Hardihood

A report spread through Pennsylvania last week that Robert Elliott, official executioner for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, had collapsed and resigned his posts after doing his lethal duty by Murderers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray at Sing Sing Prison last fortnight. The report was false. Executioner Elliott had neither collapsed nor resigned. Nor did he collapse late last week when he pulled the switch that sent Leon Scovern, 20, to death for the murder of a sweetheart's brother.

But while the report was current, officials received applications from ten hardy persons anxious to succeed Mr. Elliott. One man said, "I want to better myself." This man, who meant that he sought to make a better living, had doubtless heard that Executioner Elliott receives $150 per corpse; had perhaps read that Executioner Elliott earned, in a single day in 1927, $900 for giving "jolts" to three Massachusetts convicts in the morning, in the evening three more in New York.