I have been away for a bit and slow to resume blogging. I am lacking in the creative energy required for even the most mundane of posts and am not lacking in other things that I should be doing instead. Still the resumption will be attempted and I will begin with another London item and you will now have been given a baker's dozen of them.
This one occurred just over one hundred years ago when two men were hanged in London on the same day in 1924 and the report is found in the Casper Daily Tribune (Wyoming). Mr. Murrell killed someone while robbing a bank in Melbourne. Mr. Topping murdered his girlfriend.
The Bonus:
Since I don't feel like doing those other things mentioned, I will offer here an editorial comment since it is a "reactionary" one that I would prefer go unnoticed. Perhaps we should bring back hanging as a punishment. That sounds harsh, but I am not advocating hanging all criminals, just those who are guilty of crimes, such as stealing from public institutions, as opposed to private corporations, where more leniency could be justified.
Given that this is a London snippet, here is an example from London:
"Alleged fraud worth $60M uncovered at London Health Sciences Centre,".
"An audit has uncovered a decade-long fraud at the region's largest hospital network with the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) filing two separate lawsuits implicating five former executives, a contractor and companies hired to do work.
The lawsuits total more than $60 million and allege that some executives knew about the scheme and did nothing to stop it. One of the lawsuits also links more than 60 "suspicious properties" worth almost $20M to three people involved in the alleged scheme, purchased after multi-million dollar contracts were awarded by the hospital....
"The Fraudulent Scheme was a calculated, multi-year campaign of deceit and theft, deliberately engineered to misappropriate public funds for personal and unlawful gain," the lawsuit that was filed Wednesday alleges."
It was announced more recently that 288 Registered Nurses at the LHSC were going to be laid off, a not unrelated development.
Admittedly, hanging is a bit harsh for our time, but perhaps we could at least bring back the pillory and erect a few of them at the intersection of Wellington and Commissioners where the guilty could be displayed for a very long time and even in the winter.
Sources:
The article quoted above is by Kate Dubinski, CBC News, July 9, 2025.
For more about hangings in London see "Hanging Days" by the late Christopher Doty.
For more about hanging generally, see "The Gibbet".