the execution and its message October 28th refused to reprieve him, and the execution took place November 23rd.270 Ander knew he was going to be executed, but the formal announcement of the date was made only the preceding afternoon at 4 p.m.271 The combination of tradition, modern influence, and variation was significant when three men were executed in Sweden in 1900, more than any year since 1864 and the first executions since 1893. The crimes of the third man executed, Filip Nordlund, were an important reason for the execution of the two others together with the views held by the prime minister, Erik Gustaf Boström, that executions had to be carried out to demonstrate that the sword of the state was a real threat. As part of a robbery, Nordlund had planned to kill everybody on the steamshipPrins Carl on the lake Mälaren. On the night between May 16th and17th 1900 he did not fully succeed, but still murdered five people. To the surprise of many, on May 25th the requests for clemency for unrelated crimes by both Theodor Julius Sallroth and Lars Nilsson were refused. Especially Sallroth due to his youth – he was twenty-one years old – and the unanimous recommendation of mercy by the Supreme Court for him, had been expected to be reprieved.272 Despite the wish of Sallroth for a quick execution , it was almost seven weeks before he was executed in Karlskrona July 5th 1900. His parents were Baptists but Sallroth himself had not been baptised.273 He thus embodied a changing religious geography, where the established Church of Sweden no longer was totally dominant and where even unbaptised adults existed in the country, something which half a century earlier would have constituted a major scandal and in reality been impossible. Probably his preparation not only for his death but also for his Baptism 270 Jakobsson 1987 p 74, Statsrådsprotokoll i justitieärende 28 October 1900NJrARAS. 271 Bergman 1996 p 156 sqq, Jakobsson 1987 p 74, note by prison governor Ernst Orstadius on letter from Överståthållarämbetet to Orstadius 22 November 1910 FI:1 Kronohäktet Långholmens arkivSSA. 272 Bergman 1996 p 97 sqq, see also Olivecrona 1891 p 161. 273 Leander 1936 p 252, 254 sq, statsrådsprotokoll i justitieärende 25 May 1900NJrARAS, Jakobsson 1987 p 52, 54, Protokoll, hållet å länsfängelsets i Carlskrona gård, då, t f stationsskrifvaren Theodor Julius Sallroth… den 5 Juli 1900 derstädes afrättades AIIa:125 Blekinge läns landskanslis arkivLLA. 89
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