The Art of �Dying Game'
In consultation with Francis Grose’s well-known 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue a working definition of â€?dying game’ can be ascerÂtained. Published in London and initially having a wide circulation within the lower orders of society, under the entry for â€?game’ is written the following: â€?To die game; to suffer at the gallows without shewing any signs of fear or repentance’.[289] Various editions of John Camden Hotten’s equally well-circulated English publication, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words (1859), offers a similar definition.
The usage examples for â€?game’ in the 1859 edition were: â€?are you GAME? Have you courage enough?’[290] While the 1874 edition included a new entry for â€?gameness’ that was said to denote, â€?pluck, endurance, courage generally’.[291] The practice of â€?dying game’ was inherited from English folk culture but flourished in its southern colonial outpost during the nineÂteenth century.[292] This cultural expectation was present in all Australian colonies and affected every criminal in the executioner’s care. The presÂsure placed on the dying to behave in an unhelpful way also heightened the crowd’s sense of excitement on the day of execution. A â€?game’ crimÂinal was perceived by many writers to threaten the lesson of capital punishment and make a hero out of the criminal.The degree to which the crowd anticipated and expected the condemned to â€?die game’ should not be underestimated or considered peripheral to the larger narrative of the occasion. The manner in which the criminal took his or her death was central to the execution as
public attraction. �Such an event', wrote the Bathurst Free Press in 1853, �becomes a holiday occasion to the depraved, and whether the shedder of human blood has died or is likely to “die game”, is a subject of brutal speculation'.
To prove its point the newspaper then recounted one story where a â€?Vandemonian pugilist' walked for fifty miles to attend a local execution to see if the criminal named Whilmore—whom the traveller labelled a â€?plucked un'10—would â€?show the white feather' or not. The newspaper then lamented that such â€?beastly phraseology' was all too common among spectators at the foot of the gallows.[293] [294] At an execution the year before, Sydney's Empire wrote how the â€?cursing and the hustling, and the language circulating among the crowd' was fully devoted to â€?the speculation as to whether he will die “game” or like a “brick”'.[295] Clearly, to see whether the criminal would â€?die game' was a great unknown that drew many spectators towards the foot of the public scaffold for all the wrong reasons.Perth's The Inquirer and Commercial News, among many other coloÂnial publications, tells how the attitude of the crowd could quickly shift from agreement with the justness of the punishment to all-out admiration for the courage of the criminal if performed correctly. It was a common gestalt switch that damaged the intended ends of the punishment irrevocably:
The mind of the lower classes, and they are the majority, it has been found, is only too apt to sympathise with the so-called victim of the law, and particularly if a man shows physical pluck and dies what is styled game. This sympathy changes to a certain admiration, which makes a lasting and dangerous impression on the minds of those whose animal propensities outweigh their mental ones.[296]
The Argus in Melbourne concurred in thinking that the â€?sight of a hardÂened ruffian closing his career by “dying game” upon the scaffold, is not a spectacle calculated to have a warning effect upon people of the same stamp in the crowd'.[297] The Courier of Hobart shared a similar dislike of â€?gameness' viewing it as destructive to the mind-set of the criminal and dangerous in the way public perceptions were so easily altered:
He is supported, in the contemplation of a violent death, by the same feeling which animated the warriors of old in the day of battle.
He knows that in his last moments he will be hailed as the hero of the scene, and that if he dies â€?game,' he will depart amidst the plaudits of a thousand spectators.[298]Fervent opponents of capital punishment pounced on the fact that â€?gameness' was rife at the Australian gallows. Alfred J. Taylor, for example, wrote an abolitionist pamphlet in 1877 that touched on the scourge of â€?dying game' in a tone that echoed the concern of many coloÂnial newspapers. It was used as strong evidence for Taylor's belief that the death penalty was not a deterrent:
It cannot be denied that to the criminal mass murderer who dies what is called �game' is as much a hero as the man who dies with the flag of victory waving over his head is to his fellow soldiers, or the martyr who burns at the stake for his religion is to his disciples.[299]
Earlier Taylor states that: �There should exist in all cases the general impression that the infliction of a certain penalty is just'.[300] Otherwise, he argued, a series of negative consequences would result: �[S]ympathy for the criminal often amounts to forgetfulness of his crime, public feeling revolts against the sentence under which he suffers, and the blood-dyed villain gets to believe that he is regarded as a martyr rather than as a justly punished offender'.[301] The art of�dying game' was clearly a threat to the very meaning of a punishment that required a penitent criminal to successfully communicate the grave consequences of committing a crime. A criminal's last words, their demeanour and appearance, were all closely examined by the crowd who decided what to make of the death.
Though the concept of â€?gameness' had far-reaching consequences, it appears to be applied only in the case of male executions. Female crimÂinals escaped the cultural expectation that they too must â€?die game', or, in any other manner that could be expressed in a comparatively coherent manner.
Certainly, special care was taken by journalists to document the emotional state, appearance and family ties of female criminals on the scaffold. Moreover, the comparatively rare hanging of a female criminal was read into predictable nineteenth-century narratives of fallen womanÂhood and broken morals. Yet, an anticipation or knowledge of these worn narratives did not seem to alter the behaviour of women in their final moments in anywhere near the same way. By contrast, courage and bravado in the face of death can easily be tied to expressions of colonial masculinity. Even executioners defined the gallows as a manly space and strongly disliked having to hang female criminals, lest it impinge on their own sense of masculinity.[302]To demonstrate the advantages of a penitent criminal over a â€?game' one from the perspective of the authorities it is worth considering the example of Daniel Jepps (sometimes spelt Gepps), Charles Ellis and Martin Fogarty—three bushrangers hanged in Melbourne for attempted murder in June 1842. Their execution, and the demeanour of Jepps in particular, stands out as an ideal display of penitence on the Australian scaffold. It is recounted in detail by Edmund Finn in his Chronicles of Early Melbourne (1888). At the foot of the gallows near modern- day Swanston Street â€?not less than seven thousand persons' were present according to Finn.[303] Upon arriving at the scaffold, Jepps and Ellis immeÂdiately began to kneel in prayer while Fogarty engaged in a private devoÂtion with his own spiritual advisor. After Jepps had finished praying he delivered his gallows' speech to the crowd below while being supported by the arm of a clergyman. It was a penitent and dignified address but one that also served as a deterrent to potential bushrangers, a key issue that worried the government of the day:
Fellow Christians! You see before you three young men in the prime of life and strength about to suffer on the scaffold for the crime of bushranging.
I trust you will all take warning by our untimely fate, and avoid those crimes which have brought us to this end. Good people, I most humbly beg your prayers to the Almighty on our behalf. I die in the faith of our salvation through the blood of our Divine Redeemer.[304]One historian described Jepps' attempts to �persuade the spectators at his execution of the correctness of his punishment' as the desired outcome for a state that got �lucky' on this occasion.[305] Jepps' eloquence may be attributed to the fact that he was originally a native of Boston with �highly respectable connexions' who received a �liberal education' before commencing a career on whaling vessels in the South Sea.[306] Finn goes on to describe how gentlemanly the three convicted bushrangers acted among themselves as the hangman made the final adjustments:
When the three wretches were standing together under the gallows, they shook hands one with the other, and Fogarty, looking at Jepps, exclaimed �Farewell! We shall soon meet in eternity.' The executioner then shook hands twice with each of them, adjusted the ropes, and drew the caps down over their faces; and whilst operating upon Jepps, the latter said to him, �May God bless you and your poor soul.'[307]
Jepps, Ellis and Fogarty were models for a disposition most desirable to those running the execution. They were easy to manage and did not physically or verbally resist their fate. Contrition was evident in Jepps' speech to the crowd and their dignified behaviour was appropriate to the solemnity of the event. The three men behaved in agreement with the fundamental tenets of their punishment as the just, commendable and right action to take under the circumstances. For these reasons, the authorities were intent on producing a penitent criminal on the scaffold if at all possible. Understanding exactly how those running the execution on the day itself worked towards this outcome is where this discussion now turns.