AustLit

'A minister's ten year old son disappears, and a headless and mutilated body is found in the Thames. A partly obliterated birth mark—a star on the chest—convinces the minister that his brilliant and motherless son, to whom he was devotedly attached, has been foully murdered. He secures the position of hangman in the hope of one day executing his son's destroyer. The play opens with the newspaper reporters trying to play cards and taking brandy to screw their nerves up to witness an execution, which the hangman gloats over. After it is finished, the prison chaplain tells the hangman that the poor creature was more sinned against than sinning. "He told me yesterday that his father was a clergyman, and they were everything to each other. At the age of 10 he had a severe shock, and lost his memory. Years later he recovered, to find himself in league with a gang of criminals. He failed to find any trace of his father, who would have recognised him by a peculiar birthmark—a star—on his chest." With a gasp of horror the stricken father realises that he has just executed his own son!'

Source:

Kooee, 'City Jottings', Kapunda Herald, 30 October 1931, p.3.

The manuscript held in The Hanger Collection of Australian Manuscripts in the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland contains the following character notes:

Characters

MR. JENNINGS of the “Daily Mail.”

MR. WILSON of the “Morning Herald.”

MR. EATON of the “Evening Telegraph”

A YOUNG REPORTER

MR. JAMES TIBEY executioner of Greycliffe Prison.

THE REVERANT AMBROSE PIERCE Chaplain of the prison.

WARDERS, GUARDS, ASSISTANT EXECUTIONERS, ETC.