the land in which he/she is privileged (?) to live, unless judged mentally incapable.
I agree that sooner or later somebody would break through even the most tender loving care given them, and we would still have the trash to take out. But it is our trash - or the world's trash, if you prefer - not someone else's trash. We can all content ourselves with the old cliche about the millions of badly treated human beings who have never put a foot wrong, but that's easy to say, and only emphasises how very different and rare are those who really do become monsters, and that we should at least try to learn how we can recognise those differences before it's too late, and the next monster emerges fully-formed, highly dangerous and possibly unstoppable.
The fact is that most serial killers in any society do emerge from seriously dysfunctional/abusive/unhappy formative years, so there has got to be a rich seam there just waiting to be learned from and somehow tackled.
If we could find the world's best society for bringing up their children in a determined stable, loving and disciplined environment, I wouldn't mind betting the crime statistics would blow your mind (by their absence). The Balinese might be worth looking at in that respect.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 06:40 am | | Jeff - I think some of your books are giving you slightly misleading views about murder 'classics'. (Emlyn Williams, for example, is far too close to the hysterical outrage we all felt at the time to give a balanced view of the moors murders). I'm particularly concerned with your repetition of the defence's opportunistic bad-mouthing Haigh's parents. Though Plymouth Brethren, they were not of the extreme 'Separated Brethren' variety, and, indeed, were, by all Brethren's standards, somewhat alarmingly liberal in the permission they gave John George to mingle with non-Brethren - (singing in Wakefield Cathedral choir, for goodness sake!) - and indulge his passion and gift for music. They continued to support him with their love, and refused the pressure of their co-religionists to declare him outcast, not only when he first proved a habitual criminal, but even at the end when he proved a quite frightful murderer. I fully agree with the trial judge who saaid at one point that he refused to listen to any more abuse of the Plymouth Brethren as though that explained Haigh's behaviour. I address this point in a book I have coming out in August called 'To Kill and Kill Again' in Britain and 'A History of British Serial Killing' in America.
All good wishes,
Martin |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:58 am | | Hi, Martin:
I don't know why publishers feel a need to retitle books for their publication in another country. I find it a pity that your evocative title To Kill and Kill Again, as the work will be called in Britain, must set aside for the book to be given the humdrum, dry designation A History of British Serial Killing for its appearance in the United States. Shame!
With best wishes
Chris George |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 04:31 pm | | Dear Martin,
Watch Mike Mansfield QC in the ongoing Jill Dando
murder trial...the defence rises, tomorrow.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 09:55 am | | Hi Chris,
'To Kill and Kill Again' is the title Brook Lapping TV finally settled on for their series, scheduled for August. (See Stewart Evans introducing the Ripper). 'History of Brit Serial Killers' was the working title my publishers gave me for the tie-in book - I found it very useful because with teh addition of short links giving sketchy outkines of cases not used in the series, it provided a rational structure.
Hi Rosey,
Yup. Mansfield's opening suggested my radio presenter Clive Bull's remark when I went in to pre-record Murder After Midnight scripts last month. He commented that the sort of case the prosecution was putting forward could probably have been made as easily against some of the wilder callers to LBC! (By the way, if your computer has audio facilities and RealPlayer, you can listen to Murder After Midnight on http://www.lbc.co.uk at about eight minutes after midnight British Summer Time, or 7.08 pm EST).
Martin Fido |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 01:57 pm | | Dear Martin,
Makes you think...(reminder Rosey: Be careful what you write on the Internet...they already suspect you of ANYTHING!)...Goddamned weirdo.
Rosey :-0 |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 11:06 pm | | Dear Martin,
Actually, the defense in the Haigh case that
always got to me was the business about drinking
blood and urine, and weird dreams that Haigh
described about blood-stained crucifixes, etc.
All of this was to build up a case for insanity.
It is all rubbish, of course, and Lord Shawcross's
comment, "Not mad, but bad" is a perfect summation.
Although I do not have many books about Haigh,
I have the volume of the Notable British Trials
Series (also the one on Neville Heath - still
looking for Christie), and have Lustgarten's
essays on all three men in his THE BUSINESS OF
MURDER. There are also some brief biographies
in Colin Wilson and Pat Pitman's book, and in
one of the two volumes of COMPANIONS TO MURDER.
I am aware that there is at least one or two
full length accounts on Haigh, like Kennedy's
treatment of Christie in TEN RILLINGTON PLACE.
One was by Dr. Keith Simpson's secretary and
assistant, and was actually a look at both
Haigh and Christie.* There is (now that I recall)
a long chapter on Haigh in the biography of
Travers Humphrey by Montgomery Hyde.
*MURDER WITH A DIFFERENCE, I believe was the title.
I look forward to seeing your new book in print here. Good luck with it.
Jeff |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 16 June 2001 - 08:40 am | | If you can get it, Jeff, the best book on Haigh by a vdry long distance is david Briffett's self-published 'The Acid Bath Murders' (David Briffett, 20 Glendale Close, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 4GR. Tel 01403-260876). He's a local journalist who's done terrific follow-up work. Like you he takes the blood-drinking to be a real possibility. I'm much more cynical and think Haigh made the whole lot up - dreams, cups, extra non-financially-motivated victims and all. According to Colin Wilson, blood is an emetic. I don't know whether this is true.
Rosey - Sorry I slightly misled about Murder Afte Midnight time. Clive seems to have it runing at 12.30am more or less precisely now.
All the best
Martin |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Saturday, 16 June 2001 - 11:10 pm | | Actually I was fascinated that the defence was
used, but I did not swallow it (excuse the pun).
Thank you for he name and address of the recent
study by Mr. Briffett.
Although I am sure you oppose any really cruel
punishment, even for such a specimen like Haigh,
it occurred to me that after the sentence of death
was passed, the authorities could have offered
Haigh a last chance out: if his diet would be
altered permanently to what he said he ate. It
would have been amusing to see Haigh swilling
a glass of urine or blood. Besides being nauseating (and cruel) it would have been unbalanced: too much protein in a blood diet.
Jeff |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 04:55 am | | Haigh himself slightly stunned the prison guards by cheerfully remarking that when he plunged from the scaffold for the noose to break his neck, he would say to God, "Pardon me for dropping in like this."
Martin |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 10:47 am | | | Martin,Many such stories abound.Diana Dors stated that when she went to have a drink in a certain hangmans pub (Was it Mr P)she saw a notice on the bar which read, No hanging about at the bar.The hangman in question denied such a notice existed. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 11:04 am | | McVeigh only made one mistake he killed the wrong people. He should have taken out those who killed the woman and children at Waco, and those that shot the woman holding her baby and one of her young sons. Instead he acted in the same manner as those whom he was condemming.
The innocent always seem to get it in the neck. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 02:44 pm | | Final bit on Haigh's sense of humor - on a television show on the history channel (from a
ten year old BBC series) there was a statement
that on the way to the courthouse in the prison
van, traffic got tied up by some dray horse.
Looking at the resulting tie-up, Haigh told the
guards, "Gee, I know a quick way to make that
horse disappear!" I don't think the guards were
amused.
Gallows humor is an old story, and manages to
ease the tensions (sometimes) when dealing with
a case. Even William Roughead quotes some
occasionally (though he disapproves of it). He
attended the trial, in 1893, of A. J. Monson, for
the probable murder of Cecil Hambrough at the
Ardlamont estate in Scotland. Monson (who received the benefit of one of Scotland's "not
proven" verdicts)got up at a break in the trial,
to stretch. Presumably his chair was not very
comfortable. He turned to some reporters who were sitting near him. Monson asked, Why am I like a railway engine?" After a moment, Monson
smiled and answered, "Because I have a tender
b-h-nd!"
Jeff |
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