The Judge’s Sentence

These were the last words which the law permitted me to speak. Mr. Justice Stephen then assumed the full dress of the criminal judge—the black cap—and pronounced the sentence of the court in these words:

“Prisoner at the bar, I am no longer able to treat you as being innocent of the dreadful crime laid to your charge. You have been convicted by a jury of this city, after a lengthy and most painful investigation, followed by a defense which was in every respect worthy of the man. The jury has convicted you, and the law leaves me no discretion, and I must pass the sentence of the law:

“The court doth order you to be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be afterward buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall be confined after your conviction. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!”

JUSTICE FITZ-JAMES STEPHEN.
Who presided at the trial of Mrs. Maybrick.

Utterly stunned I was removed from the court to Walton Jail, there to be confined until this sentence of the law should be carried into effect.

The mob, as the Liverpool public was styled by the press, before they had heard or read a word of the defense had hissed me when I entered the court; and now, that they had heard or read the evidence, cheered me as I drove away in the prison-van, and hissed and hooted the judge, who with difficulty gained his carriage.