hangman• After his victim had been turned off the ladder, probably by the assistanthangman, Schlegel remained astride the cross-beam.• That's what's expectedtonight at the OxfordUnion, when formerhangman, Syd Dernley speaks in favour of capitalpunishment.• And waiting for the call: The last hangman says bring back the rope.• Brunskill's thirty-eight years of executions were by now telling on him, a strainsuffered eventually by most hangmen.• The huge old canvassack on a chain looked like a real-life victim of a game of hangman.• Syd Dernley was a public hangman before the capital punishment was abolished in nineteen sixty-five.• The hangman then twisted the ladder away, turning off the victim.