Charles Dickens attended at least four public executions. The first was in 1840, the hanging of a Swiss valet Francois Courvoisier, who had slit his master’s throat. From this time forth, Dickens was hotly against public executions because of the pernicious effect it had on the spectators. In a series of letters to the Daily News in 1846, Dickens argued against the death penalty and particularly public executions. In one, he recalled the scene of Courvoisier’s execution: “No sorrow, no salutary terror, no abhorrence, no seriousness; nothing but ribaldry, debauchery, levity, drunkenness, and flaunting vice in fifty other shapes” (28 Feb, 1846).
Barnaby Rudge
Seeing the crowd at Courvoisier’s execution may also have influenced the portrayal of the bloodthirsty hangman Ned Dennis in 1841’s Barnaby Rudge. Dennis’s obsessive interest in his work causes him to immediately size up all acquaintances as potential candidates for the drop: “Did you ever see such a throat?... There’s a neck for stretching!” (Chap. 38) This was the attitude Dickens had seen in the crowds and perhaps even a bit of it in himself.
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