The Palatka Daily News

CUSTOMS AT A HANGING.

A great many customs surround a hanging in New York. They have been modified by law, which allows only the sheriff and assistants, twenty deputy sheriffs, a sheriff's jury, the judges of the higher courts, the district attorney, the doctors and the hangman to be present. It is customary for the sheriff to present the man to be hanged, when he is poor, with a black suit to be hanged in. The care of the city for his burial goes no further than to see he gets to Potter's field.

Formerly the coroner could bring a party of his friends as jurors, and the sheriff gave out cards of invitation as he would to a ball. That has been stopped, and Sheriff Grant keeps the number of spectators down to the lowest legal number. The reporters acted as both sheriffs and coroner's jury at Chacon's hanging. The hanging is set down for as early an hour as possible in the morning to avoid a crowd. The sheriff and his deputies, dressed in mourning, gather at the sheriff's office and march to the Tombs. Each bears his staff of office. At the hanging they take off their hats as soon as the weights fall, and put them on when the body is cut down.

In a case on the walls in the sheriff's office are a score of staves and two swords. The staves have been present at every hanging since a time that no employe in the office can recall. They are about thirty inches long, and are made of dark hard wood. The middle is covered with thin, dark velvet. On each end is a brass tip shaped like an Indian arrow head. The sheriff's staff has a crutch at one end instead of a dart, and the under sheriff's has a crook. The two swords have not been taken to a hanging for a long time.

No matter where in the state a hanging may be the staves are sent for and the sheriff's men carry them. They would as soon think of trying to have a hanging without a rope as without their staves. They are a relic of colonial days, when a hanging would draw as large an assemblage as a circus, and the officers who had charge of it appeared pompously in their official robes.

The same gallows, rope, noose, and weights are used time after time until they are lost or wear out. The gallows now in use is about four years old. The uprights are about five inches square and fifteen feet high. The cross piece is the same size. The construction is simple, and it is easy to take the gallows apart and put it away. The only trace left on the gallows by a hanging is the mark of the axe where it cuts through the rope that keeps the weight from falling.-New York Sun.