ON

XXIV.

THE MYSTERIOUS HANGMAN.

A MASKED EXECUTIONER IN DUNDEE.

N the afternoon of Saturday, 30th May, 1835, the extreme penalty of the law was executed upon the person of Mark Devlin, on the scaffold in front of the Town House, Dundee. There was nothing romantic about the crime for which this young Irishman suffered; and though his story was sad enough, as showing how a lad of good character may rapidly deteriorate through evil companionship, his offence was without what the French call "extenuating circumstances." Yet this execution was long remembered in Dundee because of the mystery surrounding the identity of the person who performed the office of executioner.

In Venice during medieval times the decrees of the dreaded Council of Ten were always executed by a masked official. The two Scottish Sovereigns who met their deaths at the hands of Englishmen-Mary, Queen of Scots, and her grandson, Charles I.—were decapitated by masked headsmen. in Scotland no such mystery was maintained.

But

In every burgh of any importance the hangman was a civic official. His fee was provided in a peculiar manner. He had the right to a "lok" or handful of meal out of every bag of meal brought to the weekly market for sale; and hence he was called the "lok-man," as being a less opprobrious name than that of hangman.

During the eighteenth century the office fell into so much disrepute, chiefly because of the execution of the Jacobites, that many of the burghs ceased to retain local hangmen, and employed the officials in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling for "odd jobs" in the execution line of business. Hence, there was no official hangman in Dundee at the time of Devlin's expiation, nor for 15 years before that date.

The unfortunate man, Mark Devlin, whose ignominious death is now to be related, was a native of Stewartstown,

County Tyrone, and had been bred as a hand-loom weaver. In 1829 he came to Scotland and found employment in Glasgow, working at his trade, and residing in the east end or Bridgeton portion of the Western Metropolis. It appears that Devlin's father was a well-principled man, who brought up his two sons in a respectable manner; but both Mark Devlin and his brother John (also a weaver) fell into dissolute ways, and before they left Glasgow they had wandered far from their early simplicity.

About midsummer, 1832, the two brothers came to Dundee, and found occupation as weavers. Here they joined even more reckless companions than they had met in Glasgow, and they both gave way to drink. Mark Devlin, despite his loose character, had won the affection of a Glasgow girl, whom he married, and they took up house in the Hilltown. John, the elder brother, became Mark's evil genius. He had not approved of the marriage, and he conceived a violent ill-will against his sister-in-law.

Dundee at this time (1830-35) was infested by a band of evil-doers who revelled in breaches of the law, in rioting, housebreaking, and highway robbery. The newspapers of the period are filled with accounts of the lawless deeds perpetrated by these marauders; and it seems to have been believed that a Secret Society existed in Dundee, with separate bands organised so as to operate simultaneously in the eastern and western parts of the burgh, thus defying detection.

There was then no proper police control. The old system of Watching and Warding still prevailed; and it was partly because of the offence for which Devlin suffered that the Town Council was forced to carry through a special Police Act. So far as one can learn, there were only 14 constables to look after the burgh, though these had power to call upon the burgesses to act as Special Constables when a riot was anticipated, or a rescue of prisoners was attempted. It was impossible, therefore, that the "Black Band of Dundee " could be broken up by so imperfect a police force.

Apparently Mark Devlin and his brother had found associates in this lawless association. On 20th February, 1835, Mark and two other men were apprehended as being concerned in a house-breaking offence in the west end, and were imprisoned for further examination. While Mark Devlin was thus

detained intelligence was brought to the police that on the evening of Sunday, 8th February, he had committed a criminal assault upon a girl of fourteen years, and he was then charged with the more serious crime, which in those days was punished by death.

His two fellow prisoners were discharged for lack of proof in the house-breaking, but Devlin was ultimately taken for trial to Perth Circuit Court of Justiciary on 4th May. The case was tried with closed doors. Devlin was found guilty, and was sentenced to be hanged at Dundee on 30th May. Strenuous efforts were made by local philanthropists, who desired to see capital punishment limited to cases of murder, to have Devlin's sentence commuted; but these efforts were fruitless.

At length the fatal Saturday which was to see the termination of Mark Devlin's brief career came round, and preparations were made for the final solemn scene. At that time public executions took place in front of the Town House. The casement was removed from the eastmost window of the Guild Hall; a beam projected from the upper part of the window space, and a platform was erected on the sill, supported from the ground on pillars of wood, so that the last scene might be enacted in the view of the people. The "patent drop" of a later time had not been then invented. The method of hanging was primitive. By the oldest method the culprit was made to mount a ladder, to have the noose fixed round his neck by the hangman, and then to have the ladder withdrawn, so that his body might swing by the rope, causing strangulation.

In 1835, however, the plan was to carry the noosed rope over a pulley to a windlass inside the room, and when the noose was adjusted a few turns of the handle raised the victim off his feet, and death ensued. A railing about three feet high, covered with black cloth, was carried round the scaffold, so that the condemned man's struggles might be veiled.

During the forenoon crowds of sightseers began to assemble in the High Street in front of the Town House, and long before two o'clock the whole space was packed by a vast assemblage that filled up not only the open square, but also the newly formed road now called Reform Street; and every close and wynd that permitted a glimpse of the spectacle was occupied