A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 15 August 1868—The first private execution under the new law took place at Maidstone on Thursday, the culprit being Thomas Wells, a railway porter of eighteen, who deliberately murdered a station-master in revenge for a reprimand. The execution was conducted within the prison, in presence of the officials, six- teen representatives of the press, and the governor of the gaol. A black flag was raised on the prison wall to mark the event, but there was no crowd, and the execution produced no more effect in the town than an ordinary death. The usual horrors were therefore wanting, but a new horror seems to have been induced. The smallness of the space, the nearness of the spectators, the quiet, and, to use the right though most unpleasant word, the snugness of all the arrangements, create in the witnesses an impression of permitted murder which, let us add, they do their best to diffuse. No de- scription of an execution we ever read had quite the ghastly effect of one published in the Daily News of Friday.
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