When I first took up the work I was in the habit of applying to the Sheriff of the County whenever a murderer was condemned to death. I no longer consider it necessary to apply for work in England, because I am now well known, but I still send a simple address card, as above, when an execution in Ireland is announced.
In the earlier days I made application on a regular printed form, which gave the terms and left no opening for mistake or misunderstanding. Of this form I give a reduced reproduction on opposite page. I still use this circular when a sheriff from whom I have had no previous commission writes for terms. The travelling expenses are understood to include second-class railway fare from Bradford to the place of execution and back, and cab fare from railway station to gaol. If I am not lodged in the gaol, hotel expenses are also allowed. As a rule the expenses are not closely reckoned, but the sheriffs vote a lump sum which they think will cover it; and if the execution has been satisfactory the sum granted is generally more than enough to cover what I have spent.
+--------------+ |Quote | _Bradford, ........ 189_ |_No._ ........| YORKS. +--------------+
_I beg leave to state in reply to your letter of the .................................... that I am prepared to undertake the execution you name of .................................................... at .................. on the .......................
I also beg leave to state that my terms are as follows: £10 for the execution, £5 if the condemned is reprieved, together with all travelling expenses.
The High Sheriff, for the County of ............................._
There are, on an average, some twenty executions annually, so that the reader can calculate pretty nearly what is my remuneration for a work which carries with it a great deal of popular odium, which is in many ways disagreeable, and which may be accompanied, as it has been in my own experience, by serious danger, resulting in permanent bodily injury. It will be seen that the net commission is not by any means an exorbitant annual sum, considering all the circumstances of the office; and that it does not approach the amount which some people have stated that I was able to earn.