The Angry Exile: Begrudged credit where due

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

Saturday 12 November 2011

Begrudged credit where due

Or perhaps not so much credit as lessening the disgrace. On Thursday I blogged about Mowgli the cat, who was caught on a pub's CCTV being swung around by the tail apparently for no better reason than it amused the little prick who doing it. I also expressed a hope that said prick would be caught and convicted, and also that he'd die of face cancer that started with his eyes. In the interim the publicity made CCTV useful for a change and plenty of people identified the person responsible, probably giving his brother a bit of a shock because he drinks in the same pub.

The suspect’s brother told The Daily Telegraph that he only heard about the incident when he went for a drink in the Camden Arms late on Thursday.
The man, who lives in Margate, said after looking at the CCTV footage: "If it's him, then he's an idiot but I don't know. I can't get hold of him or my parents. I don't know where he is."

How dumb do you have to be? Seriously, to do this kind of thing outside your brother's watering hole, under the eye of a CCTV camera (which is clear enough to show up on Google Streetview and must have been pretty obvious from the real street), and when you live nearby, how daft do you have to be?

So the police and RSPCA were able to release PRs to the effect that they knew the name of the person responsible and he'd make it a hell of a lot easier if he just showed up at the local nick. And restoring a little credit to himself that's what he did.

Just hours after the 20 year-old was urged to hand himself in, Richards presented himself to Margate police station shortly after 9am on Friday.
He was accompanied by his solicitor after RSCPA inspectors and police officers failed to find him at his home address, just around the corner from where the incident occured.

That he's shown the stones to hand himself in I'll retract what I said about hoping he dies of face cancer. Instead I hope he'll carry on the same way and take responsibility for his actions. According to The Daily Telegraph the maximum penalty for animal cruelty is six months and/or a £20,000 fine, though I doubt he'll get anywhere near that. But as JuliaM said in the comments at the earlier post, some law enforcement agencies look at needless animal cruelty as a possible pointer to being a psycho so I'd also hope that in addition to any fine or jail (unlikely) the court asks for a neck up check up. If he's likely to one day graduate to swinging children around by the head you wouldn't want to blow the opportunity to find out now.

In any event it looks like something vaguely resembling justice will be done, and unfortunately that's about the best possible outcome. Because even though the culprit has been identified, and even if he's then convicted, and even learns his lesson and becomes a model citizen for the rest of his life, you can't explain any of that to Mowgli.