Books: Poor Johnny

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HANGING JOHNNY—Myrtle Johnston—Appleton ($2). For a handful of silver, Johnny the Hangman hangs his friend, knowing him innocent. The horror of it clings, though Johnny escapes the indignant mob to a distant Irish village. He foreswears his occupation, and, a lover of love and beauty, falls in love with an affectionate but unimaginative woman. Practical, ambitious, Anna persuades her moonraking Johnny to earn occasional hangman's fees, and bring home the dead man's things, now a decent coat, now a stout pair of boots. Tortured by this necessity, Johnny broods over his ropes and ring, croons the ugly details to a fascinated small son, demonstrating with a grotesque rag doll on a miniature scaffold. In a drunken brawl at the inn Johnny champions a slattern, more unfortunate even than himself, befriends her, loves her, kills her jealous brute of a husband. She is convicted of the murder, and Johnny hangs her, dooming himself to tragedy.

Author Johnston shows no trace of youthfulness in the grim story she tells with relentless force, compassion, and restraint. She is 18.