The Angry Exile: Criminal behaviour.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Criminal behaviour.

Newsflash, government department prediction turns out to be accurate. Crime really is going up.

Burglaries, fraud and robberies at knifepoint have risen steeply, in the first sign that the recession is fuelling an increase in crime.

A rise in the number of house break-ins and fraud and forgery offences in the three months to September suggests that the decline in overall crime levels recorded in recent years is coming to an end. Domestic burglaries rose 4 per cent in the year while fraud and forgery cases went up 16 per cent, the latest official crime statistics showed yesterday.

The figures come months after a leaked memo to Gordon Brown warned that the Home Office feared that the economic downturn would result in an increase in crime.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced that an emergency “burglary summit” would be held in the next two weeks in an attempt to halt and reverse the substantial rise in house break-ins. Her top civil servant at the Home Office has already e-mailed the police and crime divisions of the department to tell them that they must improve their performance.

Oh what a relief, Jacqui's going to sort it all out with a burglary summit. I can't quite see how the summit is going to reduce burglaries unless they're expected a large number of burglars to attend so the police can nick them without having to do any running, but what would I know? Anyway, on the subject of Jacqbootface Smith:

Ms Smith denied that there was an inevitable link between an economic downturn and the rise in break-ins. [But] she said: “It’s a fact that there’s been an increase and that’s worrying.”

The meeting was intended to ensure that everyone was doing their bit to keep burglary and other thefts down, she said. A burglary prevention campaign, backed by a special fund, would begin next month, she added.

Ms Smith said: “There will be a small minority of criminals who think they can take advantage in tough times. Let me tell them now, they can’t and they won’t.”

Why ever not? Taking advantage has worked out just fucking peachy for you, hasn't it? When you and most of the government and probably half the backbenchers and opposition MPs have all got their disgusting snouts in the fucking money trough is it any wonder that the low lifes who didn't do lefty politics and leafy pot at uni rob the rest of us more conventionally? As far as I'm concerned the only difference is that Jacqui Smith was (arguably) working within the letter of the rules when she screwed the taxpayers for over a hundred grand while kipping at her sister's place, but I really don't see it as vastly different from some mouth breathing cunt smashing your windows and taking your TV round to his brother's. I can only hope that the investigation that has been restarted after giving Smith the okay once comes to the logical conclusion - £116,000 for staying a couple or three nights a week at a family member's house is a complete fucking piss take.

Fucking bastards. I'd honestly hope the UK fucking sinks and drowns every single last one of them except that there are still some people living there that I like and probably millions of other decent folk. Look, why don't you all emigrate and the last one can pull the fucking plug on the way out?

UPDATE: Incidentally, smart move to get rid of thousands of police officers at a time when even the Home Shitwitary concedes that crime is going up. Stroke of fucking genius.

So if any coppers get made redundant can we take their photographs?