the execution and its message prolonged the time. Sallroth was baptised by the Church of Sweden prison chaplain on June 20th and received communion for his first and last time on July 1st. Both services were celebrated in the antechamber of the local courthouse, chosen because it offered greater tranquillity than the prison.274 With the end of capital punishment in Sweden approaching, the efforts made on Sallroth’s behalf were probably unique. That communion was received such a long time before the execution, especially when no long distance of transport would hinder a late communion, was also exceptional. At least it would have been conceived as a very strange idea less than a century earlier, but to find a peaceful setting and there administer communion a longer interval before the execution had become more normal. The execution of Nilsson in Malmö was postponed as much as possible at the request of the prison chaplain August Stenström. Stenström later wrote that executions took place when he notified the authorities that the condemned was ready in that no more could be done.275 The day before the execution a message from Stenström saying that no more time for preparation was needed reached the governor of the county resulting in the decision that the execution should take place the next morning, August 3rd, at 5 a.m., and that Nilsson was to be informed immediately.276 Thus the execution of Nilsson took place about ten weeks after clemency was denied. Reasonably the governor must have had earlier information of the upcoming possibility to execute Nilsson as the executioner lived in Stockholm. Although the level of spiritual preparation of the condemned probably normally was the most decisive circumstance for the length of time other factors could count in the decision. One such was if the prisoner even in custody was perceived as dangerous. This was the case with Filip Nordlund, the third Swede executed in 1900, receiving the shortest time of preparation. In the appellate court the multiple murderer Nordlund was 274 Relation by Nils Thorén 31 December 1900 EIIcb:32 Fångvårdsstyrelsens arkiv RAS. A large extent of the relation is printed in Jakobsson 1987 p 54 sqq. 275 Stenström 1935 p 172, 174. 276 § 446, 2 August 1900 A IIa:105 Malmöhus läns landskansli LLA. 90
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