Executed on this day ......... 29th of November 1858 CHRISTIAN VON SEE MELBOURNE EXECUTION OF VON SEE On the morning of the 29th of November 1858 the extreme penalty of the law was exacted from the convict Christian Von See, who was at the last Castlemaine Criminal Sessions convicted of the murder of his mate at the Terricks. This was a crime of a peculiarly dark nature. The murdered man had for a long time been the benefactor, then the employer and the support of his assassin, who by a specious pretence lured his victim into a lonely part of the country, and there, for the sake of gain, when no human eye beheld him, rushed upon his victim, deprived him of life, mutilated his remains, and attempted to destroy them with fire. But the man was missed, suspicion was aroused, and this distinctly pointed to Von See as the criminal. He was soon arrested. Inquiries were made, circumstance after circumstance was disclosed with providential rapidity, until at last the criminal was enveloped in such a mass of circumstantial evidence as left not the slightest ground to doubt his guilt. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced. In due time he was forwarded to Melbourne, to undergo his well-merited but fearful punishment. For some days after his arrival in the condemned cell of the Melbourne gaol, he seems to have entertained a hope of a commutation of punishment; for when it was announced to him by the sheriff that the authorities had ordered his execution, he became deadly pale, and literally reeled under the blow. Although a strong man, and of powerful muscular formation, he displayed a great amount of cowardice. This feeling never left him; the remainder of his life was an agony of terror. He was, however, carefully and sedulously attended by the Rev. Mr Goethe, the minister of the Lutheran Church; and it is but charity to hope that some good impression was made on his darkened mind. On the morning of his death, when his hour had arrived, he came forth from his cell audibly sobbing. His face was covered with tears, his features convulsed with terror. His limbs were scarcely able to support him. He was sustained on each side by two officers of the prison, while the executioner performed the duty of pinioning and otherwise preparing him for the scaffold. This was all quickly done, and his last terrible walk was commenced. He leaned forward considerably, and pressed heavily on the hands that supported him. He mounted the stairs with difficulty, and, once up, the proceedings were short indeed. The executioner left him, and moved round to his position at the bolt, Mr Goethe still reading the funeral service, in German. At the usual signal the bolt was drawn, and the murderer was suspended. He quivered and shook in every muscle, and every joint moved; his hands appeared to grope for something to grasp; his feet seemed to seek a resting-place; at last he laid hold of his trousers, and endeavoured thus to support his weight. The hands then took an upward direction towards his neck. All this time his chest and shoulders were frightfully convulsed, and more than four minutes elapsed before life was thoroughly extinct. On examination of the body after death, it was clearly proved that no mistake or awkwardness had tended to prolong the criminals agony. The whole proceeding was pronounced by a medical man to have been properly conducted. The lengthened struggles could, therefore, only be attributed to the tenacity with which a strong and muscular human frame will cling to life. The gaol authorities in Melbourne complain bitterly that they are obliged to superintend the whole of the executions for the colony, with the exception of the few that are carried out in Geelong. They ask why this should be so, when there is a Criminal Court, a gaol, and a Sheriff in each district. Others also object to the custom, as one that shows in an unfavourable light the statistics of crime in Melbourne. They say that, as compared with other cities, the frequency of such scenes gives this city an unenviable pre eminence in crime, to which she is not at all entitled. Christian Von See was a native of Hamburg, and had not been very long an inhabitant of this colony.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 23:45:00 +0000
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