Sketches New and Old

by Mark Twain

  LIONIZING MURDERERS

  I had heard so much about the celebrated fortune-teller Madame-----, thatI went to see her yesterday. She has a dark complexion naturally, andthis effect is heightened by artificial aids which cost her nothing.She wears curls--very black ones, and I had an impression that she gavetheir native attractiveness a lift with rancid butter. She wears areddish check handkerchief, cast loosely around her neck, and it wasplain that her other one is slow getting back from the wash. I presumeshe takes snuff. At any rate, something resembling it had lodged amongthe hairs sprouting from her upper lip. I know she likes garlic--I knewthat as soon as she sighed. She looked at me searchingly for nearly aminute, with her black eyes, and then said:

  "It is enough. Come!"

  She started down a very dark and dismal corridor--I stepping close afterher. Presently she stopped, and said that, as the way was so crooked anddark, perhaps she had better get a light. But it seemed ungallant toallow a woman to put herself to so much trouble for me, and so I said:

  "It is not worth while, madam. If you will heave another sigh, I think Ican follow it."

  So we got along all right. Arrived at her official and mysterious den,she asked me to tell her the date of my birth, the exact hour of thatoccurrence, and the color of my grandmother's hair. I answered asaccurately as I could. Then she said:

  "Young man, summon your fortitude--do not tremble. I am about to revealthe past."

  "Information concerning the future would be, in a general way, more--"

  "Silence! You have had much trouble, some joy, some good fortune, somebad. Your great grandfather was hanged."

  "That is a l--"

  "Silence! Hanged sir. But it was not his fault. He could not help it."

  "I am glad you do him justice."

  "Ah--grieve, rather, that the jury did. He was hanged. His star crossesyours in the fourth division, fifth sphere. Consequently you will behanged also."

  "In view of this cheerful--"

  "I must have silence. Yours was not, in the beginning, a criminalnature, but circumstances changed it. At the age of nine you stolesugar. At the age of fifteen you stole money. At twenty you stolehorses. At twenty-five you committed arson. At thirty, hardened incrime, you became an editor. You are now a public lecturer. Worsethings are in store for you. You will be sent to Congress. Next, to thepenitentiary. Finally, happiness will come again--all will be well--youwill be hanged."

  I was now in tears. It seemed hard enough to go to Congress; but to behanged--this was too sad, too dreadful. The woman seemed surprised at mygrief. I told her the thoughts that were in my mind. Then she comfortedme.

  "Why, man," she said, "hold up your head--you have nothing to grieveabout. Listen.

  --[In this paragraph the fortune-teller details the exact history of thePike-Brown assassination case in New Hampshire, from the succoring andsaving of the stranger Pike by the Browns, to the subsequent hanging andcoffining of that treacherous miscreant. She adds nothing, inventsnothing, exaggerates nothing (see any New England paper for November,1869). This Pike-Brown case is selected merely as a type, to illustratea custom that prevails, not in New Hampshire alone, but in every state inthe Union--I mean the sentimental custom of visiting, petting,glorifying, and snuffling over murderers like this Pike, from the daythey enter the jail under sentence of death until they swing from thegallows. The following extract from the Temple Bar (1866) reveals thefact that this custom is not confined to the United States.--- "On December31, 1841, a man named John Johnes, a shoemaker, murdered his sweetheart,Mary Hallam, the daughter of a respectable laborer, at Mansfield, in thecounty of Nottingham. He was executed on March 23, 1842. He was a manof unsteady habits, and gave way to violent fits of passion. The girldeclined his addresses, and he said if he did not have her no one elseshould. After he had inflicted the first wound, which was notimmediately fatal, she begged for her life, but seeing him resolved,asked for time to pray. He said that he would pray for both, andcompleted the crime. The wounds were inflicted by a shoemaker's knife,and her throat was cut barbarously. After this he dropped on his kneessome time, and prayed God to have mercy on two unfortunate lovers.He made no attempt to escape, and confessed the crime. After hisimprisonment he behaved in a most decorous manner; he won upon the goodopinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop ofLincoln. It does not appear that he expressed any contrition for thecrime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty that he wasgoing to rejoin his victim in heaven. He was visited by some pious andbenevolent ladies of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child ofGod, if ever there was one. One of the ladies sent him a white camelliato wear at his execution."]

  "You will live in New Hampshire. In your sharp need and distress theBrown family will succor you--such of them as Pike the assassin leftalive. They will be benefactors to you. When you shall have grown fatupon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to makesome modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house somenight and brain the whole family with an ax. You will rob the deadbodies of your benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous livingamong the rowdies and courtesans of Boston. Then you will be arrested,tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happyday. You will be converted--you will be converted just as soon asevery effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed--andthen!--Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purestyoung ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns.This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write atouching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. Thiswill excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity.Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the headof an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizensgenerally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearingbouquets and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while thegreat concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read yoursappy little speech which the minister has written for you. And then, inthe midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you intoper--Paradise, my son. There will not be a dry eye on the ground. Youwill be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you. Not a rough therebut will resolve to emulate you. And next, a great procession willfollow you to the tomb--will weep over your remains--the young ladieswill sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations connected withthe jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and appreciationof your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around yourbier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo! you are canonized.Think of it, son-ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawleramong thieves and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the petof the pure and innocent daughters of the land the next! A bloody andhateful devil--a bewept, bewailed, and sainted martyr--all in a month!Fool!--so noble a fortune, and yet you sit here grieving!"

  "No, madam," I said, "you do me wrong, you do, indeed. I am perfectlysatisfied. I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged,but it is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about itby this time--and I have not commenced yet. I confess, madam, that I dosomething in the way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes youmention have escaped my memory. Yet I must have committed them--youwould not deceive a stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let thefuture be as it may--these are nothing. I have only cared for one thing.I have always felt that I should be hanged some day, and somehow thethought has annoyed me considerably; but if you can only assure me that Ishall be hanged in New Hampshire--"

  "Not a shadow of a doubt!"

  "Bless you, my benefactress!--excuse this embrace--you have removed agreat load from my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness--it leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once intothe best New Hampshire society in the other world."

  I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But,
seriously, is it well toglorify a murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in NewHampshire? Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into areward? Is it just to do it? Is it safe?