THE “GALLOWS” LITERATURE OF THE STREETS.
“The gallows does well: but how does it do well? It does well to those that do ill.”
THE EXECUTION.
DIVISION IV.
THE “GALLOWS” LITERATURE OF THE STREETS.
Public Executions, Dying Speeches. Confessions, and Copy of Verses.
“There’s nothing beats a stunning good murder after all.”—Experience of a Running Patterer.
Of accounts of Public Executions, Dying Speeches, and Confessions we have those before us, stretching from the Execution of Sir John Oldcastle in 1417, to the Trial and Execution of F. Hinson, who suffered the extreme penalty of the law, at the Old Bailey, Monday, December 13th, 1869, for the wilful murder of Maria Death, to which is attached the all-important and necessary “Copy of Verses,” and by way of supplement, we add a verbatim copy of the Full, True and Particular Account of the Execution of J. Rutterford, at Bury St. Edmunds, for the murder of J. Hight, with copy of “Death-verses.” But the convict was NOT hanged after all. As the gaol surgeon having reported that Rutterford had a malformation which might cause an unusual degree of suffering on death being inflicted by strangulation, whereupon the Secretary of State for the Home Department ordered a special examination to be made by some medical men of the immediate neighbourhood, and on whose report the sentence of death previously recorded was commuted to transportation for life!
All the modern examples of The “Gallows” Literature of the Streets come not only from different printers and publishers, but from distant towns,—London, Birmingham, Lincoln, and Preston, but they have all the same stamp. And the whole of the last dying speeches and confessions, trials, sentences from what ever part of the country they come, run in the same form of quaint and circumstantial detail, appeals to heaven, to young men, to young women, to christians in general, and moral reflections. The narrative, embracing trial, biography, &c., is usually prepared by the printer, being a condensation from the accounts in the newspapers. It is then necessary to add the “copy of verses.” Many of these are clearly by the same hand, probably one of the five or six well-known authors, who also chaunt their own verses in the streets. And with regard to this matter—“Time being the essence of the contract,”—it must also be noted that many of the most popular “Death-verses” being composed on the spur of the moment for the purpose of being sung while all the town is ringing with the event, all niceties of rhyme, metre, and orthography have to be utterly disregarded. “I gets,” says one of the fraternity, “I gets a shilling a copy for the verses written by the wretched culprit the night previous to his execution.” “And I,” says another, “did the helegy on Rush. I didn’t write it to horder; I knew that they would want a copy of verses from the wretched culprit. And when the publisher read it; ‘that’s the thing for the streets,’ he says. But I only got a shilling for it.” “It’s the same poet as does ’em all,” says a third authority, “and the same tip: no more nor a bob for nothing.” This was paltry pay under any circumstances, but still more so when we find that in the case of the chief modern murders these “Execution Ballads” commanded a most enormous sale, thus:
| Of Rush’s murder | 2,500,000 | copies |
| Of the Mannings | 2,500,000 | ” |
| Of Courvoisier | 1,666,000 | ” |
| Of Greenacre | 1,650,000 | ” |
| Of Corder (Maria Martin) | 1,166,000 | ” |
| Of the Five Pirates (Flowery Land) | 290,000 | ” |
| Of Müller | 280,000 | ” |
| Of Constance Kent (trial only) | 150,000 | ” |
| Of Jeffery (1866) | 60,000 | ” |
| Of Forward (Ramsgate) | 30,000 | ” |
So that the printers and publishers of “Gallows” Literature in general, and “The Seven Dials Press” in particular, must have reaped a golden harvest for many a long day, even when sold to the street-folks at the low rate of 3d. per long dozen. Mr. W. S. Fortey, the successor of the late celebrated Jemmy Catnach, stated to us during a recent conversation with him on the sale number of modern dying speeches. “Well, I never in my time printed so many as I did of the Five Pirates of the Flowery Land, and I sold them at the rate of 3,000 copies per hour, and did altogether 90,000,—that was my share. What the others did of course I can’t say. I know I got a new machine out of the job!—which we now call the “Pirates,” or sometimes “The Flowery Land.”[1] Mr. Fortey furthermore informed us that his share of the “Execution Papers” of recent popular murders was as follows:—Müller, 84,000; Constant Kent, 15,000; Jeffery, 10,000; Forward, 5,000. Mr. Fortey’s trade announcement runs thus:—“The Catnach Press.” (Established 1813.) William S. Fortey, (late A. Ryle), successor to the late J. Catnach, Printer, Publisher, and Wholesale Stationer, 2 and 3, Monmouth Court, Seven Dials, London, W.C. The cheapest and greatest variety in the trade of large coloured penny books; halfpenny coloured books; farthing books; penny and halfpenny panoramas; school books; penny and halfpenny song books; memorandum books; poetry cards; lotteries; ballads (4,000 sorts) and hymns; valentines; scripture sheets; Christmas pieces; Twelfth-night characters; carols; book and sheet almanacks; envelopes, note paper, &c., &c. W. S. Fortey begs to inform his friends and the public generally, that after 19 years’ service, he has succeeded to the business of his late employers (A. Ryle and Co.), and intends carrying on the same, trusting that his long experience will be a recommendation, and that no exertion shall be wanting on his part to merit a continuance of those favours that have been so liberally bestowed on that establishment during the last 46 years.
As far as can be ascertained, the sale of Broad-sheets in the Mannings and Rush’s case far exceed that of any now before us. Even that of Müller did not amount to more than two hundred and eighty thousand copies—though no modern murder ever surpassed it in atrocity, or in the profound interest which it excited throughout England. And this difference is no doubt to be explained by the fact that since Mannings and Rush’s day the daily penny newspapers have almost forestalled the “Dying Speeches and confessions”—with or without the “copy of verses”—by giving a full account of the different enormities in all their minute and hideous details. The force of public opinion, too, thus exerted through the Press, has been brought to bear on the question of crime, and much of the morbid sympathy which found expression in the case of such a monster as Rush, had died away in 1864, when detectives tracked Müller across the Atlantic, and brought him back to be hanged by an English hangman, in the presence of an English mob. To every one of the murderers, Constance Kent at Road hill house, Jeffery, Forward, at Ramsgate, and the Pirates of the “Flowery Land,”—one and all alike,—stern justice is meted out with inflexible severity. The wretched girl who at Salisbury confessed her crime to the judge, makes no excuse for her guilt, but tells only of the intolerable remorse that would give her no rest—
“My infant brother so haunted me,
I not one moment could happy be;
And if for the murder they do me try,
I declare I’m guilty, and deserve to die.”
“Scoundrels,” “malefactors,” “villains,” are the gentlest names for this Newgate gallery, and the gallows in every case is promised, with a sort of grim satisfaction that augurs strongly for a deep popular belief in the justice of those solemn words, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
With the recent Act of Parliament abolishing the execution of criminals in sight of the public. Halfpenny and penny newspapers, and the capriciousness of Home Secretaries, the Dying Speech trade has in its turn received its death-blow. Still old memories and customs yet cling to the “Affectionate Copy of Verses.”—“The (cooked) Love Letters” and “Confessions”—made only by the Street-Patterer, and are found sufficiently remunerative to author, printer, publisher, and vendor—But for This Day Only!
The following is the style of “gag” and “patter” of a man formerly well-known in the “Dials” as “Tragedy Bill”—“Now, my friends, here you have, just printed and published, a full, true, and pertickler account of the life, trial, character, confession, behaviour, condemnation, and hexecution of that unfortunate malefactor, Richard Wilbyforce, who was hexecuted on Monday last, for the small charge of one ha’penny, and for the most horrible, dreadful, and wicked murder of Samuel—I means Sarah Spriggens, a lady’s maid, young, tender, and handsome. You have here every pertickler, of that which he did, and that which he didn’t. It’s the most foul and horrible murder that ever graced the annals of British history(?) Here, my customers, you may read his hexecution on the fatal scaffold. You may also read how he met his victim in a dark and lonesome wood, and what he did to her—for the small charge of a ha’penny; and, further, you read how he brought her to London,—after that comes the murder, which is worth all the money. And you read how the ghost appeared to him and then to her parents. Then comes the capture of the willain; also the trial, sentence, and hexecution, showing how the ghost was in the act of pulling his leg on one side, and the ‘old gentleman’ a pulling on the other, waiting for his victim (my good friends excuse my tears!) But as Shakspeare says, ‘Murder most foul and unnatural,’ but you’ll find this more foul and unnatural than that or the t’other—for the small charge of a ha’penny! Yes, my customers, to which is added a copy of serene and beautiful werses, pious and immoral, as wot he wrote with his own blood and skewer the night after—I mean the night before his hexecution, addressed to young men and women of all sexes—I beg pardon, but, I mean classes (my friends its nothing to laugh at), for I can tell you the werses is made three of the hard-heartedest things cry as never was—to wit, that is to say namely—a overseer, a broker, and a policeman. Yes, my friends, I sold twenty thousand copies of them this here morning, and could of sold twenty thousand more than that if I could of but kept from crying—only a ha’penny!—but I’ll read the werses.
Come all you blessed Christians dear,
That’s a-tender, kind, and free,
While I a story do relate
Of a dreadful tragedy,
Which happened in London town,
As you shall all be told;
But when you hear the horrid deed
’Twill make your blood run cold.—
For the small charge of a ha’penny!
’Twas in the merry month of May,
When my true love I did meet;
She look’d all like an angel bright,
So beautiful and sweet.
I told her I loved her much,
And she could not say nay;
’Twas then I strung her tender heart,
And led her all astray.—
Only a ha’penny!
I brought her up to London town,
To make her my dear wife;
But an evil spirit tempted me,
And so I took her life!
I left the town all in the night,
When her ghost in burning fire,
Saying, “Richard,” I am still with you,
Whenever you retire.—
Only a ha’penny!
And justice follow’d every step,
Though often I did cry;
And the cruel Judge and Jury
Condemned me for to die.
And in a cell as cold as death,
I always was afraid,
For Sarah she was with me,
Although I killed her dead.—
For the small charge of a ha’penny!
My tender-hearted Christians,
Be warned by what I say,
And never prove unkind or false
To any sweet la’-dy.
Though some there, who wickedness
Oft leads ’em to go astray;
So pray attend to what you hear.
And a warning take I pray.
[1] “The Pope, God bless him! he’s been the best friend I’ve had since Rush. Then Cardinal Wiseman. They shod me, sir.” “Who’s they!” “Why the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman. I call my clothes after them I earn money by to buy them with. My shoes I call Pope Pius; my trowsers” and braces, Calcraft; my waistcoat and shirt, Jael Denny; and my coat, Love Letters. A man must show a sense of gratitude in the best way he can.—Experience of a Running Patterer.—Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.
THE LIFE & EXECUTION
OF
SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE
AT THE
NEW GALLOWS,
AT
ST. GILES’S IN THE FIELDS,
ON
THE 19th OF DECEMBER, 1417.
Who was Hang’d as a Traytor, and Burnt as a Heretick.
At the beginning of the reign of Henry V., about the year 1413, the anger of the clergy was excited against the Lollards, and they fabricated a report of a pretended conspiracy among them, headed by Sir John Oldcastle, or, as he was called by courtesy, Lord Cobham, in his wife’s right.
Lord Cobham has the honour of being the first author and the first martyr among the nobility of England. He was a man of considerable natural abilities, proficient in literature, of a ready wit, and skilled in the affairs of the cabinet or in the field. In his love for philosophy, he had perused the writings of Wickliffe, and in so doing unconsciously absorbed the leaven of evangelical and spiritual religion. When persuaded of the truth of those doctrines he enrolled himself as a disciple, and did all in his power for their spread, both by his gifts and personal efforts. He transcribed the works of Wickliffe; he supported various preachers, and became the acknowledged leader of the rising reformation. The hostility of the church was, of course, an inevitable result.
Sir John being convicted of heresy, the Archbishop waited upon the King, and gave him an account of the proceedings against him, and moved his Majesty that the execution might be respited for 50 days, which was readily granted by the King, as well as the Archbishops, being desirous to preserve Sir John Oldcastle.
Sir John before the fifty days expired, made his escape out of the Tower, and endeavoured to secure himself by making an insurrection. To this purpose he wrote letters to his friends, to engage their Party, and make them ready for the Field, to surprise the King, and overturn the Government.
The King being apprised of the danger, on the 6th of January, 1414, removed from Eltham to his palace at Westminster, but without any appearance of alarm. The Rebels were just upon the execution of their design, being drawn together by Sir John Acton, Knight, John Brown, Esq., and John Beverly, a priest, in Ficket-field, on the backside of St. Giles’s; hither they came in the dead of night, expecting to join their General, Sir John Oldcastle.
The King came into the field before Day, where several of the Rebels, mistaking their party, fell in with the King’s forces; and it being demanded whither they were going, they answered, to my Lord Cobham. The King, to prevent their getting together, had ordered the City Gates to be shut and guarded, without which precaution ’tis thought the Londoners would have reinforced their party to a very formidable body, but being disappointed of this succour they soon dispersed, and several of them were killed or taken prisoners. And the King set a thousand Marks upon Sir John Oldcastle’s head, with a promise of great Privileges to any town that should deliver him up. An Indictment of High Treason was found against Sir John in the King’s Bench, for conspiring the Death of the King, the Subversion of the Established Religion and Government, and Levying War, whereupon he was outlawed.
Sir John Oldcastle was near being surprised in the neighbourhood of St. Alban’s, at a farmhouse belonging to the Abbot of that town, anno 1417; for the Abbot being informed Sir John lay concealed at one of his Tenants, sent some of his servants, in the night, to beset the house, and though they missed of Sir John, they seized some of the principal men of his party. They found also several religious Books, adorned with paintings, which the Lollards esteeming superstitious, cut off the Heads of the Figures, and also erased the Names of the Saints out of the litanies; they also found scandalous Papers in Dishonour of the blessed Virgin. These Books were sent over to the King into Normandy, and by him returned to the Archbishop.
Upon the occasion the Lollards were loudly disclaimed against at St. Paul’s Cross, and a tragical Representation made of the Matter, and not long after Sir John Oldcastle was taken in Powis Lands in Wales. He stood upon his Defence, fought those that came to apprehend him, and refused to surrender his Person till he was wounded and disabled.
Sir John Oldcastle having been outlawed upon an Indictment for High Treason, for that he with divers others called Lollards, to the number of Twenty Thousand, had assembled themselves at St. Giles’s in the Fields, levyed War, and conspired the Death of the King and the Subversion of the Religion and Government established, and standing also excommunicated for Heresy, he was brought before the Parliament on the 18th of December, 1417, and it being demanded what he had to say why Execution should not be awarded against him according to Law, he ran out into a Discourse foreign to the matter, concerning the Mercy of God, &c., whereupon the Chief Justice required him to answer directly, if he had anything to object against the Legality of the Process; he replyed, he could not own them for his judges, as long as his Sovereign Lord King Richard was living in Scotland. Upon this Answer a Rule was made for his Execution, viz., That he should be carried back to the Tower, and from thence drawn through London to the New Gallows at St. Giles’s in the Fields, and there be hanged, and burnt hanging, which Sentence was executed with Rigour. He was hanged as a Traytor, and burnt as a Heretick.
The DYING SPEECHES and EXECUTION of John Ballard, priest; Anthony Babington, Esq.; John Savage, Gent.; Robert Barnwell, Gent.; Chidiock Titchborne, Esq.; Charles Tilney and Edward Abington, Gent. (Seven of the Conspirators against Queen Elizabeth) for High Treason
On the 20th of September, 1586, a Gallows being set up on purpose in St. Giles’s Fields, where they us’d to meet, these seven were drawn thither to their Execution.
John Ballard, the Priest, the principal Conspirator, confess’d, that he was guilty of those things for which he was condemned, but protested they were never enterprised by him upon any hope of preferment, but only, as he said, for the advancement of true Religion. He craved pardon and forgiveness of all persons, to whom his doings had been any scandal, and so made an end; making his prayers to himself in Latin, not asking her Majesty forgiveness, otherwise than if he had offended.
Anthony Babington, Esq., also confessed, That he was come to die, as he had deserved; howbeit that he (as Ballard before) protested that he was not led into those actions upon hope of preferment, or for any temporal respect; nor had ever attempted them. For his wife, he said, she had good friends, to whose consideration he would leave her: And thus he finished, asking Her Majesty forgiveness, and making his prayers in Latin.
John Savage, Gent., confessed his guilt, and said (as the other two before) that he did attempt it, for that in conscience he thought it a deed meritorious, and a common good to the weal publick, and for no private preferment.
Robert Barnwell, Gent, confessed that he was made acquainted with their Drifts, but denied that ever he consented, or could be in conscience persuaded that it was a deed lawful. I crave forgiveness; if the sacrifice of my body might establish her Majesty in the true religion, I would most willingly offer it up. Then he prayed to himself in Latin.
Chidiock Titchbone, Esq., began to speak as followeth, viz., Countrymen and my dear Friends, you expect I should speak something; I am a bad Orator, and my text is worse: It were in vain to enter into the discourse of the whole matter for which I am brought hither, for that it hath been revealed heretofore, and is well known to the most of this company; let me be a warning to all young gentlemen, especially generosis adolescentulis. I had a friend, and a dear friend, of whom I made no small account, whose friendship hath brought me to this; he told me the whole matter, I cannot deny, as they had laid it down to be done; but I always thought it impious, and denied to be a dealer in it; but the regard of my friend caused me to be a man in whom the old proverb was verified; I was silent, and so consented. Before this thing chanced, we lived together in most flourishing estate; of whom went report in the Strand, Fleet street, and elsewhere about London, but of Babington and Titchbone? No threshold was of force to brave our entry. Thus we lived, and wanted nothing we could wish for; and God knows, what less in my head than matters of State? Now give me leave to declare the miseries I sustained after I was acquainted with the action, wherein I may justly compare my estate to that of Adam’s, who could not abstain one thing forbidden, to enjoy all other things the world could afford; the terror of conscience awaited me. After I consider’d the dangers whereinto I was fallen, I went to Sir John Peters, in Essex, and appointed my horses should meet me at London, intending to go down into the country. I came to London, and there heard that all was bewrayed; whereupon, like Adam, we fled into the woods to hide ourselves, and there were apprehended. My dear countrymen, my sorrows may be your joy, yet mix your smiles with tears, and pity my case. This done, he prayed first in Latin, and then in English, asking Her Majesty, and all the world, heartily, forgiveness, and that he hoped, stedfastly, now at this his last hour, his faith would not fail.
Charles Tilney said, I am a Catholick, and believe in Jesus Christ, and by his Passion I hope to be saved; and I confess I can do nothing without him, which opinion all Catholicks firmly hold. He prayed in Latin for himself, and after he prayed for Queen Elizabeth, that she might live long; and warned all young gentlemen, of what degree or calling soever, to take warning by him.
Edward Abington said, I come hither to die, holding all points firmly that the Catholick Church doth; and for the matters whereof I am condemned, I confess all, saving the death of Her Majesty, to the which I never consented. He feared, as he said, great bloodshed in England before it were long.
Ballard was first executed. He was cut down and bowell’d with great cruelty while he was alive. Babington beheld Ballard’s execution without being in the least daunted; whilst the rest turned away their faces, and fell to prayers upon their knees. Babington being taken down from the gallows alive too, and ready to be cut up, he cried aloud several times in Latin. Parce mihi Domine Jesu, spare or forgive me O Lord Jesus! Savage broke the rope, and fell down from the gallows, and was presently seized on by the Executioner, his privities cut off, and his bowels taken out while he was alive. Barnwell, Titchborne, Tilney, and Abington were executed with equal cruelty.
The DYING SPEECHES and EXECUTION of Thomas Salisbury, Henry Donn, Edward Jones, John Charnock, John Travers, Robert Gage, Jerome Bellamy, for High Treason, the 21st of September, 1586. Being drawn to the place of Execution.
Thomas Salisbury, Esq., since it hath pleased God to appoint this place for my end, I thank his infinite goodness for the same; I confess that I have deserved death, and that I have offended her Majesty, whom to forgive me I heartily beseech, with all others whom I have any way offended; I desire all true Catholicks to pray for me, and I desire them, as I beseech God they may, to endure with patience whatsoever shall be laid upon them, and never to enter into any action of violence for remedy. Thus done, he cried in English and Latin, Father, forgive me.
Henry Donn, Yeoman, said, Do the people expect I should say anything? I was acquainted, I confess, with their practices, but I never did intend to be a dealer in them: Babington oftentimes requested me to be one, and said, for that he loved me well, he would bestow me in one of the best actions; which should have been the delivery of the Queen of Scots, to which I could not for a long time agree; at length, by many urgent persuasions he won me, so as I told him I would do my best: And being asked, as he was ascending the ladder, whether he thought it lawful to kill her Majesty: He answered, No, no. No soul was more sorrowful than his, nor none more sinful; and prayed for her Majesty, wishing she might live in all happiness, and after this life, be eternized in everlasting bliss; and so he prayed in Latin and English.
Edward Jones said, I come hither to die, but how rightfully God knows; for thus stands my case: At Trinity Term last, Mr Salisbury made me acquainted with their purposes; and for that he knew me to be well horsed, he thought me as fit as any to attempt the delivery of the Queen of Scots, and requested me to be one; which I utterly denied, altogether misliking their practices, and persuading him, by what means I might, from it; and told him, this was the haughty and ambitious mind of Anthony Babington, which would be the destruction of himself and friends, whose company I wished him to refrain; and for that I would have him out of his company; I have divers times lent him money, and pawned my chain and jewels to buy him necessaries to go into the country, and so concluded with his prayers, first in Latin, and then in English, that the people might better understand what he prayed.
John Charnock and John Travers having their minds wholly fixt on prayer, recommended themselves to God and the Saints. Gage extolled the Queen’s great grace and bounty to his father, and detested his own perfidious ingratitude towards his Princess. And Jerome Bellamy, with confusion and deep silence, suffered last.
The Queen being informed of the severity used in the executions the day before, and detesting such cruelty, gave express orders that these should be used more favourably; and accordingly they were permitted to hang till they were quite dead before they were cut down and bowell’d.
THEIR CHARACTERS.
The Conspirators were most of them gentlemen of good families, whom nothing but the specious pretence of religion could probably have prevailed upon to turn affairs.
THE EXECUTION OF BALLARD, &c.
The history of the plot in which Ballard, Babbington, Tichbourne, and others, were engaged in 1586, is well known. The subsequent ballad, by the celebrated Thomas Deloney, (his initials T.D. being at the conclusion of it) was no doubt printed immediately after the execution of the “fourteen most wicked traitors,” on the 20th and 21st September. At the top of the broadside are woodcuts of fourteen heads, but they are not likenesses, but merely engravings which the printer happened to have in his possession, and which had been already used for Hill’s work on Physiognomy, and perhaps for other publications requiring illustrations.——[1]
A proper new Ballad, breefely declaring the Death and Execution of 14 most wicked Traitors, who suffered death in Lincolnes Inne Fielde, neere London: the 20 and 21 of September, 1586.
TO THE TUNE OF “WEEP, WEEP.”
Rejoyce in hart, good people all,
Sing praise to God on hye,
Which hath preserved us by his power
From traitors tiranny;
Which now have had their due desarts,
In London lately seen;
And Ballard was the first that died,
For treason to our Queene.
O praise the Lord with hart and minde,
Sing praise with voices cleare;
Seth traitorous crue, have had their due
To quaile their partener’s cheere.
Next Babington, that caitife vilde,
Was hanged for his hier;
His carcasse likewise quartered,
And hart cast in the fier.
Was ever seen such wicked troopes
Of traytors in this land,
Against the pretious woord of truthe,
And their good Queene to stand?
Oh praise, &c.
But heer beholde the rage of Rome,
The fruits of Popish plants;
Beholde and see their wicked woorks,
Which all good meaning wants:
For Savage also did receave
Like death for his desert,
Which in that wicked enterprise
Should then have doon his part.
O praise, &c.
O cursed catifes, void of grace,
Will nothing serve your turne,
But to behold your cuntries wrack,
In malice while you burne?
And Barnwell thou, which went to view
Her grace in each degree,
And how her life might be dispatcht,
Thy death we all did see.
O praise, &c.
Confounding shame fall to their share,
And hellish torments sting,
That to the Lords annointed shall
Devise so vile a thing.
O Techburne, what bewitched thee
To have such hate in store,
Against our good and gratious Queene,
That thou must dye therefore?
O praise, &c.
What gaine for traitors can returne,
If they their wish did win?
Or what preferment should they get,
By this their trecherous sinne?
Though forraine power love treason well,
The traitors they dispise,
And they the first that should sustaine
The smart of their devise
O praise, &c.
What cause had Tilney, traitor stout,
Or Abbington likewise,
Against the Lords annointed thus
Such mischeef to devise?
But that the Devill inticed them
Such wicked woorks to render;
For which these seven did suffer death,
The twentith of September.
O praise, &c.
Seven more the next day following
Were drawen from the Tower,
Which were of their confederates
To dye that instant hower:
The first of them was Salsburie,
And next to him was Dun,
Who did complaine most earnestly
Of proud young Babington.
O praise, &c.
Both lords and knights of hye renowne
He ment for to displace,
And likewise all the towers and townes
And cities for to race;
So likewise Jones did much complaine
Of his detested pride,
And shewed how lewdly he did live
Before the time he died.
O praise, &c.
Then Charnock was the next in place
To taste of bitter death;
And praying unto holy saints,
He left his vitall breath.
And in like maner Travers then
Did suffer in that place,
And fearfully he left his life,
With crossing brest and face.
O praise, &c.
Then Gage was stripped in his shirt,
Who up the lather went,
And sought for to excuse him selfe
Of treasons falce intent.
And Bellamie the last of all
Did suffer death that daye;
Unto which end God bring all such
As wish our Queenes decay.
O praise, &c.
O faulce, and foule disloyall men,
What person would suppose
That clothes of velvet and of silke
Should hide such mortall foes?
Or who would think such hidden hate
In men so fair in sight,
But that the Devill can turne him selfe
Into an angell bright.
O praise, &c.
But soveraigne Queene, have thou no care,
For God, which knoweth all,
Will still maintaine thy royall state,
And give thy foes a fall.
And for thy Grace thy subjects all
Will make their praiers still,
That never traitor in this land
May have his wicked will.
O praise, &c.
Whose glorious daies in England heere
The mighty God maintaine,
That long unto thy subjects joye
Thy Grace may rule and raigne.
And, Lord, we pray, for Christes sake,
That all thy secret foes
May come to naught, which seeke thy life
And Englands lasting woes.
O praise the Lord with hart & minde, &c.
The names of 7 Traitors which were executed on Tuesday, being the xx of September, 1586.
John Ballard Preest.
Anthony Babington.
John Savage.
Robert Barnwell.
Chodicus Techburne.
Charles Tilney.
Edward Abbington.
The names of the other vii which were executed on the next day after.
Thomas Salsbury.
Henry Dun.
Edward Jhones.
John Travers.
John Charnock.
Robert Gage.
Harman Bellamy.
Finis. T.D.
[1] Old Ballads, Edited by J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.—The Percy Society.
Imprinted at London at the Long Shop adjoyning unto Saint Mildreds Churche in the Pultrie by Edward Allde.
THE EXECUTION OF LUKE HUTTON.
A tract by Luke Hutton, of which there were two editions, the first without date, and the last in 1638, is very well known, and an account of it may be found in the Bridgewater Catalogue, (privately printed for Lord Francis Egerton) p. 149. Hence it appears also that Hutton was the author of an earlier production, called his “Repentance.” He seems to have been a highwayman and house-breaker, who, being condemned and pardoned, dedicated an affected piece of contrition to Lord Chief Justice Popham; and on subsequent liberation, returned to his old courses, and was hanged at York in 1598. Whether what follows, or indeed anything that goes under his name, were really written by him is very questionable.[1]
Luke Hutton’s Lamentation: which he wrote the day before his death, being condemned to be Hanged at Yorke this last Assises for his robberies and trespasses committed.
TO THE TUNE OF “WANDERING AND WAVERING.”
I am a poore prisoner condemned to dye,
Ah woe is me, woe is me, for my great folly!
Fast fettred in yrons in place where I lie.
Be warned yong wantons, hemp passeth green holly.
My parents were of good degree,
By whom I would not counselled be.
Lord Jesu forgive me, with mercy releeve me,
Receive, O sweet Saviour, my spirit unto thee.
My name is Hutton, yea Luke of bad life,
Ah woe is me, woe is me, for my great folly!
Which on the high way did rob man and wife,
Be warned yong wantons, &c.
Inticed by many a gracelesse mate,
Whose counsel I repent too late.
Lord, &c.
Not twentie yeeres old, alas, was I,
Ah woe is me, woe is me, &c.,
When I begun this fellonie.
Be warned yong wantons, &c.
With me went still twelve yeomen tall,
Which I did my twelve Apostles call.
Lord, &c.
There was no squire nor barron bold,
Ah woe is me, woe is me, for my great folly!
That rode the way with silver or gold,
Be warned yong wantons, &c.
But I and my twelve Apostles gaie
Would lighten their load ere they went away.
Lord, &c.
This newes procured my kins-folkes griefe,
Ah woe is me, woe is me!
They hearing I was a famous theefe,
Be warned yong wantons.
They wept, they wailde, they wrong their hands,
That thus I should hazard life and lands.
Lord, &c.
They made me a jaylor a little before,
Ah woe, &c.
To keep in prison offenders store;
Be warned, &c.
But such a jaylor was never none,
I went and let them out everie one.
Lord, &c.
I wist their sorrow sore grieved me,
Ah, woe is me, &c.
Such proper men should hanged be,
Be warned yong, &c.
My office ther I did defie,
And ran away for company.
Lord, &c.
Three yeeres I lived upon the spoile,
Ah woe is me, &c.
Giving many a carle the foile,
Be warned yong, &c.
Yet never did I kil man nor wife,
Though lewdly long I led my life.
Lord, &c.
But all too bad my deedes hath been,
Ah woe is me, &c.
Offending my country and my good queene,
Be warned yong, &c.
All men in Yorke-shire talke of me;
A stronger theefe there could not be.
Lord, &c.
Upon S. Lukes day was I borne,
Ah woe, &c.
Whom want of grace hath made a scorne,
Be war, &c.
In honor of my birth day then,
I robd in a bravery nineteen men.
Lord, &c.
The country weary to beare this wronge,
Ah woe is me, &c.
With huse and cries pursude me long,
Be war, &c.
Though long I scapt, yet loe at last,
London, I was in Newgate cast.
Lord, &c.
There did I lye with a grieved minde,
Ah woe is me, &c.
Although the keeper was gentle and kinde,
Be warned yong, &c.
Yet was he not so kinde as I,
To let me be at libertie.
Lord, &c.
At last the shiriffe of Yorke-shire came,
Ah woe is me, &c.
And in a warrant he had my name.
Be warned yong, &c.
Said he at Yorke thou must be tride,
With me therefore hence must thou ride.
Lord, &c.
Like pangues of death his words did sound:
Ah woe is me, &c.
My hands and armes full fast he bound.
Be warned, &c.
Good sir, quoth I, I had rather stay,
I have no heart to ride that way.
Lord, &c.
When no entreaty might prevaile,
Ah woe is me, &c.
I calde for beere, for wine and ale;
Be warned, &c.
And when my heart was in wofull case,
I drunke to my friends with a smiling face.
Lord, &c.
With clubs and staves I was garded then;
Ah woe is me, &c.
I never before had such waiting men;
Be warned, &c.
If they had ridden before amaine,
Beshrew me if I had cald them againe.
Lord, &c.
And when into Yorke that I was come,
Ah, &c.
Each one on me did passe their doome;
Be war, &c.
And whilst you live this sentence note,
Evill men can never have good report.
Lord, &c.
Before the judges when I was brought,
Ah woe is me, &c.
Be sure I had a carefull thought,
Be, &c.
Nine score inditements and seaventeene
Against me there was read and seene.
Lord, &c.
And each of these was fellony found,
Ah woe is me, &c.
Which did my heart with sorrow wound,
Be, &c.
What should I heerein longer stay,
For this I was condemned that day.
Lord, &c.
My death each houre I do attend;
Ah woe is me.
In prayer and tears my time I spend:
Be, &c.
And all my loving friends this day
I do intreate for me to pray.
Lord, &c.
I have deserved long since to die:
Ah woe, &c.
A viler sinner livde not then I,
Be, &c.
On friends I hopte my life to save,
But I am fittest for my grave.
Lord, &c.
Adue my loving friends, each one:
Ah woe is me, woe is me, for my great folly!
Thinke on my words when I am gone.
Be warned yong wantons, &c.
When on the ladder you shall me view,
Thinke I am neerer heaven then you.
Lord, &c.
Finis. Hutton.
Printed at London for Thomas Millington. 1598.
[1] Old Ballads, Edited by J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.—The Percy Society.
EXECUTION OF THE CONSPIRATORS.
On Thursday, the 30th of January, 1605, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, were executed at the West End of St. Paul’s; and the next day, January 31, Thomas Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guido Fawkes, were executed in the Old Palace Yard, over against the Parliament House, Westminster, Conspirators in the Powder Plot.
The prisoners, after their condemnation and judgment, being sent back to the Tower, remained there till the Thursday following, on which day four of them, viz., Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, were drawn upon sledges and hurdles to a scaffold erected at the western end of St. Paul’s churchyard. Great pains were taken in the city to render the spectacle of the execution as imposing as possible, Among other arrangements made in order to be prepared against any popular tumult, a precept issued from the Lord Mayor to the Alderman of each ward in the city, requiring him to “cause one able and sufficient person, with a halbard in his hand, to stand at the door of every several dwelling-house in the open street in the way that the traitors were to be drawn towards the place of execution; there to remain from seven in the morning until the return of the Sheriff.”
Now these four above-named being drawn to the scaffold, made on purpose for their execution, first went up Digby, a man of goodly personage, and a manly aspect; yet might a wary eye, in the change of his countenance, behold an inward fear of death, for his colour grew pale and his eye heavy; notwithstanding that he enforced himself to speak, as stoutly as he could. His speech was not long, and to little good purpose, only, that his belied conscience being but indeed a blinded conceit, had led him into this offence, which in respect of his religion, alias indeed idolatry, he held no offence, but, in respect of the law, he held an offence, for which he asked forgiveness of God, of the King, and the whole kingdom; and so, with vain and superstitious crossing of himself, betook him to his Latin prayers, mumbling to himself, refusing to have any prayers of any but of the Romish Catholics: went up the ladder, and with the help of the hangman, made an end of his wicked days in this world.
After him went Winter up the scaffold, where he used few words to any effect, without asking mercy of either God or the King for his offences; went up the ladder, and, making a few prayers to himself, staid not long for his execution.
After him went Grant, who abominably blinded with his horrible idolatry, though he confessed his offence to be heinous, yet would fain have excused it by his conscience for religion; a bloody religion, to make so bloody a conscience; but better that his blood, and all such as he was, should be shed by the justice of the law, than the blood of many thousands to have been shed by his villainy, without law or justice. Having used a few idle words to ill effect, he was, as his fellows before him, led to the halter; and so, after his crossing of himself, to the last part of his tragedy.
Last of them came Bates, who seemed sorry for his offence, and asked forgiveness of God and the King, and of the whole kingdom; prayed to God for the preservation of them all, and, as he said, only for his love to his master, drawn to forget his duty to God, his King, and country, and therefore was now drawn from the Tower to St. Paul’s churchyard, and there hanged and quartered for his treachery. Thus ended that day’s business.
The next day, being Friday, were drawn from the Tower to the old palace in Westminster, over against the Parliament House, Thomas Winter the younger brother, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guido Fawkes, the miner, justly called “the Devil of the Vault;” for had he not been a devil incarnate, he had never conceived so villainous a thought, nor been employed in so damnable an action. Winter first being brought to the scaffold made little speech, but seeming, after a sort, as it were, sorry for his offence, and yet crossing himself, as though those were words to put by the devil’s stoccadadoes, having already made a wound in his soul; of which he had not yet a full feeling, protesting to die a true Catholic, as he said; with a very pale and dead colour went up the ladder, and after a swing or two with a halter, to the quartering-block was drawn, and there quickly despatched.
Next him came Rookwood, who made a speech of some longer time, confessing his offence to God in seeking to shed blood, and asking therefore mercy of his Divine Majesty;—his offence to the King, of whose majesty he likewise humbly asked forgiveness, and his offence to the whole state, of whom in general he asked forgiveness; beseeching God to bless the King, the Queen, and all his royal progeny, and that they might long live to reign in peace and happiness over this kingdom. But last of all, to spoil all the pottage with one filthy weed, to mar this good prayer with an ill conclusion, he prayed God to make the King a Catholic, otherwise a Papist, which God for his mercy ever forbid; and so beseeching the King to be good to his wife and children, protesting to die in his idolatry, a Romish Catholic, he went up the ladder, and, hanging till he was almost dead, was drawn to the block, where he gave his last gasp.
After him came Keyes, who like a desperate villain, using little speech, with small or no show of repentance, went stoutly up the ladder, where, not staying the hangman’s turn, he turned himself off with such a leap, that with the swing he brake the halter, but, after his fall, was drawn to the block, and there was quickly divided into four parts.
Last of all came the great devil of all, Fawkes, alias Johnson, who should have put fire to the powder. His body being weak with torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder, but yet, with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck with the fall; who made no long speech, but after a sort, seeming to be sorry for his offence, asked a kind of forgiveness of the King and the state for his bloody intent; and with his crosses and idle ceremonies, made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of the beholders, that the land was ended of so wicked a villainy.
EXECUTION of Sir WALTER RALEIGH,
Knight, at Westminster, on the 29th of October, Anno 16o, Jacobi Regis, 1618.
Upon Wednesday, the 28th of October, anno dom. 1618, the Lieutenant of the Tower, according to a warrant to him directed, brought Sir Walter Raleigh from the Tower to the King’s Bench Bar at Westminster, where the record of his arraignment at Winchester was opened, and it was demanded why execution should not be done upon him according to law.
He began, in way of answer, to justify his proceedings in the late voyage.
But the Lord Chief Justice told him, That he was therein deceived, and that the opinion of the Court was to the contrary.
Master Attorney General, requiring in the King’s behalf, that execution might be done on the prisoner, according to the aforesaid judgment: the Sheriffs of Middlesex were commanded for that purpose to take him into their custody, who presently carried him to the Gatehouse.
From whence, the next morning, between the Sheriffs of Middlesex, Sir Walter Raleigh was brought to the old Palace Yard in Westminster, where a large scaffold was erected for the execution.
Whereupon, when he came, with a chearful countenance, he saluted the Lords, Knights, and gentlemen there present.
After which, a proclamation was made for silence, and he addressed himself to speak in this manner.
I desire to be borne withal, for this is the third day of my fever, and if I shall shew any weakness, I beseech you to attribute it to my malady, for this is the hour in which it is wont to come.
Then pausing a while, he sat, and directed himself towards a window, where the Lord of Arundel, Northampton, and Doncaster, with some other Lords and Knights, sate, and spake as followeth:
I thank God, of his infinite goodness, that he hath brought me to die in the light, and not in darkness; (But by reason that the place where the Lords, &c., sat, was some distance from the scaffold, that he perceived they could not well hear him, he said) I will strain my voice, for I would willingly have your honours hear me.
But my Lord of Arundel said, nay, we will rather come down to the scaffold, which he and some others did.
Where being come, he saluted them severally, and then began again to speak as followeth, viz.
As I said, I thank God heartily, that he hath brought me into the light to die, and that he hath not suffer’d me to die in the dark prison of misery and cruel sickness; and I thank God that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed to God it might not.
Then a proclamation being made, that all men should depart the scaffold, he prepared himself for death: giving away his hat, his cap, with some money, to such as he knew that stood near him.
And then putting off his doublet and gown, he desired the Headsman to shew him the Ax; which not being suddenly granted unto him, he said, I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of it? so it being given unto him, he felt along upon the edge of it, and smiling, spake unto Mr. Sheriff, saying, this is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician that will cure all diseases.
Then going to and fro upon the scaffold one very side, he intreated the company to pray to God to give him strength.
Then having ended his speech, the Executioner kneeled down and asked him forgiveness, which laying his hand upon his shoulder he gave him.
Then being asked which way he would lay himself on the block, he made answer, and said, so the heart be straight, it is no matter which way the head lieth; so laying his head on the block, his face being towards the east, the Headsman throwing down his own cloak, because he would not spoil the prisoner’s gown, he giving the Headsman a a sign when he should strike, by lifting up his hands, the Executioner struck off his head at two blows, his body never shrinking nor moving; his head was shewed on each side of the scaffold, and then put into a red leather bag, and his wrought velvet gown thrown over it, which was afterwards conveyed away in a mourning coach of his lady’s.
The EXECUTION of
SIR THOMAS ARMSTRONG,
A TRAYTOR,
AT TYBURN,
On FRIDAY, the Twentieth of June, 1684.
The Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, about nine o’clock in the morning, coming to Newgate, and demanding their prisoner, he was forthwith delivered to them, and put into a sledge, and drawn to the place of execution, attended by a numerous guard, and as great a number of spectators, of all degrees and qualities, as have been seen on such occasions. Tho’ he affected an air of courage, yet something of sullenness and reserve appeared in his countenance.
He employed the time he was drawing to Tyburn in reading The Whole Duty of Man, till he came within sight of the gallows, and then he laid it by, and with lifted up hands and eyes, addressed himself to Heaven, till he came beneath the tree, where he remained about a quarter of an hour in the sledge; before he ascended the cart that stood ready for him, he desired the Sheriff to admit Dr. Tenison to come to him; and having delivered a paper to the Sheriff, the Doctor kneeled down with the prisoner, and prayed with him about a quarter of an hour, during all which time the prisoner preserved a becoming and heroick countenance, little daunted with the terror of that fate he was in view of; but rising from his devotions, he pulled off his cravat and hat, which he gave to his servant who attended him, and had followed him by the sledge-side, when kneeling down himself, he prayed for a short time with fervency and devotion, begging pardon of his God for those manifold and crying sins he had been too often guilty of, and concluded with a resignation of himself to the God of heaven and earth, before whose judgment seat he was forthwith to appear, desiring that the whole world would forgive him, with whom he hoped to die in peace and charity. Having thus ended these devotions, he again stood up, and putting off his periwig, he had a white cap delivered to him, which he put on; and being soon ty’d up, the chief of his discourse was addressed to a gentleman who stood by him; and after a short space, holding up his hands, he again renewed his prayers; his visage little changing all the the time, till the very moment the cart drew away; the Executioner having pulled the cap over his eyes, he continued his prayers all the time, and even whilst he hung, as long as life was in him, and he had the command of his lips; after he had hung about half an hour, and the Executioner had divested him of his apparel, he was cut down according to his sentence, his privy members burnt, his head cut off, and shew’d to the people as that of a traitor, his heart and bowels taken out and committed to the flames, and his body quartered into four parts, which, with his head, was convey’d back to Newgate, to be dispos’d of according to his Majesty’s pleasure.
LIFE, TRIAL, & EXECUTION
OF
WILLIAM NEVISON,
THE HIGHWAYMAN, AT YORK GAOL.
William Nevison, the great robber of the north, was born at Pomfret in Yorkshire, 1639, and his parents being in good circumstances, conferred upon him a decent education. But he was badly disposed, and commenced his depredations by stealing cash to the amount of £10 from his own father, then, taking a saddle and bridle, hastened to the paddock and stole his schoolmaster’s horse, and rode with all speed towards London. About a mile or two from the capital he cut the throat of the poor horse, for fear of detection. Arrived in London he changed his name and clothes, and commenced his wild career which at length brought him to an untimely end.
In all his exploits, Nevison was tender to the fair sex, and bountiful to the poor. He was also a true loyalist, and never levied any contributions upon the Royalists. His life was once spared by the royal clemency. He then returned home, and remained with his father until the day of his death. But soon after returned to his former courses, his name became the terror of every traveller on the road. He levied a quarterly tribute on all the northern drovers, and in return not only spared them himself, but protected them against all other thieves, and the carriers who frequented the road willingly agreed to leave certain sums at such places as he appointed, to prevent their being stripped of them all.
After committing a robbery in London, about sunrise, he rode his mare to York in the course of the day, and appeared upon the bowling green of that city before sunset. From this latter circumstance, when brought to trial for the offence, he established an alibi to the satisfaction of the jury, though he was in reality guilty. At length his crimes became so notorious, that a reward was offered to any that would apprehend him. This made many waylay him, especially two brothers named Fletcher, one of whom Nevison shot dead. But though he escaped for a time, he was afterwards apprehended in a public-house at Sandal-three-houses, near Wakefield, by Captain Milton, sent to York gaol, where on the 15th of March, 1685, he was tried, condemned, and executed, aged forty-five.
BOLD NEVISON, the HIGHWAYMAN.
Did you ever hear tell of that hero,
Bold Nevison that was his name?
He rode about like a bold hero,
And with that he gained great fame.
He maintained himself like a gentleman,
Besides he was good to the poor;
He rode about like a bold hero,
And he gain’d himself favour therefore.
Oh the Twenty-first day of last month,
Proved an unfortunate day;
Captain Milton was riding to London,
And by mischance he rode out of his way.
He call’d at Sandal-Houses by the road-side,
The one known by the sign of the Magpie,
There Nevison he sat a drinking,
And the Captain soon he did spy.
Then the captain did very soon send for,
And a constable very soon came;
With three or four men in attendance,
With pistols charged in the King’s name.
They demanded the name of this hero,
“My name it is Jobsons,” said he,
When the captain laid hold by his shoulder,
Saying, “Will Nevison thou goeth with me.”
Oh! then in this very same speech,
They hastened him fast away,
To a place called Swannington bridge,
A place where he used to stay.
They call’d for a tankard of good liquor,
It was the sign of the Black Horse,
Where there was all sorts of attendance,
But for Nevison it was the worst.
He call’d for a pen, ink, and paper,
And these were the words that he said:
“I’ll write for some boots, shoes, and stockings,
For of them I have very much need.”
’Tis now before my lord judge,
Oh! guilty or not do you plead;
He smiled unto the judge and jury,
And these were the words that he said.
“I never robb’d a gentleman of twopence,
But what I gave half to be blest,
But guilty I’ve been all my life time,
So gentleman do as you list.
“It’s when that I rode on the highway,
I’ve always had money in great store,
And whatever I took from the rich,
I freely gave to the poor.
“But my peace I have made with my Maker,
And to be with Him I’ready to draw;
So here’s adieu! to this world and its vanities,
For I’m ready to suffer the law.”
THE TRIAL & EXECUTION
OF
JAMES LOWRY,
By the High Court of Admiralty, at the Old Bailey, on the 18th day of February, 1752, and the
SESSIONS GAOL DELIVERY.
James Lowry was put to the bar and arraigned on an indictment which set forth that he, James Lowry, late commander of the merchant ship Molly, did, on the 24th day of December, in the 24th year of the reign of his present Majesty, on board the said ship Molly, in latitude 49 degrees, 50 minutes, cruelly and violently assault, strike, and beat Kenith Hossick, a mariner, on board the said ship, with a rope the thickness of one inch and a half, over the back, loins, shoulders, head, face, and temples; of which beatings, wounds, and bruises he instantly died. To which indictment the prisoner pleaded not guilty, and put himself upon his country for his trial. To prove which several witnesses were called. After which the prisoner was informed that now was his time to make his defence.
The prisoner then said he had no witnesses as to the fact, but that he thought the log-book would sufficiently support what he had said in his defence, as that the witnesses who had been produced against him had sworn with halters about their necks, in order to screen themselves from their wicked acts of mutiny and piracy, well knowing that if he escaped they must be hanged. And then called several persons to his character; who gave him that of a quiet, humane, good-natured man.
The witnesses being all examined, the judge very impartially summed up the evidence, and gave a most excellent and learned charge to the jury, who withdrew, and in about half an hour returned with a verdict, finding the prisoner “Guilty,” DEATH.
THE SESSIONS GAOL DELIVERY.
On the 19th began the sessions of goal delivery at the same place, and continued till Wednesday, when the following malefactors received sentence of death: James Hays, Richard Broughton, and James Davis, for street robbery; John Powney, for house-breaking; Bernard Angua, Thomas Fox, and Thomas Gale, for forging a note of twenty-four guineas; Ann Lewis, for forging a seaman’s power of attorney; Antonio de Rosa, for the murder of Mr. Fargues, at Hoxton; Joseph Gerardino, for the murder of Christopher Alboni; Thomas Huddle, for returning from transportation; John Andrews, for forgery; and Ann Wilson, for the murder of Ann Ellard.
THE EXECUTION.
On the 25th Capt. Lowry was executed at Execution Dock, pursuant to his sentence in the High Court of Admiralty, upon which occasion was the greatest concourse of spectators that ever was known; and though some of the meanest of the populace were ignorant and impudent enough to insult him as he was carried through the streets in a cart, he behaved with great temper, composure of countenance, and with a manly as well as Christian courage. He declared himself innocent of any intention of murder: said that he had just reason to punish the person for whose death he was to suffer; and that he gave no more than five or six stripes at the most, with the end of a rope; and that he believed his death was occasioned by drinking excessively of rum just before he ordered him to be tied up. On the place from whence he was turned off, he asked the officer in waiting, “If he had not a reprieve for him?” and said he forgave his enemies. His body was carried directly down the water and hung upon a gibbet in the gallions below Woolwich, on the river Thames.
THE TRIAL, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION
OF
JOHN SWAN AND ELIZABETH JEFFRYES,
Who were found guilty at Chelmsford Assizes for the murder of Mr. Joseph Jeffryes, at Walthamstow, in Essex, on the 3rd of July, 1752.
THE TRIAL.
On Tuesday, March 10th, 1752, at the Assizes at Chelmsford, a bill of indictment was found by the Grand Jury for petit treason, against John Swan, for the cruel and wicked murder of his late master, Mr Joseph Jeffryes, of Walthamstow, in the county of Essex, and against Elizabeth Jeffryes, spinster, niece of the deceased, for being, aiding, helping, abetting, assisting, comforting, and maintaining him, the said John Swan, to commit the said murder.—GUILTY DEATH.
THE CONFESSION
On Thursday, the day after her conviction, Miss Jeffryes made a confession, That what Mathews had swore was true, except that part of his being in the house at the time the pistol went off: And that she had had this murder in her thoughts for two years past, but never had a proper opportunity of getting it executed before, till she engaged Swan, and together with Swan, she offered Mathews money to execute it, who agreed to do it; that upon the night the murder was committed, it was agreed between Swan and her, that they should both go up to their chambers, as if they were going to bed, and as soon as the maid had locked her door, and was supposed to be in bed, Miss Jeffryes came out of her own room and went to Swan’s, and said, “Holloh! are you awake?” he answered, “Yes,” and he was not undressed; then she went into her uncle’s room to see if he was asleep, and took a silver tankard, a silver cup, and some silver spoons, from off a chest of drawers in the deceased’s room; then she and Swan went down stairs, and Swan took out a new sack from under the stairs, and she and Swan put the plate, and some pewter and brass which they took off the shelves in the kitchen, into the sack, till she said, I can do no more. Swan and she then drank each a large dram of brandy; then she went upstairs into her own chamber, where it was agreed she should undress herself, and lie till a signal was given by a knock at her door or wainscot, that her uncle was murder’d, then she was to open her window, and cry out, “Diaper! fire and thieves,” to alarm the neighbourhood. She farther says, she accidentally fell asleep as soon almost as in bed; but on a sudden was waked by some noise in a fright, when she laid and listen’d, and heard a violent breathing or gasping, as if somebody was under a difficulty in drawing their breath; then she concluded her uncle was murder’d; and then open’d her window, and made the agreed alarm; directly after which she came down stairs, and Swan let her out of the street door in her shift, when she ran to Mrs Diaper’s door, in the same court-yard; Swan then shut the street-door, and as soon as he heard the neighbours were coming, and thought a sufficient alarm was made, he opened the street-door again in his shirt, and run out as if he was just come out of bed in a fright. She further says, that previous to the excuting this diabolical design, they had taken care to cut the wire of the bell on tke outside, which went from the master’s to the maid’s room, to prevent his calling the maid.
Swan says that he did not do the murder, but that Mathews, who came in at the garden gate, which Swan left open for that purpose, actually did, with one of the deceased’s pistols, which was hanging up in the kitchen; and Swan cut a bullet, which he took out of a draw in the kitchen to make it fit the pistol. And he is implacable against Miss Jeffryes for having made any confession of this melancholy and wicked affair.
On Saturday, March 14th, they received sentence of death; and while the judge was making a moving and pathetic speech before the sentence, Miss Jeffryes fainted away several times, and at last recovered herself, pray’d for as long a time as possible to prepare herself for a future state.
THE EXECUTION.
On the 28th, Swan and Jeffryes were executed on Epping-Forest, near the six milestone in the parish of Walthamstow. Swan was drawn on a sledge, and Miss Jeffryes in a cart, in the midst of the greatest concourse of people of all ranks and conditions, in coaches, &c., on horseback and a-foot, that ever had been seen in the memory of man. At the place of execution Swan was put into the same cart with Miss Jeffryes, She acknowledged to a gentleman, one of the jury, there present, “That her sentence was just.” But, being asked whether Mathews was in the house at the time the murder was committed, she said, “She believed he was not.” She also added that she died in charity with all the world. Swan also confessed to the same gentleman, “That he committed the murder.” And that he believed Mathews was not in the house at the time of the committing the murder, but that he had been there just before. It was observed that these criminals did not so much as speak, touch, or look at one another, during the whole time they were in the cart. Miss Jeffryes fainted when the halter was tied up; and again when placed on a chair (she being short) for the better conveniency of drawing away the cart. Miss Jeffrye’s body was carried away in a hearse to be interred. Swan’s body was immediately after cut down, and hung in chains on the same gibbet.
EXECUTION
OF
Six Unfortunate Malefactors,
AT TYBURN,
YESTERDAY MORNING, AUGUST 30, 1783.
Yesterday the six following malefactors were executed at Tyburn, viz., William Wynne Ryland, for publishing a bill of exchange, purporting to be drawn at Fort Marlborough, in the East Indies, with intent to defraud the Hon. East India Company in London—John Lloyd, otherwise John Ferdinando Lloyd, for a robbery in the dwelling house of John Martin—James Browne, alias Oatley, for burglary—Thomas Burgess, for robbing Thomas Tool, in the Willow Walk, Tothil Fields, of a watch and money—James Rivers, alias Davis, for assaulting Nathaniel Thwaits, at the house of Paul Maylor, Agent, in Broad street, and stealing a bag containing thirty eight guineas—and John Edwards, for personating William Madden, a Marine, with intent to receive his prize-money.
Ryland and Lloyd went each in a mourning coach, and were followed by the others in two carts. Ryland, who led the procession, was dressed in black, and accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Villette and two more persons.
The gallows was fixed about fifty yards nearer the Park wall than usual. About five minutes before eleven o’clock Ryland’s coach drew on the right of the gallows, as did Lloyd’s on the left, and between them the cart; soon after which a violent storm of thunder, lightening, and rain came on, when the Sheriffs gave orders for a delay of the execution. When the storm had subsided, and some time had been employed in prayer, River was lifted from one cart into the other, which backing to Lloyd’s coach, he alighted therefrom, and entered the vehicle. After the ropes had been fixed about their necks, Ryland stepped from the coach to join his unhappy fellow-sufferers. Alter a conversation of at least ten minutes between Ryland and Mr. Villette, Ordinary of Newgate, and the same time employed in an earnest discourse between Lloyd and Burgess, all the Malefactors joined in singing the hymn, called “The Sinner’s Lamentation.” The cart was then driven away, and all were nearly at the same instant motionless.
At the place of execution, Lloyd confessed to the Ordinary of Newgate, that he was the person who robbed Mr. Worters, near Woodford, in company with Chesterman, alias Jones, (who was executed last week at Chelmsford) and that Thomas (who is now under sentence of death at Chelmsford) is innocent of that robbery. Three people swore that they saw Thomas in company with Chesterman a few minutes before and after the robbery, and one man positively swore that Thomas was one of the men who turned round to shoot at Mr. Jones, the Surgeon, who was pursuing them. Mr. Jones, in his evidence before Sir Sampson Wright, said, that he did not belive that Thomas was one of the highwaymen, but had no doubt about Chesterman. The Rev. Mr. Villette requested Mr. Jones to attend yesterday morning in Newgate, to hear Lloyd’s confession: Mr. Jones did attend, and Lloyd, in the most solemn manner, assured him that he was the man who robbed Worters, with Chesterman, and that Thomas was innocent of that robbery.
THE LAMENTATIONS OF A SINNER.
O Lord, turn not thy face from me,
Who lie in woeful state,
Lamenting all my sinful life
Before thy mercy-gate;
A gate which opens wide to those
That do lament their sin:
Shut not that gate against me, Lord,
But let me enter in.
And call me not to strict account,
How I have sojourn’d here;
For then my guilty conscience knows
How vile I shall appear.
I need not to confess my life
To thee, who best can tell
What I have been, and what I am;
I know thou know’st it well.
The circumstances of my crimes,
Their number and their kind,
Thou know’st them all; and more, much more
Than I can call to mind:
Therefore, with tears, I come to beg
Of my offended God,
For pardon, like a child that dreads
His angry parent’s rod.
So come I to thy mercy-gate,
Where mercy doth abound,
Imploring pardon for my sin,
To heal my deadly wound.
O Lord, I need not to repeat
The comfort I would have:
Thou know’st, O Lord, before I ask,
The blessing I do crave.
Mercy, good Lord, mercy I ask,
This is the total sum;
For mercy, Lord, is all my suit;
Lord, Let thy mercy come!
ACCOUNT OF THE
TRIAL AND EXECUTION
OF
JOHN AUSTIN.
Convicted at the OLD BAILEY on Saturday, Nov. 1st, 1783, of a Cruel Highway Robbery on JOHN SPICER, a Poor Man.
This robbery was so peculiarly inhuman and aggravated, that the circumstances attending it are too interesting to the public not to be given in the detail; nor perhaps can the Old Bailey afford an instance more odious, or more reflecting on the depravity of human nature.
John Spicer, the prosecutor, of Cray, in Kent, a poor labouring man, was coming to town on the Tuesday before, with his bundle, where he was a total stranger, in order to get into work, and met with the prisoner at Ilford, where they joined company, and travelled to town together. The prisoner, during their travelling together, sifted the prosecutor, and got out of him the nature of his journey, and what little property he was possessed of, undertook to get him a lodging, provide him a master, and to show him about London. After eating, drinking, and sleeping together on the road at different places, they arrived in town on the Thursday, when the prisoner took Spicer to a public house in Whitechapel, and left him there, pretending to go out after a lodging.
Under this specious shew of friendship, Spicer was left for three or four hours, when a man whose name is Patrick Bowman (who also stands indicted, but is not yet taken) came to Spicer with a plausible apology for Austin’s leaving him so long, and desired Spicer to go with him to Austin, who had got him a lodging. This the credulous prosecutor assented to, and Bowman took him to another public-house, where they joined Austin, and from thence they all went out, as Spicer thought, towards the lodging; but when he found himself in the middle of a field, out of the high road, by the side of a ditch, no house near, nor anything to be seen but the lights of some distant lamps, he observed that it was a very comical place to look after a lodging; upon which Austin retired a little, and Patrick Bowman drew a cutlass, with which he kept chopping at the hands, wrists, arms, body, and head of the prosecutor, and mangled him in a most shocking manner. Spicer resisted this attack, and would have got the better of Bowman, if Austin had not come up to Bowman’s assistance; for when the poor wretch, thinking he had a firm friend in Austin, called out, “O John, won’t you come and help me!” Austin immediately seized him by the collar with one hand the inside of his handkerchief, and with the other caught hold of his legs, and threw him down, when they rifled him of the things mentioned in the indictment, Spicer crying out, “O John, I hope you won’t be against me.”
This cruel attack on the prosecutor happened to be overheard by one James Story, a servant to Mr. Wells, a gardener, who rushing out to the poor man’s assistance, Austin and Bowman made off, and Story ran after to apprehend them, and overtook them, but Bowman and Austin facing about, one with a stick, the other with a cutlass, in order to attack him, he retreated to Spicer, whom he found in a most mangled condition, and took him to his master, from whence he was sent to the hospital, without hopes of recovery.
This was confirmed by Mr. Wells, who did everything in his power to comfort, assist, and stop the bleeding and wounds. Early the next morning, Story saw the prisoner coming towards the spot where this brutal scene took place, and looking about him; Story asked him what he was looking for, to which Austin replied, for some money that had been lost there; upon which Story, who before had some suspicions, apprehended Austin, and secured him in his master’s stables; he was observed by Mr. Wells to secret a silk handkerchief and a pair of stockings in the rack, which turned out to be the prosecutor’s property, and on Austin being shown to Spicer, was fixed on by him. This was the evidence, except the prisoner’s cloaths being wet with blood when apprehended, which was proved by Story and Mr. Wells, and one Yardly, a constable, proved that Bowman and Austin has been companions on board the lighters together.
Being called on for his defence, he said, that he acted from the impulse of fear, and that he should not have assisted in the robbery but for the dread and threats of Bowman. The Jury without hesitation found him guilty; and the Recorder, who tried the prisoner, first consulting with Baron Eyre and Judge Nares, said he thought the case of such a nature that he should immediately pass sentence of death. Austin being asked the usual question of what he had to say why judgment of death should not be pronounced against him, replied, “I don’t fear death, as I am not guilty, and shall die innocent.”
The Recorder then addressed the prisoner as follows:—
John Austin, you have been tried and convicted by a just and yet merciful jury, upon the most clear and satisfactory evidence. So horrid a crime as you have been guilty of, in its nature so audacious and inhuman, calls aloud for the very severe and immediate interposition of justice. It has been the declared intention of our merciful Sovereign, that he will never shew any compassion to such wretches as you, who add cruelty to robbery, and whose attacks on the property of his peaceable and honest subjects are accompanied with acts, whereby the crime of murder may be added to that of robbery. Everybody must applaud a resolution founded on the strictest justice and necessity. It is peculiarly my duty to further his royal intentions, by making my report of such criminals as you the first opportunity after conviction; and, therefore, to carry his Majesty’s purpose into effect, I shall report you as a fit object of punishment with all possible speed. Your crime has been accompanied with every speices of aggravation. Under the mask of friendship you have robbed a poor innocent man, deluded by your treacherous designs, and your false friendship: it is further aggravated by the baseness and inhumanity of your deceit, which cannot intitle you to any instance of mercy, but requires that you may be made an example of immediate justice. On Monday, therefore, I shall make the report of you to his Majesty. I advise you to prepare your soul for that fate which I am now about to pronounce against you.
The Recorder then pronounced the usual sentence, and the prisoner was taken from the bar.
THE EXECUTION.
Yesterday morning was executed, at Tyburn, John Austin, convicted last Saturday of robbing John Spicer in a field adjoining the highway at Bethnal green, and cutting and wounding him in a cruel manner. From Newgate to Tyburn the convict behaved with great composure. While the halter was tying, the unhappy wretch trembled in a very extraordinary manner, his whole frame appearing to be violently convulsed. The Ordinary having retired from the cart, the convict addressed himself to the surrounding populace in the following words, “Good people, I request your prayers for the salvation of my departing soul; let my example teach you to shun the bad ways I have followed; keep good company, and mind the word of God.” The cap being drawn over his face, he raised his hands, and cried, “Lord have mercy on me, Jesus look down with pity on me, Christ have mercy on my poor soul;” and while uttering these exclamations, the cart was driven away. The noose of the halter having slipped to the back part of his neck, it was full ten minutes before he was dead.
THE TRIAL & SENTENCES
OF ALL THE
PRISONERS,
WHICH COMMENCED
On WEDNESDAY, the 11th of APRIL,
AT
JUSTICE HALL IN THE OLD BAILEY,
WITH AN
ACCOUNT OF THE PILLORY
OF
JOHN LINGARD,
FOR PERJURY.
On the 14th, The sessions ended at the Old-bailey, when fourteen prisoners were tried, seven were cast for transportation, and seven acquitted. Seven received sentence of death. One transported for fourteen years. Twenty-nine transported for seven years. Two branded. Three whipp’d. One pillory’d, imprison’d, and transported.
JOHN LINGARD, PILLORY’D FOR PERJURY.
On the 18th. A few minutes after twelve at noon, Lingard, found guilty of perjury in swearing Mr. Coleman’s life away, was brought from the New Goal to the pillory, near St. George’s church, Southwark, were the executioner was several minutes before he could get his head fix’d; as soon as he had done his business and left the scaffold, the people, who universally expressed their detestation and abhorrence of the criminal, began their attack upon him in a very furious manner, by throwing at him mud, stones, and sticks, so that it was imagined he would not get off alive; however, the mob, which was very great, moderated their rage, and though the pelting never entirely ceased, it, at last, considerably abated: he got his head twice out of the hole, but it was soon fixed again by some who used him but roughly. He waved his hands in a suppliant manner, begging for mercy, and though he had a tin scull plate under his cap, he was cut in the left side of his head, and the blood ran down his face, He was taken down in a dirty condition, about a quarter before one, and had not been kept in the pillory above half an hour. This perjured villain formerly kept a public house near Newington, in Surry; was a marshall’s court officer, and frequently employed as crier of the court.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION
OF
JOHN HOGAN,
FOR
MURDER,
JANUARY 13th, 1786.
THE TRIAL.
In the course of the trial on Friday, the 13th, of Hogan, the mulatto, for the murder of the servant maid of Mr Orrell, of Charlotte street, Portland place, the following circumstances appeared:—That as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Orrell got into their house, the latter found her servant reclining against the wall of the kitchen, besmeared with blood; and on screaming out, Mr. Orrell ran into the kitchen, and seeing the girl in this situation, said, “Nanny! for God’s sake what have you been doing?”—She however being unable to make any answer, Mr. Orrell alarmed his next door neighbour, and a surgeon was sent for, who however pronounced her too much wounded to recover: she was however sent to an hospital, where she expired. Her head-dress had been entirely torn off, and thrown on the ground, which was covered with blood, as were her handkerchief, gown, &c. Her skull was fractured violently; her left eye was beaten almost out of its socket; her cheekbones were both broken; her chin was cut; her neck and throat both cut; several wounds on her breast, particularly a large circular one; her left arm broke, and her right arm and wrist both cut. The instrument with which the wounds had been made was a razor; and notwithstanding it had been thrown into a fire, the spots of blood were not erased. It appeared in the course of the evidence, that on the prisoner (after very strong suspicions had been formed of his guilt) being taken to the body of the deceased, he appeared not in the least agitated, but putting his hand on her breast, said, “My dear Nanny, I do remember you very well: I never did you harm in my life?” These expressions very forcibly added to the suspicions of his guilt, because her face was so exceedingly cut and mangled, that Mr. Orrell declared he himself could not possibly have known her. Two other circumstances which tended to criminate him were a spot of blood on a waistcoat which he wore, and some slight marks of blood on one of the sleeves of his coat; which coat had been washed, though the blood on the sleeve remained; and an effort seemed to have been made, but in vain, to rub out the spot of blood from the waistcoat. The principal evidence against him was the woman with whom he cohabited, who deposed that he brought her home a cloak, which he said he had bought on condition of paying for at the rate of so much a week. The cloak was produced in Court, and Mrs Orrell swore to it as her property. The deponent further said, that after Hogan had been twice taken before a magistrate, and discharged for want of sufficient evidence, he at intervals appeared to me very uneasy; that, particularly, he could not sleep in his bed; that she finding him thus restless, said to him one night, “For God’s sake what is the matter with you? Surely you are not guilty of what you have been taken up for?” That his answer was, “Yes, I am!—I am guilty!—I did it!”—She then was much troubled in mind, and apprehended fatal consequences to herself from having been connected with him; particularly as he said to her, “You must say nothing:—you must be quiet; for if I be hanged, you will be hanged with me.”
The circumstances which afterwards providently contributed, in conjunction with the above, to lead to the discovery of the horrid deed, are well known to the public. It is only necessary to observe that on the last mentioned evidence asking him why he had murdered the young woman, he answered, “Because he wanted to be great with her, and she resisted him.”
The razor with which the murder was committed was produced in Court, and the heart of every spectator shuddered at itc appearance.
THE EXECUTION.
On Monday morning Hogan was executed on a gibbet erected opposite Mr. Orrell’s house. A great concourse of people attended the execution; but it has been seldom seen that a malefactor has died so little pitied as Hogan. Before being turned off, the prisoner bowed four times to the populace, and in an audible voice, confessed himself guilty of the murder, for which he was to suffer.
The Trial, Confession, and Execution
OF
JOSEPH RICHARDS,
For the Cruel and Wicked Murder of Walter Horseman.
THE TRIAL.
Old Bailey, February 24th, 1786.
Joseph Richards was arraigned for the wilful murder of Walter Horseman, milkman, in Kentish Town. The deceased’s widow deposed, that the prisoner was formerly a servant to her husband; that he was discharged for negligence; that he had frequently threatened vengeance on the deceased; that on the morning the murder was committed, she was awakened by a noise, and on entering the room her husband slept in, she found him sitting up in the bed, and as far as his waist in blood; that a stick which the prisoner had cut some time before, lay in the room, and an iron bar, covered with blood; that her husband was mangled in a shocking manner:—he lingered a few days, and died a shocking spectacle.
Four other witnesses were examined, whose testimony proved certain corroborating circumstances; such as, being from his lodging the night the murder was committed, being seen to melt lead, and to pour it into the stick that was found in the deceased’s room, &c.
The prisoner confessed the murder to one of the magistrates who committed him for trial; but pleaded Not Guilty at the bar.
The jury, after a few minutes’ consideration, brought in their verdict Guilty.
Mr. Recorder pronounced judgment. He said the voice of innocent blood cried to heaven for vengeance. He dwelt upon the atrociousness of the crime of murder, observing, that the Divine Law had ordained, that whoever sheddeth man’s blood, &c., and then expatiated on the peculiar circumstances of the murder, the murder of an innocent master, to whom he owed duty and reverence.
The sentence was then passed as usual, that he be hanged till dead, and anatomized; and an order of Court was made out, to execute him on Monday, at Kentish Town, as near as possible to the house of the deceased.
THE EXECUTION.
Joseph Richards, a youth about eighteen, who was convicted on Friday last, for the wilful murder of Walter Horseman, with whom he lived servant, was executed at Kentish Town, opposite the house where the horrid fact was perpetrated. The malefactor came out of Newgate about twenty minutes before eight o’clock, and with some alertness stepped into the cart, which conveyed him through Smithfield, Cow Cross, and by the two small-pox hospitals to the spot, where he was removed from that society of which he had proved himself a most unworthy member, at a time of life when such atrocity of guilt as he possessed has been seldom known to degrade humanity. In his way to the place of execution, the convict appeared to be in a state of mind bordering upon stupefaction; he had no book, nor did he employ the short remnant of time in those preparations for eternity which his miserable situation rendered so indispensably necessray.
Before being turned off, the prisoner desired to see the widow of the deceased; she was sent for to her house, but was gone to London; he declared he had no accomplice in the fact, and that he was induced to the perpetration thereof by the supposition, that after the decease of his master he should succeed to his business as a milkman. Just before coming to the village, he burst into tears, and when he came to the place of execution, wept bitterly; his expressions of sorrow and contrition being only interrupted by fervent appeals to Heaven for mercy till the last moment of his existence.
Old Bailey Intelligence.—Execution of Six Unfortunate Malefactors, and the Barbarious Execution and Burning of Phœbe Harris, for Coining Silver, on the 21st of June, 1786.
The following male convicts, viz., Edward Griffiths, George Woodward, William Watts, Daniel Keefe, Jonathan Harwood, and William Smith, were executed pursuant to their sentence, on the scaffold usually erected opposite Newgate. They were brought out at half-past seven in the morning, and the platform dropped about eight o’clock. Woodward was so exceedingly weak, that he was obliged to sit down till the executioneer had tied up the rest, and was then supported by two men.
The Barbarious Execution and Burning of Phœbe Harris.
Soon after the above execution, Phœbe Harris, convicted the session before last of coining silver, was brought out at the debtor’s door, from whence she walked to a stake fixed in the ground, about half way between the scaffold and Newgate street. She was immediately tied by the neck to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake, and after praying very fervently for a few minutes, the steps on which she stood were drawn away, and she immediately became suspended. The executioner, with some assistants, put a chain round her body, which was fastened by strong nails to the stake. Two cart-loads of faggots were then piled round her, and after she had hung about half an hour, the fire was kindled. The flames presently burning the halter, the convict fell a few inches, and was then suspended by the iron chain passed over her chest and affixed to the stakes. Some scattered remains of the body were perceptible in the fire at half-past ten o’clock. The fire had not quite burnt out even at twelve. The unhappy woman was so exceedingly affected on Monday night, that it was generally supposed (and indeed wished) that she could not have survived.
Phœbe Harris was a well made little woman, something more than thirty years of age, of a pale complexion, and not of disagreeable features. When she came out of prison she appeared languid and terrified, and trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake, where the apparatus for the punishment she was about to experience seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of recollectedness in preparation for the approaching awful moment. A great concourse of people attended on the melancholy occasion.
THE GAOL DELIVERY,
AND THE
TRIALS AND SENTENCES
OF ALL THE PRISONERS
AT THE OLD BAILEY SESSIONS,
TOGETHER WITH A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE
EXECUTION OF FIFTEEN UNFORTUNATE CONVICTS.
The April sessions ended at the Old Bailey, on the 25th, when 13 convicts received judgment of death; 60 were sentenced to be transported, two of whom, for stripping children, are to be sent to Africa, the other women to New South Wales; 8 to be imprisoned in Newgate; 1 to hard labour in the house of correction; 5 to be whipped; and 31 discharged by proclamation.
Elizabeth Kirvan, a convict for forgery, whose execution was respited on her plea of pregnancy, is referred to her former judgment, she not being pregnant.
The sessions of the peace is adjourned until Monday the 21st day of May next at Guildhall; and the sessions of Goal-Delivery of Newgate, until Wednesday, the 23rd day of the same month, at the old Bailey.
APRIL 26.
EXECUTIONS.
The following 15 convicts were brought out of Newgate on the platform erected before the Debtor’s-door, and executed pursuant to their sentence, viz., Francis Parr, for personating Isaac Hart, the proprietor of £3,900 3 per cent. consolidated annuities, with intent to defaud the said Isaac Hart and the Govenor and Company of the Bank of England; William Trapshaw, for breaking open, in the day-time the apartments of James Linney, in a house let to several tenants, and stealing a linen gown and an apron, no person being then therein; Joseph Mullagan, James Coleman, and John Williamson Halfey, for breaking and entering the dwelling house of Joseph Stokes, in the parish of St. Catherine, and stealing a sheet, a blanket, and other things; Charles Baker, for breaking and entering the dwelling house of William Watson, in the parish of St Matthew, Bethnal-green, and stealing several small casks, containing a quantity of spirituous liquors; William Dwyre, for feloniously and traitorously counterfeiting the current coin of this kingdom, called six-pences, by coloring certain pieces of brass with a certain liquid composition producing the color of silver; Charles Shaw, for assaulting John Hughes on the highway in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and robbing him of a silver watch, &c.; John Walker and John Evans, for assaulting William Stevenson on the highway, in Old-street, and robbing him of a silver watch, two guineas and a half, some silver, and a dollar; Elizabeth Sedgewick, for setting fire to the premises of her master, Mr. John Taylor, at Feltham-hill, Middlesex; Michael Daily and Elizabeth Connolly, for stealing in the dwelling-house of Mrs. Catherine Plomer, in Howland street, Oxford road, a gold watch, a silver watch, several articles of plate, and a quantity of wearing apparel; John-Pousarque Dubois, for breaking into the dwelling-house of John Grant, in Cockspur street, and stealing a gold watch, a silver watch, a metal watch, and other things; and John Adamson, for assaulting Samuel Horne, on the highway, near the Opera-house, in the Haymarket, and taking from him, by force, a metal watch in a shagreen case. They all behaved very penitent.
D. W. Murcutt, Printer, Stationer, &c., Long Acre, London.
EXECUTION
OF
EIGHT CONVICTS
ON THE
NEW SCAFFOLD FOR EXECUTING CRIMINALS
IN THE
OLD BAILEY.
April 24, 1787.
Yesterday morning the following convicts were executed on the newly-invented temporary scaffold, placed before the debtors’ door of Newgate:—John Burn, Daniel Gunter, James Francis, and John Green, convicted in January sessions; and William Ludlam, William Oakes, John Bishop, alias John Buller, and James Haylock, alias Hullock, formerly a runner at a public office, convicted in February sessions.—After divine service in the chapel of Newgate, the prisoners were brought out of the gaol, and six of them having joined the ordinary in devout prayer, and chaunted the usual psalm (the others, being two Roman Catholicks, were attended by a priest of that persuasion). At nine o’clock the platform dropped, and in a few moments they showed no signs of life. They were fervent in their devotions, and all of them appeared to die sincerely penitent.
The scaffold on which these miserable people suffered is a temporary machine, which was drawn out of the yard of the sessions-house by horses; it had this day only one beam fixed; and upon a bolt being drawn, the platform dropped, leaving the malefactors suspended in a manner similar to that of the scaffold lately in use.
After the convicts were cut down, the gallows was drawn back to the sessions-house yard; and the whole cleared away in half-an-hour’s time.
An Account of the new-invented Scaffold for Executing Criminals in the Old Bailey.
We imagine that an accurate representation of the new mode of executing criminals in the Old Bailey, which does so much honour to the present worthy Sheriffs, will hardly fail of giving satisfaction to such, at least, as do not reside near the metropolis.
The whole of this temporary erection is hung in black. The criminals are attended by the proper officers and the Ordinary of Newgate, from their cells to the centre part of the scaffold, which is a platform raised about two or three inches above the general floor, and directly under the gallows: here, after the usual prayers and solemnities, the rope is tied up, and, at the Sheriff’s signal, the executioner pulls away a staple, which loosens a bar that supports the platform, and the platform then falls in: and this, being much more sudden and regular than that of a cart being drawn away, has the effect of immediate death. During the whole time of this awful spectacle, a full-toned bell, which is suspended above the roof of this part of the prison, is solemnly tolled; but as it is fixed so far on the roof as not to be in sight, it does not appear. The scaffold is supported by strong posts, fixed into grooves made in the street, and the whole is temporary, being all calculated to take to pieces, which are preserved within the prison.
FULL ACCOUNT OF THE
EXECUTION OF
FIVE UNFORTUNATE SAILORS,
VIZ.,—
MICHAEL COX, MARTIN EALEY, JOHN SULLIVAN, ROBERT M’LAURIN, and WILLIAM MORRIS.
AND HIS MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY’S ROYAL PARDON
OF
JOHN FLINT, GEORGE WYTHICK, JOHN LAWSON, and WILLIAM HANDY.
And the Sentence passed on Capt. Affleck, late of the Amethyst.
At Sheerness, on the eighth day of this month, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the signal for Execution was made on board of the Defiance man-of-war by firing a gun, and hoisting a yellow flag at the fore-top-gallant-mast head: a lieutenant, in a boat manned and armed, was sent from each ship to witness the awful scene: the crews of the respective ships were called on deck, and the articles of war read to them by their captains, who afterwards warned them to take examples from the fate of the unhappy men who were about to suffer. The Rev. Dr. Hatherall, chaplain of the Sandwich, administered the sacrament to all of them, except Michael Cox and Martin Ealey, who were Roman Catholics; after praying with them for some time, they were brought on deck, and the ropes fixed around their necks, when John Flint, George Wythick, John Lawson, and William Handy were made acquainted that His Majesty had been pleased to pardon them.
Handy, who had a wife and child on board, immediately ran down to her, and fainted in her arms, which presented a most affecting scene. The tear of thankfulness and joy adorned the cheeks of the hardy tars; and Lawson addressing the clergyman, said, “I am afraid I shall never again be so well prepared for eternity.”
At a quarter past eleven, the signal for the execution of the remainder was made, by firing a gun, when Michael Cox, Robert M’Laurin, John Sullivan, Martin Ealey, and William Morrison, were launched into eternity. After hanging the usual time, their bodies were sent on shore, to the agent at sick quarters, for interment.
These unhappy men suffered for a mutiny on board the Defiance, then in Leith roads, in the month of October last.
Portsmouth, March 16th, 1796.
The following is the sentence passed yesterday at Portsmouth, on Captain Thomas Affleck, late of the Amethyst frigate, for the loss of that ship: “That the loss of His Majesty’s ship Amethyst was occasioned by her striking on a rock near the island of Guernsey, and by a hole being thereby beaten in her bottom; and that the same was attributable to the misconduct of the said captain, Thomas Affleck; and the court do adjudge him to be reduced from his rank on the list of post captains to the bottom of the said list, and to be incapable of being again employed in His Majesty’s naval service for the remainder of his life; and the court further agree, that the loss of the said ship was not attributable to any misconduct in any other of the officers or company of the said ship, and do adjudge them to be acquitted.”
W. Parker, Printer, Portsmouth and Gosport.
THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION
OF
MARTIN CLINCH & SAMUEL MACKLEY,
For the Wicked Murder of Mr. Fryer, in Islington Fields.
THE TRIAL.
At the Old Bailey, Martin Clinch and Samuel Mackley were capitally convicted of the wilful murder of Mr Fryer, in the parish of St. Mary, Islington. It appears by the evidence, that the deceased and his cousin, Miss Fryer, were walking across the fields in their way from Southampton Buildings, Holborn, towards Islington: that, when they arrived at the field called the cricket field, near White Conduit house, they heard a noise, as of some person in distress; this induced the deceased to go to the spot. At this time, Miss Fryer, the principal witness on this occasion, was at some distance from him. By the time she came to the stile, which she had crossed in his way to the place, she saw Clinch fire, when the deceased fell into a small pond. Clinch then took his watch out of his fob, and a sum of money out of his pocket. By this time Miss Fryer had got on the other side of the stile, when the prisoner, Mackley, held a pistol to her head, and took her cloak from her. They then went away, and Mr. Fryer was taken to a house at a short distance from the spot, where he died at eleven o’clock the same evening. The evidence in support of the above statement, as given by Miss Fryer, was clear, artless, and unembarassed. When asked if she really believed Clinch to be the man who shot Mr Fryer, she said she believed from her soul he was; with regard to Mackley, she seemed not quite so positive; several witnesses, however, proved his being seen in the same field within a few minutes of the time the murder happened, who all had noticed him, on account of his having red hair. The prisoners being called on for their defence, they only said they were innocent, but could give no account where they were at the time the murder was committed. The jury went out for about half an hour, and returned with a verdict—Guilty.
The sessions being ended, the same were adjourned until Wednesday, July 12, 1797.
THE EXECUTION.
Yesterday morning were executed at the front of Newgate, Martin Clinch and Samuel Mackley, for the daring robbery and cruel murder of Mr Fryer, in Islington fields. An extremely disagreeable circumstance occurred shortly before the period which is usually allowed to men in their unfortunate situation. The floor of the scaffold, from some previous misarrangement, gave way, and precipitated into the area of the apparatus, Messrs Vilette and Gaffy, the latter a Catholic priest, who attended Clinch, and the two executioners; Mr. Sheriff Stains had himself a very narrow escape. Mr. Gaffy being a lusty man was severely hurt, as were both the executioners; Mr Vilette escaped with a slight bruise. The two unfortunate malefactors swung off with their distorted features exposed to the view of the distressed spectators. By the laudable activity of Mr. Ramsden, the prison surgeon, however, the cap was drawn over their faces afterwards. Their bodies were removed to a proper place for the purposes of dissection and exposure. They both denied to the last moment having had any concern in the murder.
Pitts, Printer, Toy and Marble Warehouse, 6, Great St. Andrew Street, London.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
COURT MARTIAL, SENTENCE, AND EXECUTION
OF
RICHARD PARKER FOR MUTINY,
Held on board His Majesty’s ship the NEPTUNE, lying in the river Thames, off Greenhithe.
The Court was formed on Thursday, June 22, 1797, and the prisoner was charged with making, and having endeavoured to make, a mutiny among the seamen of His Majesty’s ships at the Nore; with having caused assemblies of these seamen to meet frequently, and with having behaved himself contemptuously toward and disobeyed his officers.
Captain Moss, of the Sandwich, was the prosecutor, and after the whole of the evidence had been gone through, the prisoner was ordered to withdraw, and the court was cleared for the purpose of leaving the members to deliberate on the sentence.
In two hours and a half the Court was re-opened, and the prisoner being called in, the sentence of the Court was read by the Judge Advocate to the following purport:—“That Richard Parker do suffer death, and to be hanged by the neck on board of one of His Majesty’s ships, and at such time as the Lords of the Admiralty may think proper.”
On Friday, June 30, at eight o’clock in the morning, a gun was fired from on board His Majesty’s ship L’Espion, lying off Sheerness garrison, Vice-Admiral Lutwidge’s flag ship, and the yellow flag, the signal of capital punishment, was hoisted, which was immediately repeated by the Sandwich hoisting the same colour on her fore-top. At half-past eight Parker was told the chaplain was ready to attend him. He now requested a minute to collect himself, and knelt down in prayer, then, rising up, said, “I am ready,” and holding his head up, said to the boatswain’s mate, “take off my handkerchief,” which being done, the Provost-Marshal placed the halter over his head (which had been prepared with grease), but doing it awkwardly, the prisoner said rather pettishly to the boatswain’s mate, “Do you do it, for he seems to know nothing about it!” The halter was then spliced to the reeved rope; all this being adjusted, the Marshal attempted to put a cap on, which he refused; but on being told it was indispensible, he submitted, requesting it might not be pulled over his eyes till he desired it. He then turned round for the first time, and gave a steady look at his shipmates on the forecastle, and, with an affectionate kind of a smile, nodded his head, and said, “Good-bye to you!” He now said, “Captain Moss, is the gun primed?” “It is.” “Is the match alight” “All is ready.” He now ascended the platform, repeated the same questions about the gun, then the cap being drawn over his face, walking by firm degrees up to the extremity of the scaffold, he dropped the handkerchief, put his hands in his coat pocket with great rapidity, and at the moment as he was springing off, the fatal bow-gun fired, and the reeve rope catching him, run him up, though not with great velocity, to the yard arm. When suspended about midway, his body appeared extremely convulsed for a few seconds, immediately after which no appearance of life remained. He suffered exactly at half-past nine, and was lowered down, after hanging at the yard-arm a full hour, when the yellow flag was struck, and his body instantly put into a shell that had been prepared for it, with all his clothes on; and soon after it was taken in one of the Sandwich’s boats and rowed to the east point of the garrison, and there being landed was carried to the new naval burying ground, out of the Red Barrier Gate, leading to Minster; the coffin lid was here taken off to the spectators for a few minutes; his countenance appeared not much altered, but his eyes were wide open. He was interred exactly at noon. His body was afterward secretly taken up, and conveyed to London, and decently interred in Whitechapel church yard.
THE DEATH OF PARKER.
Ye Gods above protect the widow,
And with pity look on me,
Help me, help me out of trouble,
And out of all calamity.
For by the death of my brave Parker,
Fortune has proved to me unkind,
Tho’ doom’d by law he was to suffer
I can’t erase him from my mind.
Parker he was my joyful husband,
My bosom friend I love so dear;
At the awful moment he was going to suffer
I was not allowed to come near.
In vain I strove, in vain I ask’d
Three times o’er and o’er again,
But they replied you must be denied,
You must return on shore again.
First time I ’tempted my love to see
I was obliged to go away,
Oppres’t with grief and broken hearted
To think that they should me stay.
I thought I saw the yellow flag flying,
A signal for those who was to die;
A gun was fired as they required,
As the time it did draw nigh.
The boatswain did his best endeavour
To get me on shore without delay,
When I stood trembling and confounded,
Ready to take his body away.
Though his trembling hand did wave
As a signal of farewell,
The grief I suffered at this moment
No heart can paint, no tongue can tell.
My fleeting spirit I thought would follow
The soul of him I lov’d most dear,
No friend or neighbour would come nigh me,
For to ease me of grief or care.
Every moment I thought an hour
Till the law its course had run;
I wished to finish the doleful task
His imprudence first began.
In the dead of the night ’tis silent,
And all the world are fast asleep;
My trembling heart that knows no comfort
O’er his grave does often weep.
Each lingering minute that passes
Brings me nearer to his grave,
Where we shall shine in endless glory,
Never to be parted more.
Farewell Parker, thou bright genius,
That was once my only pride;
Tho’ parted now it won’t be long
E’er I’m buried by thy side.
All you that see my tender ditty,
Don’t laugh at me in disdain,
But look down with eyes of pity,
For it is my only claim.
Pitts, Printer, Toy and Marble Warehouse, 9, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials.
Trial and Execution of Mary Nott, for the dreadful Murder of a French emigrant; and the Trial and Execution of Richard Ludman and Eleanor Hughes, for the Murder of George Hebner in a Brothel.
Mary Nott was tried at the Old Bailey, for the wilful murder of the Count de Greffiere de Laval, a French emigrant. It appeared in evidence, that she had the care of a house, which was let out in lodgings, in Monmouth court, Whitcomb street, the front room on the first floor of which was occupied by the count. The lodger in the room adjoining, not hearing the count as usual, had, for several mornings, enquired after him; when the prisoner said she supposed he was gone into the country with a French man and woman who used to call on him, but had not been there since his absence, for she had not seen him; that the key was not in his door, and, upon looking through the keyhole, she observed the room was just as she left it.—To another witness, who had called to see the count, she said that he had gone out very early that morning, and that she did not expect him home until it was late. Some doubts, however, arising from his absence, a ladder was procured, perfectly with the consent of the prisoner, to look into the room of the deceased; and upon the person’s calling out that there was a man upon the bed, she cried out, that she would not have remained there last night if she had known there was a man dead in the house; and upon which she, in fact, alarmed the neighbourhood. A smith was sent for, and the door forced open: the deceased was found lying on the bed with all his clothes on but his coat; he was wrapped up in the bedclothes, and pillows covered his head: there was a great deal of blood in the room, a wound was observed in the neck, and the body was nearly in a state of putrefaction. A woman, who lived in an opposite house, and who had observed the prisoner shut one of the windows, which prevented her seeing into the prisoner’s room, on the day the murder was supposed to have been committed, went up with her at the time the door was opened, and observing his right hand pocket was turned out, said, “He has been robbed;” to which the prisoner instantly replied, “He did it himself;” upon this witness made a similar remark that he must have been murdered, she again said, “He did it himself;” and upon her noticing a wash-hand basin with some water in it tinged with blood, as if some person had wrinsed their hands therein, the prisoner said, “It is not strange, not strange at all; what do you come here to raise suspicion for?” Another neighbour had heard a scream about two o’clock on that day, but could not say whence it came. The deceased was seen coming toward home between twelve and one o’clock, and as the lodger in the next room went home as early as five, the supposition was that the murder had been committed in that time. The surgeon who examined the body swore positively there was no wound in the side of the deceased, but that the raised skin, supposed to be such, was from the putrefaction; nor would he undertake to say what was the cause of his death, although a considerable quantity of blood might have issued from the wound in his neck.—Beside this testimony, which included all that related to the prisoner, it appeared that the deceased’s portmanteau had been cut; that there was a knife upon the table, which was by no means bloody; that in his left-hand pocket he had a knife and a key, the latter of which opened a drawer, wherein were several pieces of French coin and three guineas; that the deceased had been possessed of a very considerable property in France, and upon emigrating to this country, an agent in the city had allowed him twenty pounds per month: but affairs taking such a turn there, that pittance had been stopped, and he was so reduced, that a friend had forced upon him the loan of four guineas; he having no other clothes than those on his back. The prisoner denied the charge generally, and called three persons to her character, one of whom said she was of so humane a disposition, that if a worm lay in her way, she would turn aside rather than do it an injury. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. She is aged 63.—Richard Ludman, Ann Rhodes, Eleanor Hughes, and Mary Baker, were likewise indicted for the murder of George Hebner. This murder was committed in King street, East Smithfield, in one of those obscure receptacles of debauchery with which this metropolis abounds. The body of the deceased was found on the morning of Sunday, the 22nd of May, suspended by the neck from a bed-post, in a room on the second floor, with his hands tied behind his back. It was proved that the four prisoners were in the house (which belonged to Eleanor Hughes) on the evening of Saturday, the 21st, and next morning. They were seen, and some of their conversations heard, by two women who lived in an adjoining house; this house was separated from that in which the deceased was found by only a lath partition, perforated in several places, and the holes and crevices affording a distinct view of almost all the apartments of the latter.—The manner in which the hands of the deceased were bound with a piece of tape was described in the court. The knot that had been used was what seamen call a timber hitch, and it was obviously such could not have been done by himself. There was no direct and positive proof of the guilt of the prisoners; but there was a chain of most suspicious circumstances pointing strongly against Ludman and Hughes. The lord chief baron summed up the evidence with great precision, candour, and humanity. It was on the expressions used by the prisoners that the proof chiefly rested, and his lordship nicely discriminated between those which seemed to arise from surprise, on the discovery of the situation of the deceased, and those which could be supposed to proceed only from a knowledge of the murder. The jury returned a verdict, finding Richard Ludman and Eleanor Hughes guilty. Ann Rhodes and Mary Baker not guilty.—Eleanor Hughes pleaded pregnancy, to stay the execution of her sentence. On which a jury of matrons was collected and sworn, to examine her, and report their opinion to the court. They retired with the prisoner about half-an-hour, and at their return declared her to be “with child, but not quick with child.”
THE EXECUTION.
Yesterday, Mary Nott, convicted of the murder of Le Comte de Laval, an emigrant nobleman; and also Richard Ludman and Eleanor Hughes, convicted of the murder of George Hebner, were executed on a temporary platform in the Old Bailey, before the gaol of Newgate, pursuant to their sentence; after which the bodies were delivered at Surgeons’-hall for dissection.
John Clarke, Printer, Swan Street, Minories, London.
EXECUTION
OF
JAMES NESBETT
FOR THE
HORRIBLE MURDER
OF
MR. PARKER & HIS HOUSEKEEPER.
This wretched criminal surrendered his life to-day to the outraged laws of his country, From the complication of crimes of which he was convicted, and from the probability that the murder of Mr. Parker and his housekeeper was not the first instance in which he had been guilty of a violation of the laws, great curiosity prevailed to witness his execution, in the expectation that, if he had not previously made any confession he would in his last moments be induced to reveal the particulars of his guilt.
After his family had taken leave of him, he made a full confession of his guilt. Some of the particulars which he communicated are said to be very important, and the whole of his statement is, for the present, kept strictly secret. Various rumours are, of course, in circulation respecting the nature of his confession to which it would be equally improper to give publicity, whether they be ill or well founded.
After his mind had been disburdened of the load of guilt which had pressed so heavily on it, he became more composed, and joined in the exercises of devotion with more fixed attention, and apparently with a greater degree of intelligence, than he had hitherto evinced. On Sunday night he slept for more than two hours; and this morning he was more tranquil than usual. The Rev. Mr Harker, whose humane exertions in administering to him the consolations of religion, have all along been unremitted, attended him at 6 o’clock, and remained with him till eight. He returned again at nine o’clock, to assist him in preparing for the last awful trial of his fortitude.
At a quarter past eleven the unhappy culprit was placed in a waggon, to be drawn to the place of execution, on Pennenden heath, about a mile from Maidstone gaol. The executioner was placed by his side, and two officers with loaded carbines were also seated in the waggon, fronting the criminal. His dress was the same that he had worn during his trial, consisting of a blue coat, a yellow waistcoat, a white neck cloth, and top boots. The procession moved slowly towards the heath, the criminal frequently turned up his eyes to heaven, and ejaculating “O Lord, have mercy upon me! Christ, have mercy upon me!”—About 100 yards from the prison gate his mother caught his eye in the crowd. He did not appear to be much moved at seeing her, but bent his head to one of the officers who sat before him, and said, “Mind, tell Mr Bowen to do something for my family.” The procession arrived at the place of execution about 10 minutes before 12, and the waggon was drawn up along the side of the scaffold. The chaplain then joined the criminal in prayer, and the stillest silence pervaded the immense crowd, who stood uncovered while the service was reading. The criminal, who had knelt down by Mr Harker’s side, joined in the prayers with as much fervour as his agitation would permit. His hands were clasped together and uplifted, and his eyes were sometimes directed downwards to the book in the chaplain’s hand, as if he did not understand what was read; occasionally they were turned up to heaven, but during the greater part of the time they wandered unconsciously over the crowd without any definite direction.
When the devotions were closed, and the criminal was about to be removed from the waggon, he observed near him Mr Hay, the barrack master of Woolwich, and said he wished to speak to him. Mr Hay come forward and said, “For God’s sake, Nisbett, be sincere; consider what you are about, and tell the truth.” He replied, “I have told the truth already, and nothing but the truth. My family knows nothing of my guilt, and I hope you will do something for them.” Mr Hay asked him if he had confessed his guilt; and he replied, “I have confessed it to another person.” He then mounted the stage with a firm step, and the executioner proceeded to put a cap over his eyes, and to adjust the rope round his neck. Having seen Mr Bowen, of Woolwich, near the scaffold, he called to him and said, “Mr Bowen, I hope you will have some regard for my family. Poor things! they are innocent. None that belongs to me know anything of my doings.” Mr Bowen called to him to confess his crime, on which he replied, “I have made all the confession I had to make. That will be known after I am gone. The people is convenient that has it. It is enough for one person to know.”
At 5 minutes after 12 o’clock the fatal signal was given. He did not seem to suffer more than one minute. The body, after hanging the usual time, was cut down, and conveyed in a shell to Messrs. Day and Watman’s to be anatomized, pursuant to his sentence.
Previously to his trial, Nesbett had prepared the following declaration, in his own hand-writing, to be delivered to Mr Hay, the barrack master of Woolwich, an intelligent and humane gentleman, who was anxious to have it ascertained that the family of the murderer were not implicated in his guilt:—
“Maidstone, the 24th July, 1820
“This is the truth, as I have God to meit it in the next world, let me Be Guilty or Not, none of my family, father or mother wife or Children or any Relation of mine knows whether I am Guilty or Not of the Crime that is laid to my Charge, that is the murder of Mr Parker and his House-keeper, or any other part of that Crime that is laid to my Charge, or any other crime that is laid to me, As God has my soul in his Charge this Day to try my Guilt that is the truth, and I hope no one will Cast it up to my wife or Children, for the Do not deservit. I sine this to be truth.
“James nisbett.”
Addressed for “Mr Hay, Barrick Master, Woolwich, Kent.”
Endorsed in the handwriting of Mr Hay, but the diction of the prisoner:—
“As I have this Bible in my hand, and God to meet, I declare the contents of this paper are true.
James Nisbett”
“Witness, Stephen Page, Turnkey.
Maidstone Goal, 26th July, 1820,”
J. Catnach, Printer, Monmouth Court.
THE SENTENCES OF ALL THE PRISONERS,
WHICH COMMENCED ON
WEDNESDAY,
11th Sept., 1822.
BEFORE
Justice Hall, Mr Baron Graham, Mr Justice Best, and Mr Justice Richardson, the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and Sheriffs of London, Mr Alderman Ansley, &c.
IN THE OLD BAILEY.
DEATH.
Richard Mitford, alias Captain Stracy, for forgery; William Adams for cutting and maiming; William Callaghue, for returning from transportation; Samuel Wilson, Isaac Knight, and James Simpson, for horse-stealing; Samuel Greenwood, John Bridgeman, Robert Ramsey, Thomas Gordon, William Milton, and John Levy, for highway robbery; Thomas Hayes, William Williams, Joseph Williams, Francis Waddel, Mary Gyngell, Daniel Coltrel, John Brown, Walter Blanchard, Alexander Brown, Frank Purdon, William Corbett, alias Watson, Charles Robinson, and Joseph Mackarell, for stealing in dwelling houses; William Reading, for burglary; Edmund Mustoe, James Gardner, William Bright, and George Vergenton, for robbing near the highway; and John Partier, John Roberts, and Stephen Tool, for burglary.
During the time the Recorder was passing sentence of death, the culprits behaved with great propriety. The prisoner, R. Mitford, alias Captain Stracey, for forgery, was attired in a very elegant manner, his youthful and very gentlemanly appearance interested every one present in his lamentable situation. He is the son of a Clergyman.
Holland, King, and North for an unnatural crime.
TRANSPORTED FOR LIFE.
John Boyle, Cornelius Reading, Joseph Haybury, John Lewis, Thomas Trinder, William Smith, John Strange, and Thomas Harris,
FOR FOURTEEN YEARS.
Thomas Luby, T. L. Robinson.
FOR SEVEN YEARS.
William Garrard, Matthew Fennett, James Hicker, James Nicholas Moore, Eliza Davis, David Davis, otherwise Barnard, Rosina Davis, Thomas Long, James Moore, Julia Witherell, Mary Mushton, Christopher Gromer, Edward Fordem, Harriet Wyse, Thomas Jefts, William Needham, Edward Ford, Sarah West, James Harris, George King, Elizabeth Bool, Mary Smith, James Kellerin, William Tuck, John Mackay, George Hilsey, Luke Higgins, Joseph Hunt, George Wiggis, William Jupennan, John Williams, John Card, Hedges, and Willoughby.
—Imprisoned two years, and kept to hard labour.—Thomas Williams, John Pavey, Robert Wilson, John Bankes, and William Tuck, the two latter to be publicly whipped.——Imprisoned one year and kept to hard labour—John Haughton, Joseph Johnson, Joseph Moore, Thomas Letford, Eliza Godfrey, Bridget Callagan, Thomas Burke, and William Coulson,—imprisoned one year in Newgate.—Mary A. L. Butler,—imprisoned six months and kept to hard labour.——Thomas Best, Eleanor Jackson, Mary Barnes, John Hitchen, Sarah Jones, Thomas Griffiths, Eleanor Smith, P. H. Nielle, Ann Hay, Harriet Lee, Richard Spragg, Joseph Thirk, William Jones, James Sidebotham, Thomas Jones, Charles Askew, and James Easthill.
Catherine Rouke, John Gidling, John Wignal, and George Malsby, for felony, to be imprisoned for six months in the House of Correction, and kept to hard labour.—M. Gerard, W. Mayne and M. Pedlard for minor offences, to be fined one shilling and then discharged.—W. Smith and Ann Aldridge for felony, to be imprisoned two months in the House of Correction, and kept to hard labour during that period.—H. Browne, for a felony, to be publicly whipped, and kept to hard labour in the House of Correction for one year.—John Smith and Eliza Lewis, for felonies, to be imprisoned three months in the House of Correction, and kept to hard labour.—T. Worcester and John Jones, for felonies, to be publicly whipped and kept to hard labour for three months in the House of Correction.—Edmund Barber and William Burrell, for a misdemeanour, to be imprisoned six months and kept to hard labour during one month.
Judgment respited on John Parkes, James Hicker, James Nicholas Moore, (whose father is sentenced to transportation) and Thomas Wilbraham.
An immense number were sentenced to various minor periods of imprisonment, some to be publicly and some privately whipped.——A considerable number were discharged by proclamation.
The number of prisoners tried this Sessions has been between 400 and 500. Adjourned to the 23rd of October.
London: Printed by Charles Pigott, 52, Compton Street, Clerkenwell.
A mournful and affecting
COPY OF VERSES
on the death of
ANN WILLIAMS,
Who was barbarously and cruelly murdered by her sweetheart, W. JONES, near Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, July, 1823.
William Jones, a young man aged 20, has been fully committed to Derby gaol for the murder of his sweetheart, under circumstances of unheard of barbarity. The poor victim was a servant girl, whom under pretence of marriage he seduced. On her proving with child the villain formed the horrid design of murdering her, and carried his diabolical plan into execution on Monday evening last. The following verses are written upon the occasion, giving a complete detail of this shocking affair:—
Come all false hearted young men
And listen to my song,
’Tis of a cruel murder,
That lately has been done
On the body of a maiden fair.
The truth I will unfold,
The bare relation of this deed
Will make your blood run cold.
Near Wirksworth town in Derbyshire,
Ann Williams she did dwell,
In service she long time had lived,
Till this to her befel.
Her cheeks were like the blushing rose
All in the month of May,
Which made this wicked young man
Thus unto her did say:
Nancy, my charming creature,
You have my heart ensnared,
My love is such I am resolved
To wed you I declare.
Thus by his false deluding tongue
Poor Nancy was beguil’d,
And soon to her misfortune,
By him she proved with child.
Some days ago this damsel fair
Did write to him with speed,
Such tenderness she did express
Would make a heart to bleed.
She said, my dearest William,
I am with child by thee;
Therefore, my dear, pray let me know
When you will marry me.
The following day at evening,
This young man did repair,
Unto the town of Wirksworth,
To meet his Nancy there.
Saying, Nancy dear, come let us walk,
Among the flowery fields,
And then the secrets of my heart
To you I will reveal.
O then this wicked young man
A knife he did provide,
And all unknown to his true love
Concealed it by his side.
When to the fatal spot they came,
These words to her did say:
All on this very night I will
Your precious life betray.
On bended knees she then did fall,
In sorrow and despair,
Aloud for mercy she did call,
Her cries did rend the air;
With clasped hands and uplift eyes
She cried, Oh spare my life,
I never more will ask you
To make me your wedded wife.
O then this wicked young man said,
No mercy will I show;
He took the knife all from his side,
And pierced her body through.
But still she smiling said to him,
While trembling with fear,
Ah! William, William, spare my life;
Think on your baby dear.
Twice more then with the bloody knife
He ran her body through,
Her throat was cut from ear to ear,
Most dreadful for to view;
Her hands and arms and beauteous face
He cut and mangled sore,
While down upon her milk white breast
The crimson blood did pour.
He took the shawl from off her neck,
And round her body tied,
With pebble stones he did it fill,
Thinking the crime to hide.
O then into the silver stream
He plunged her straightway,
But with her precious blood was stained,
Which soon did him betray.
O then this young man taken was,
And into prison sent,
In ratling chains he is confin’d,
His crime for to lament,
Until the Assizes do come on
When trembling he must stand,
Reflecting on the deed he’s done;
Waiting the dread command.
Now all you thoughtless young men
A timely warning take;
Likewise ye fair young maidens,
For this poor damsel’s sake.
And Oh beware of flattering tongues,
For they’ll your ruin prove;
So may you crown your future day,
In comfort, joy, and love.
Printed at J. Pitts, Wholesale Toy and Marble Warehouse, 6, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials.
THE CONFESSION AND EXECUTION OF
JOHN THURTELL
AT HERTFORD GAOL,
On Friday, the 9th of January, 1824.
THE EXECUTION.
Hertford, half-past twelve o’clock.
This morning, at ten minutes before twelve, a bustle among the javelin-men stationed within the boarded enclosure on which the drop was erected, announced to the multitude without that the preparations for the execution were nearly concluded. The javelin-men proceeded to arrange themselves in the order usually observed upon these melancholy but necessary occurrences. They had scarcely finished their arrangements, when the opening of the gate of the prison gave an additional impulse to public anxiety.
When the clock was on the stroke of twelve, Mr Nicholson, the Under-Sheriff, and the executioner ascended the platform, followed on to it by Thurtell, who mounted the stairs with a slow but steady step. The principal turnkey of the gaol came next, and was followed by Mr Wilson and two officers. On the approach of the prisoner being intimated by those persons who, being in an elevated situation, obtained the first view of him, all the immense multitude present took off their hats.
Thurtell immediately placed himself under the fatal beam, and at that moment the chimes of a neighbouring clock began to strike twelve. The executioner then came forward with the rope, which he threw across it. Thurtell first lifted his eyes up to the drop, gazed at it for a few moments, and then took a calm but hurried survey of the multitude around him. He next fixed his eyes on a young gentleman in the crowd, whom he had frequently seen as a spectator at the commencement of the proceedings against him. Seeing that the individual was affected by the circumstance, he removed them to another quarter, and in so doing recognised an individual well known in the sporting circles, to whom he made a slight bow.
The prisoner was attired in a dark brown great coat, with a black velvet collar, white corduroy breeches, drab gaiters and shoes. His hands were confined with handcuffs, instead of being tied with cord, as is usually the case on such occasions, and, at his own request, his arms were not pinioned. He wore a pair of black kid gloves, and the wrists of his shirt were visible below the cuffs of his coat. As on the last day of his trial, he wore a white cravat. The irons, which were very heavy, and consisted of a succession of chain links, were still on his legs, and were held up in the middle by a Belcher handkerchief tied round his waist.
The executioner commenced his mournful duties by taking from the unhappy prisoner his cravat and collar. To obviate all difficulty in this stage of the proceedings, Thurtell flung back his head and neck, and so gave the executioner an opportunity of immediately divesting him of that part of his dress. After tying the rope round Thurtell’s neck, the executioner drew a white cotton cap over his countenance, which did not, however, conceal the contour of his face, or deprive him entirely of the view of surrounding objects.
At that moment the clock sounded the last stroke of twelve. During the whole of this appalling ceremony, there was not the slightest symptom of emotion discernible in his features; his demeanour was perfectly calm and tranquil, and he behaved like a man acquainted with the dreadful ordeal he was about to pass, but not unprepared to meet it. Though his fortitude was thus conspicuous, it was evident from his appearance that in the interval between his conviction and his execution he must have suffered much. He looked careworn; his countenance had assumed a cadaverous hue, and there was a haggardness and lankness about his cheeks and mouth, which could not fail to attract the notice of every spectator.
The executioner next proceeded to adjust the noose by which Thurtell was to be attached to the scaffold. After he had fastened it in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, Thurtell looked up at it, and examined it with great attention. He then desired the executioner to let him have fall enough. The rope at this moment seemed as if it would only give a fall of two or three feet. The executioner assured him that the fall was quite sufficient. The principal turnkey then went up to Thurtell, shook hands with him, and turned away in tears. Mr Wilson, the governor of the gaol, next approached him. Thurtell said to him, “Do you think, Mr Wilson, I have got enough fall?” Mr Wilson replied, “I think you have, Sir. Yes, quite enough.” Mr Wilson then took hold of his hand, shook it, and said, “Good bye, Mr Thurtell, may God Almighty bless you.” Thurtell instantly replied, “God bless you, Mr Wilson, God bless you.” Mr Wilson next asked him whether he considered that the laws of his country had been dealt to him justly and fairly, upon which he said, “I admit that justice has been done me—I am perfectly satisfied.”
A few seconds then elapsed, during which every person seemed to be engaged in examining narrowly Thurtell’s deportment. His features, as well as they could be discerned, appeared to remain unmoved, and his hands, which were extremely prominent, continued perfectly steady, and were not affected by the slightest tremulous motion.
Exactly at two minutes past twelve the Under-Sheriff, with his wand, gave the dreadful signal—the drop suddenly and silently fell—and
John Thurtell was launched into Eternity.
Printed at J. Pitts, Wholesale Toy and Marble Warehouse, 6, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials.
TRIAL, CONFESSION, & EXECUTION
OF
C. T. WHITE, FOR ARSON, & AMELIA ROBERTS, FOR A ROBBERY,
AT THE OLD BAILEY.
THE
Horrible & Appaling Spectacle
WITNESSED ON THE FATAL GALLOWS.
Yesterday morning, before 8 o’clock, an immense assemblage of spectators, in numbers equal to those who witnessed the fate of Fauntleroy, crowded the Old Bailey, from one end to the other, to witness the execution of Charles Thomas White, late a bookseller in Holborn, for the crime of arson, and Amelia Roberts, for an aggravated robbery. The unfortunate man White had excited an extraordinary interest.
The young woman, Roberts, who was convicted of robbing Mr Austin, of Red Lion-street, Clerkenwell, with whom she lived as cook, of property to the amount of £400 and upwards, and Patrick Riley, her sweetheart, was convicted of the same offence. The conduct of this unhappy creature has been such, during her confinement, as to excite the respect, pity, and commisseration of those who visited her. She has been extremely attentive to her religious duties, and the principal thing that engrossed her attention relative to this world was to exculpate Riley, and hear that he was converted from what she deemed Papistical errors. On the evening of Sunday she was amazingly cheerful, and said, as her punishment was just, she would rather undergo it than return into a world of temptation.
The conduct of White was very different, the bare contemplation of the awful moment of execution unmanned him. He totally disregarded religious exercises, and sat day after day brooding over his past life, and occasionally starting upon his feet, bitterly inveighing against his sentence. Immediately after his trial, and for a long time subsequent, the unfortunate young man persisted in his entire innocence, and strove to convince others of it, by that sort of sophistical reasoning of which his defence consisted. He has asked over and over again what could have been his motive to commit so flagrant a crime, when his circumstances were not embarrassed, and his prospects flattering?
At length, however, he confessed his guilt, but in excuse pleaded that he was of unsound mind at the time. Finding, at length, that in all probability the door of mercy would be closed against him, he had recourse to many ingenious measures to effect his escape; and it appears quite clear, that he must have some powerful auxiliaries, both among his fellow prisoners and outside of the prison.
When the warrant of death arrived, which included his name, the wretched man at first raved like a maniac, his fondly cherished hope being cut off, but when he regained composure, his thoughts and conversation were again engaged upon an attempt to escape. A few days before that fixed for his execution, he said, “I know that I am a sinner, but God is merciful, and I hope to go to Heaven. I know, too, that I must suffer, but I never allow myself to think of the day.”
THE EXECUTION.
White ascended the platform with an unsteady and tremulous step. Slark, the Sheriff’s attendant, with a black wand, accompanied him, and said something to the executioner, who called his assistant, and they immediately conducted White to the west end of the platform, and while one adjusted a rope through the chain attached to the beam, the other held his hands and arms. White trembled, and his agitation seemed to increase; he raised his arms, and extended his chest, as if desirous of bursting the cords, and by the effort loosened his wrists. The cap was drawn over his eyes, but the restlessness of the unhappy man seemed to increase; and, just as the woman was ascending the steps, he bent his head down, and pushed off the cap, accompanying this action by a violent movement of the body, as if to break or get his head out of the fatal noose. The action was made with so much strength and violence, and his struggling appearing to increase, that a dreadful yell, and cries of the utmost horror burst from the crowd. The two assistant executioners were called to ascend the platform, and they held the unhappy man while a handkerchief was tied over his eyes. They endeavoured to draw a cap over his face, but he struggled hard with the executioner, and repeatedly forced it off. The executioner seized the unhappy man with some violence, to induce him to desist from proceeding to loosen his hands, and the crowd renewed their former cries and yellings.
Amelia Roberts was then brought upon the scaffold, and a cord having been tied round her lower garments, the rope was adjusted round her neck. White again got the handkerchief off, and turning to the woman and crowd alternately, by his gestures, appeared as if desirous of exciting universal sympathy. The arrangements of the executioner being complete, he removed the woman to a position immediately under the fatal beam, and then placed White by her side; but the unhappy man gradually moved forward, until he gradually got his toes upon the ledge, where Mr Cotton and Mr. Baker were reading the Burial Service. The handkerchief was again placed over his eyes, but it was evident, from the fineness of its texture, and what occurred soon afterwards, that he must have seen through it. At the moment Mr Cotton drew a white handkerchief from under his surplice, he leaped upon the platform, and by sinking his head was able to grasp that part of the cord which was affixed round his neck under his chin. It appeared to be a desperate effort to prolong that life which he so fondly clung to. At this moment the spectacle was most horrifying—he was partly suspended, and partly standing on the platform. During the violence of his exertions, his tongue was forced out of his mouth, and the convulsions of his body and contortions of his face were truly appalling. The cries of displeasure from the crowd were again renewed, and they continued till the executioner had forced the wretched man’s hands from the cord, and moved his feet from the platform, when in an instant the rope had its full tension; and, by pulling the man’s legs, he ceased struggling, and in a few minutes was dead. It is thought, that if his arms had not been fastened by a cord, the handkerchief would have given way, and the most painful consequences would have resulted. As it was, his sufferings were considerably protracted. The distortions of his countenance, in the agonies of death, could be seen by the crowd; and, as he remained suspended without any covering to his face, the horrible spectacle was most terrific. The shrieks of the women, and the cries of the men, rendered the scene more painful than any one we had ever witnessed before; and but for the wise precaution of erecting extra barriers across the street, much mischief would have been done in the confusion.
The sufferings of the poor woman were momentary.—When she was brought into the dock, at the bottom of the stairs leading to the scaffold, she took a seat on a bench. Mr. Baker attended her, while Mr. Cotton attended White on the scaffold. Her eyes were closed, and her resignation was surprising. She ejaculated, “Into thy hands, oh Lord! I commit my soul;” and just before she ascended the scaffold, she said, “God have mercy, save my soul! and pity and pardon my poor friend Patrick” (alluding to Riley). Whilst on the scaffold, she continued praying, in which she was in some degree disturbed by the extraordinary conduct of her fellow culprit.
The crowd were greatly affected by the horrid sight which they had witnessed, and we trust that this example will have its due effect upon the minds of the thoughtless and wicked.
J. Catnach, Printer, 2 and 3, Monmouth Court.
CONFESSION AND EXECUTION OF
WILLIAM CORDER,
THE MURDERER OF MARIA MARTEN.
Since the tragical affair between Thurtell and Weare, no event has occurred connected with the criminal annals of our country which has excited so much interest as the trial of Corder, who was justly convicted of the murder of Maria Marten on Friday last.
THE CONFESSION.
“Bury Gaol, August 10th, 1828.—Condemned cell.
“Sunday evening, half-past Eleven.
“I acknowledge being guilty of the death of poor Maria Marten, by shooting her with a pistol. The particulars are as follows:—When we left her father’s house, we began quarrelling about the burial of the child: she apprehended the place wherein it was deposited would be found out. The quarrel continued about three quarters of an hour upon this sad and about other subjects. A scuffle ensued, and during the scuffle, and at the time I think that she had hold of me, I took the pistol from the side pocket of my velveteen jacket and fired. She fell, and died in an instant. I never saw her even struggle. I was overwhelmed with agitation and dismay:—the body fell near the front doors on the floor of the barn. A vast quantity of blood issued from the wound, and ran on to the floor and through the crevices. Having determined to bury the body in the barn (about two hours after she was dead. I went and borrowed a spade of Mrs Stow, but before I went there I dragged the body from the barn into the chaff-house, and locked the barn. I returned again to the barn, and began to dig a hole, but the spade being a bad one, and the earth firm and hard, I was obliged to go home for a pickaxe and a better spade, with which I dug the hole, and then buried the body. I think I dragged the body by the handkerchief that was tied round her neck. It was dark when I finished covering up the body. I went the next day, and washed the blood from off the barn-floor. I declare to Almighty God I had no sharp instrument about me, and no other wound but the one made by the pistol was inflicted by me. I have been guilty of great idleness, and at times led a dissolute life, but I hope through the mercy of God to be forgiven. William Corder.”
Witness to the signing by the said William Corder, John Orridge.
Condemned cell, Eleven o’clock, Monday morning, August 11th, 1828.
The above confession was read over carefully to the prisoner in our presence, who stated most solemnly it was true, and that he had nothing to add to or retract from it.—W. Stocking, chaplain; Timothy R. Holmes, Under-Shertff.
THE EXECUTION.
At ten minutes before twelve o’clock the prisoner was brought from his cell and pinioned by the hangman, who was brought from London for the purpose. He appeared resigned, but was so weak as to be unable to stand without support; when his cravat was removed he groaned heavily, and appeared to be labouring under great mental agony. When his wrists and arms were made fast, he was led round twards the scaffold, and as he passed the different yards in which the prisoners were confined, he shook hands with them, and speaking to two of them by name, he said, “Good bye, God bless you.” They appeared considerably affected by the wretched appearance which he made, and “God bless you!” “May God receive your soul!” were frequently uttered as he passed along. The chaplain walked before the prisoner, reading the usual Burial Service, and the Governor and Officers walking immediately after him. The prisoner was supported to the steps which led to the scaffold; he looked somewhat wildly around, and a constable was obliged to support him while the hangman was adjusting the fatal cord. There was a barrier to keep off the crowd, amounting to upwards of 7,000 persons, who at this time had stationed themselves in the adjoining fields, on the hedges, the tops of houses, and at every point from which a view of the execution could be best obtained. The prisoner, a few moments before the drop fell, groaned heavily, and would have fallen, had not a second constable caught hold of him. Everything having been made ready, the signal was given, the fatal drop fell, and the unfortunate man was launched into eternity. Just before he was turned off, he said in a feeble tone, “I am justly sentenced, and may God forgive me.”
The Murder of Maria Marten.
BY W. CORDER.
Come all you thoughtless young men, a warning take by me,
And think upon my unhappy fate to be hanged upon a tree;
My name is William Corder, to you I do declare,
I courted Maria Marten, most beautiful and fair.
I promised I would marry her upon a certain day,
Instead of that, I was resolved to take her life away.
I went into her father’s house the 18th day of May,
Saying, my dear Maria, we will fix the wedding day.
If you will meet me at the Red-barn, as sure as I have life,
I will take you to Ipswich town, and there make you my wife;
I then went home and fetched my gun, my pickaxe and my spade,
I went into the Red-barn, and there I dug her grave.
With heart so light, she thought no harm, to meet him she did go
He murdered her all in the barn, and laid her body low:
After the horrible deed was done, she lay weltering in her gore,
Her bleeding mangled body he buried beneath the Red-barn floor.
Now all things being silent, her spirit could not rest,
She appeared unto her mother, who suckled her at her breast;
For many a long month or more, her mind being sore oppress’d,
Neither night or day she could not take any rest.
Her mother’s mind being so disturbed, she dreamt three nights o’er,
Her daughter she lay murdered beneath the Red-barn floor;
She sent the father to the barn, when he the ground did thrust,
And there he found his daughter mingling with the dust.
My trial is hard, I could not stand, most woeful was the sight,
When her jaw-bone was brought to prove, which pierced my heart quite;
Her aged father standing by, likewise his loving wife,
And in her grief her hair she tore, she scarcely could keep life.
Adieu, adieu, my loving friends, my glass is almost run,
On Monday next will be my last, when I am to be hang’d;
So you, young men, who do pass by, with pity look on me,
For murdering Maria Marten, I was hang’d upon the tree.
Printed by J. Catnach, 2 and 3, Monmouth Court.—Cards, &c., Printed Cheap.
THE TRIAL, SENTENCE, FULL CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF
BISHOP & WILLIAMS,
THE BURKERS.
BURKING AND BURKERS.
The month of November, 1831, will be recorded in the annals of crimes and cruelties as particularly preeminent, for it will prove to posterity that other wretches could be found base enough to follow the horrid example of Burke and his accomplice Hare, to entice the unprotected and friendless to the den of death for sordid gain.
The horrible crime of “Burking,” or murdering the unwary with the intention of selling their bodies at a high price to the anatomical schools, for the purpose of dissection, has unfortunately obtained a notoriety which will not be soon or easily forgotten. It took its horrifying appellation from the circumstances which were disclosed on the trial of the inhuman wretch Burke, who was executed at Edinburgh in 1829, for having wilfully and deliberately murdered several persons for the sole purpose of profiting by the sale of their dead bodies.
APPREHENSION OF THE BURKERS.
On Tuesday, November 8th, four persons, viz., John Bishop, Thomas Williams, James May, and Michael Shield, were examined at Bow Street Police Office on the charge of being concerned in the wilful murder of an unknown Italian boy. From the evidence adduced, it appeared that May, alias Jack Stirabout, a known resurrection-man, and Bishop, a body-snatcher, offered at King’s College a subject for sale, Shield and Williams having charge of the body in a hamper, for which they demanded twelve guineas. Mr Partridge, demonstrator of anatomy, who, although not in absolute want of a subject, offered nine guineas, but being struck with its freshness sent a messenger to the police station, and the fellows were then taken into custody, examined before the magistrates, when Shield was discharged and the others ultimately committed for trial.
THE TRIAL.
Friday, December 2nd, having been fixed for the trial of the prisoners charged with the murder of the Italian boy, the Court was crowded to excess so early as eight o’clock in the morning.
At nine o’clock the Deputy Recorder, Mr Serjeant Arabin, came into the court, when the prisoners severally pleaded “Not Guilty.”
The Jury were then sworn, and at ten o’clock Chief Justice Tindal, Mr Baron Vaughan, and Mr Justice Littledale entered the Court, with the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs.
The Bench was crowded with persons of rank, amongst whom was the Duke of Sussex.
Mr Bodkin having opened the case, Mr Adolphus proceeded to state to the Jury the leading facts, as they were afterwards stated in the evidence produced. The case for the prosecution having closed, the prisoners were called upon for their defence.
The prisoner Bishop in his defence stated that he was thirty-three years of age, and had followed the occupation of carrier till the last five years, during which he had occasionally obtained a livelihood by supplying surgeons with subjects. He most solemnly declared that he had never disposed of any body that had not died a natural death.
Williams’ defence briefly stated that he had never been engaged in the calling of a resurrectionist, but had only by accident accompanied Bishop on the sale of the Italian boy’s body.
May, in his defence, admitted that for the last six years he had followed the occupation of supplying the medical schools with anatomical subjects, but disclaimed ever having had anything to do with the sale of bodies which had not died a natural death. That he had accidentally met with Bishop at the Fortune of War public house on the Friday on which the body was taken for sale to Guy’s Hospital.
At eight o’clock the jury retired to consider their verdict, and on their return they found the prisoners were Guilty of Murder.
The Recorder then passed the awful sentence upon them, “That each of them be hanged on Monday morning, and their bodies be delivered over for dissection and anatomization.”
The prisoners heard the sentence as they had the verdict, without any visible alteration. May raised his voice, and in a firm tone said, “I am a murdered man, gentlemen.”
THE FULL CONFESSION OF BISHOP AND WILLIAMS.
On Saturday morning Williams addressed a note to Mr Wontner, stating that he and Bishop wanted particularly to see him and Dr. Cotton, the Ordinary. In the course of the interview which immediately followed, both prisoners made a full confession of their guilt, both exculpating May altogether from being party to any of the murders. Having received the confessions, Mr Wontner immediately waited upon Mr Justice Littledale and Baron Vaughan, and upon communicating to them the statements, they said they would at once see the Home Secretary on the subject.
On Sunday morning the Sheriffs visited all three of the prisoners in succession, and with the Under-Sheriffs were engaged between three and four hours in taking down the statements of the convicts. The result of all these investigations was that the same afternoon a respite during his Majesty’s pleasure arrived at Newgate for May, and his sentence will be commuted to transportation for life.
THE EXECUTION.
During the whole of Sunday crowds of persons congregated in the Old Bailey, and the spot on which the scaffold was to be erected was covered with individuals conversing on the horrid crimes of the convicts, and in the course of the day strong posts were erected in the Old Bailey and at the ends of Newgate street, Giltspur street, and Skinner street, for the purpose of forming barriers to break the pressure of the crowd.
At half-past twelve o’clock the gallows was brought out from the yard, and drawn to its usual station opposite the Debtor’s door. The crowd, as early as one o’clock amounting to several thousand persons, continued rapidly increasing.
By some oversight three chains had been suspended from the fatal beam, and this led the crowd to suppose that May had not been respited. Mr. Wontnor, on hearing of the mistake, directed that one of the chains should be removed. The moment this was done an exclamation of “May is respited,” ran through the crowd, and, contrary to the expected tokens of indignation, distinct cheers were heard amongst the crowd on witnessing this token that mercy had been shown to May.
At half-past seven the Sheriffs arrived in their carriage, and in a short time the press-yard was thronged with gentlemen. The unhappy convicts were now led from their cells. Bishop came out first, and after he was pinioned he was conducted to a seat, and the Rev. Mr. Williams sat alongside of him, and they conversed together in a low tone of voice.
Williams was next introduced, and the wonderful alteration two days had effected in his appearance astonished everyone who was present at the trial. All the bold confidence he exhibited then had completely forsaken him, and he looked the most miserable wretch it is possible to conceive. He entered the room with a very faltering step, and when the ceremony of pinioning him commenced, he was so weak as to be scarcely able to stand.
Everything being ready, the melancholy procession moved forward. Bishop was then conducted to the scaffold, and the moment he made his appearance the most dreadful yells and hootings were heard among the crowd. The executioner proceeded at once to the performance of his duty, and having put the rope round his neck and affixed it to a chain, placed him under the fatal beam. Williams was then taken out, and the groans and hisses were renewed. The dreadful preparations were soon completed, and in less than five minutes after the wretched men appeared on the scaffold the usual signal was given, the drop fell, and they were launched into eternity. Bishop appeared to die very soon, but Williams struggled hard. Thus died
THE DREADFUL BURKERS OF 1831.
Printed in London for the Vendors.
LIFE, TRIAL, CONFESSION, & EXECUTION
OF
JAMES GREENACRE,
FOR THE
EDGEWARE ROAD MURDER.
On the 22nd of April, James Greenacre was found guilty of the wilful murder of Hannah Brown, and Sarah Gale with being accessary after the fact. A long and connected chain of evidence was produced, which showed, that the sack in which the body was found was the property of Mr. Ward; that it was usually deposited in a part of the premises which led to the workshop, and could without observation have been carried away by him; that the said sack contained several fragments of shavings of mahogany, such as were made in the course of business by Ward; and that it contained some pieces of linen cloth, which had been patched with nankeen; that this linen cloth matched exactly with a frock which was found on Greenacre’s premises, and which belonged to the female prisoner. Feltham, a police-officer, deposed, that on the 25th of March he apprehended the prisoners at the lodgings of Greenacre; that on searching the trowsers pockets of that person, he took therefrom a pawnbroker’s duplicate for two silk gowns, and from the fingers of the female prisoner two rings, and also a similar duplicate for two veils, and an old-fashioned silver watch, which she was endeavouring to conceal; and it was further proved that these articles were pledged by the prisoners, and that they had been the property of the deceased woman.—Two surgeons were examined, whose evidence was most important, and whose depositions were of the greatest consequence in throwing a clear light on the manner in which the female, Hannah Brown, met with her death. Mr. Birtwhistle deposed, that he had carefully examined the head; that the right eye had been knocked out by a blow inflicted while the person was living; there was also a cut on the cheek, and the jaw was fractured, these two last wounds were, in his opinion, produced after death; there was also a bruise on the head, which had occurred after death; the head had been separated by cutting, and the bone sawed nearly through, and then broken off; there were the marks of a saw, which fitted with a saw which was found in Greenacre’s box. Mr. Girdwood, a surgeon, very minutely and skilfully described the appearances presented on the head, and showed incontestibly, that the head had been severed from the body while the person was yet alive; that this was proved by the retraction, or drawing back, of the muscles at the parts where they were separated by the knife, and further, by the blood-vessels being empty, the body was drained of blood. This part of the evidence produced a thrill of horror throughout the court, but Greenacre remained quite unmoved.
After a most impressive and impartial summing up by the learned Judge, the jury retired, and, after the absence of a quarter of an hour, returned into court, and pronounced a verdict of “Guilty” against both the prisoners.
The prisoners heard the verdict without evincing the least emotion, or the slightest change of countenance. After an awful silence of a few minutes, the Lord Chief Justice said they might retire, as they would be remanded until the end of the session.
They were then conducted from the bar, and on going down the steps, the unfortunate female prisoner kissed Greenacre with every mark of tenderness and affection.
The crowd outside the court on this day was even greater than on either of the preceding; and when the result of the trial was made known in the street, a sudden and general shout succeeded, and continued huzzas were heard for several minutes.
THE EXECUTION.
At half past seven the sheriff arrived in his carriage, and in a short time the press-yard was thronged with gentlemen who had been admitted by tickets. The unhappy convict was now led from his cell. When he arrived in the press-yard, his whole appearance pourtrayed the utmost misery and spirit-broken dejection; his countenance haggard, and his whole frame agitated; all that self-possesion and fortitude which he displayed in the early part of his imprisonment, had utterly forsaken him, and had left him a victim of hopelessness and despair. He requested the executioner to give him as little pain as posiible in the process of pinioning his arms and wrists; he uttered not a word in allusion to his crime; neither did he make any dying request, except that his spectacles might be given to Sarah Gale; he exhibited no sign of hope; he showed no symptom of reconciliation with his offended God! When the venerable ordinary preceded him in the solemn procession through the vaulted passage to the fatal drop, he was so overcome and unmanned, that he could not support himself without the aid of the assistant executioner. At the moment he ascended the faithless floor, from which he was to be launched into eternity, the most terrific yells, groans, and cheers were vociferated by the immense multitude surrounding the place of execution. Greenacre bowed to the sheriff, and begged he might not be allowed to remain long in the concourse; and almost immediately the fatal bolt was withdrawn, and, without a struggle, he became a lifeless corse.—Thus ended the days of Greenacre, a man endowed with more than ordinary talents, respectably connected, and desirably placed in society; but a want of probity, an absolute dearth of principle, led him on from one crime to another, until at length he perpetrated the sanguinary deed which brought his career to an awful and disgraceful period, and which has enrolled his name among the most notorious of those who have expiated their crime on the gallows.
On hearing the death-bell toll, Gale became dreadfully agitated; and when she heard the brutal shouts of the crowd of spectators, she fainted, and remained in a state of alternate mental agony and insensibility throughout the whole day.
After having been suspended the usual time, his body was cut down, and buried in a hole dug in one of the passages of the prison, near the spot where Thistlewood and his associates were deposited.
T. Catnach, Printer, 2 and 3, Monmouth Court.
TRIAL, SENTENCE, CONFESSION, & EXECUTION
OF
F. B. COURVOISIER,
FOR THE
Murder of Lord Wm. Russell.
THE VERDICT.
Old Bailey, Saturday Evening, June 20th, 1840.
After the jury had been absent for an hour and twenty minutes, they returned into court, and the prisoner was again placed at the bar.
The names of the jury were then called over, and the clerk of the court said—“How say you, gentlemen, have you agreed on your verdict? Do you find the prisoner Guilty or Not Guilty of the felony of murder with which he stands charged?”
The foreman of the jury, in a low voice, said—“We find him GUILTY!”
The Clerk of the Court then said: François Benjamin Courvoisier, you have been found Guilty of the wilful murder of William Russell, Esq., commonly called Lord William Russell; what have you to say why the court should not give you sentence to die according to law?
The prisoner made no reply. The usual proclamation for silence was then made.
SENTENCE.
The Lord Chief Justice Tindal, having put on the black cap, said: François Benjamin Courvoisier, you have been found guilty by an intelligent, patient, and impartial jury of the crime of wilful murder. That crime has been established against you, not indeed by the testimony of eye-witnesses as to the fact, but by a chain of circumstances no less unerring, which have left no doubt of your guilt in the minds of the jury, and all those who heard the trial. It is ordained by divine authority that the murderer shall not escape justice, and this ordination has been exemplified in your case, in the course of this trial, by the disclosure of evidence which has brought the facts to bear against you in a conclusive manner. The murder, although committed in the dark and silent hour of night, has nevertheless been brought clearly to light by Divine interposition. The precise motive which induced you to commit this guilty act can only be known to your own conscience; but it now only remains for me to recommend you most earnestly to employ the short time you have to live in prayer and repentance, and in endeavouring to make your peace with that Almighty Being whose law you have broken, and before whom you must shortly appear. The Learned Judge then passed sentence on the prisoner in the usual form.
The court was very much crowded to the last.
THE CONFESSION OF THE CONVICT.
After the Learned Judge had passed sentence on the convict, he was removed from the bar, and immediately made a full confession of his guilt.
THE EXECUTION.
At eight o’clock this morning, Courvoisier ascended the steps leading to the gallows, and advanced, without looking round him, to the centre of the platform, followed by the executioner and the ordinary of the prison, the Rev. Mr Carver. On his appearance a few yells of execration escaped from a portion of the crowd; but the general body of the people, great as must have been their abhorrence of his atrocious crime, remained silent spectators of the scene which was passing before their eyes. The prisoner’s manner was marked by an extraordinary appearance of firmness. His step was steady and collected, and his movements free from the slightest agitation or indecision. His countenance indeed was pale, and bore the trace of much dejection, but it was at the same time calm and unmoved. While the executioner was placing him on the drop he slightly moved his hands (which were tied in front of him, and strongly clasped one within the other) up and down two or three times; and this was the only visible symptom of any emotion or mental anguish which the wretched man endured. His face was then covered with the cap, fitting so closely as not to conceal the outlines of his countenance, the noose was then adjusted. During this operation he lifted up his head and raised his hands to his breast, as if in the action of fervent prayer. In a moment the fatal bolt was withdrawn, the drop fell, and in this attitude the murderer perished. He died without any violent struggle. In two minutes after he had fallen his legs were twice slightly convulsed, but no further motion was observable, excepting that his raised arms, gradually losing their vitality, sank down from their own lifeless weight.
After hanging one hour, the body was cut down and removed within the prison.
AFFECTING COPY OF VERSES.
Attention give, both old and young,
Of high and low degree,
Think while this mournful tale is sung,
Of my sad misery.
I’ve slain a master good and kind,
To me has been a friend,
For which I must my life resign,
My time is near an end.
Oh hark! what means that dreadful sound?
It sinks deep in my soul;
It is the bell that sounds my knell,
How solemn is the toll.
See thousands are assembled
Around the fatal place,
To gaze on my approaching,
And witness my disgrace.
There many sympathising hearts,
Who feel another’s woe,
Even now appears in sorrow,
For my sad overthrow.
Think of the aged man I slew,
Then pity’s at an end,
I robb’d him of property and life,
And the poor man of a friend.
Let pilfering passions not intrude,
For to lead you astray,
From step to step it will delude,
And bring you to dismay.
Think of the wretched Courvoisier,
Who thus dies on a tree,
A death of shame, I’ve nought to blame,
But my own dishonesty.
Mercy on earth I’ll not implore,
To crave it would be vain,
My hands are dyed with human gore,
None can wash off the stain,
But the merits of a Saviour,
Whose mercy alone I crave;
Good Christians pray, as thus I die,
I may his pardon have.
Paul & Co., Printers, 2, 3, Monmouth, Court, Seven Dials.
TRIAL, SENTENCE, AND EXECUTION
OF
ROBERT BLAKESLEY,
For the Wilful Murder of JAMES BURDON,
in Eastcheap.
This morning soon after eight o’clock, Robert Blakesley was executed in the Old Bailey for the murder of James Burdon, on the 21st of September, by stabbing him on the left side of his belly. The prisoner was tried at the Central Criminal Court before Lord Abinger and Mr Baron Gurney. Mr Payne appeared for the prosecution. Mr C. Phillips and Bodkin conducted the defence. The Jury after an absence of half an hour returned into court finding the Prisoner GUILTY. The officer of the court then asked the prisoner if he had anything thing to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him?
The Prisoner: So help me God I am innocent of all intention to murder James Burdon.
Proclamation was then made to keep silence in the court.
Lord Abinger, having put on the black cap, addressed the prisoner as follows:—Robert Blakesley, you stand convicted by a jury of your countrymen of the atrocious and abominable crime of murder. Though you appeal to God to bear witness of your innocence, yet it is by human tribunals that you must be judged. If you are innocent God will not hear that appeal in vain, but we can judge only by human testimony, and the means we have of investigating guilt. Upon that investigation no doubt can be entertained that you are guilty of the crime laid to your charge. You intended to commit another murder; the first person whose life you aimed at taking away was your wife. You then aimed at taking away that of the unfortunate man who became the victim of your anger, and his life has been taken by you, who gave it not, and who cannot restore it. You have, to a certain extent, by your remorse, appeared conscious of your offence. It is impossible for me, sitting in this place, to take any other notice of that remorse than to express a hope that it may be genuine, and that you may, in the short time you have to pass in this world, endeavour to make your peace with God, whose laws in this life you have violated by your crime. An attempt has been made to excuse you on the ground of temporary insanity. You have had a merciful and deliberate jury, who have paid the greatest attention to to the evidence adduced before them upon that subject, and your own father, who appears to be a person highly respectable, has come forward to endeavour to prove that, as far as he could do so consistently with the truth on your behalf. But, notwithstanding, all the inclination which the jury must have felt to yield, if possible, to the anxious wish of your parent, we have all found it impossible to doubt that you committed this act with malice, with deliberation, and with an intention you had no right or authority to feel, much less to execute. You have taken away the life of one of your fellow-creatures; another, that of your own wife, still remains in jeopardy. What can you expect from human tribunals but that the law should be executed with the utmost severity against you? Its sentence, and I pronounce it with pain and sorrow, is, that you be taken to the place whence you came, to be thence removed to the place of execution, then that you be hanged by the neck till you are dead, and that your corpse be buried in the place of your imprisonment, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.
The prisoner, who had preserved the same coutenance and demeanour unmoved, was then taken from the dock.
THE EXECUTION.
The moment the culprit appeared on the scaffold, there was a yell from the multitude, but he took no notice of it, but muttering a few words in prayer, he was launched into eternity. For the first couple of minutes, the wretched man struggled very much, to the great gratification of the crowd, at the pain he was supposed to be suffering. After hanging the usual time, the body was cut down, and deposited in a shell, in which he is to be buried to-night within the precintes of the gaol.
Paul & Co., Printers, 2, 3, Monmouth Court, Seven Dials.
VERSES ON DANIEL GOOD,
Who was executed this morning May, ’42, for the Murder of Jane Jones
Of all the wild deeds upon murder’s black list,
Sure none is so barbarous and cruel as this,
Which in these few lines unto you I’ll unfold,
The recital’s enough to turn your blood cold.
In the great town of London near Manchester square,
Jane Jones kept a mangle in South street we hear,
A gentleman’s coachman oft visiting came,
A cold-blooded monster, Dan Good was his name.
As a single man under her he made love,
And in course of time she pregnant did prove,
Then with false pretences he took her from home,
To murder his victim and the babe in her womb.
To his master’s stables in Putney Park Lane,
They went, but she never returned again,
Prepare for your end then the monster did cry,
You time it is come for this night you must die.
Then with a sharp hatchet her head did cleave,
She begged for mercy but none he would give,
Have mercy dear Daniel my wretched life spare,
For the sake of your own child which you know I bear.
No mercy, he cried, then repeated the blow,
Alive from this stable you never shall go,
Neither you nor your brat shall e’er trouble me more,
Then lifeless his victim he struck to the floor.
And when she was dead this sad deed to hide,
The limbs from her body he straight did divide,
Her bowels ript open and dripping with gore,
The child from the womb this black monster he tore.
He made a large fire in the harness room,
Her head, arms, and legs in the fire did consume,
But e’er his intentions were fulfilled quite,
This dark deed by Providence was brought to light.
To a pawn-shop the coachman he did go one day,
A boy said some trowsers he did take away,
A policeman followed unto Putney Lane,
The coachman and trowsers to bring back again.
When in searching the stable the body he spied,
Without head, legs, or arms, and ript open beside,
Then a cry of murder he quickly did raise,
And the coachman was taken within a few days.
And when he was tried, most shocking to state,
The evidence proved what I now relate,
That Daniel Good murdered his victim Jones,
Then cut up and burnt her flesh and bones.
He soon was found guilty and sentenced to die,
The death of a murderer on the gallows high,
The blood of the murder’d must not cry vain,
An we hope that his like we shall ne’er see again.
J. Harkness, Printer, Preston.
THE EXECUTION OF
JAMES BLOOMFIELD RUSH
AT
NORWICH CASTLE, APRIL 23rd., 1849,
For the murder of Isaac Jermy, Esq., the Recorder of Norwich, and his son, I. Jermy Jermy, Esq.,
AT
STANFIELD HALL.
Between 11 and 12 o’clock the bell of St Peter’s, Mancroft, tolled the death knell of the criminal. When conducted to the turnkey’s room to be pinioned he met Calcraft, whereupon he said to Mr Pinson “Is this the man that is to do the business?” The reply was “Yes.” When he was pinioned he shrugged up his shoulders, saying “This don’t go easy; it’s too tight.”
Within two or three minutes after 12 o’clock the mournful cavalcade proceeded from the interior of the Castle to the spot on which the gibbet was erected. The chaplain, who headed the procession, read, as he passed along, part of the burial service.
When the procession left the Castle gate to proceed to the gibbet, Rush presented a most melancholy and dejected appearance. He was dressed in a plain suit of black, wearing no neck-hankerchief. His shirt collar was turned down. For about twenty yards he walked with a firm unwavering step, but in a moment afterwards he raised his pinioned hands to his face and trembled violently. He then removed his hands from his face, and turning up his eyes to heaven, assumed the attitude of penitence and prayer. On reaching the gallows the rev. chaplain offered up a prayer. While this prayer was being read the condemned convict seemed to be deeply impressed with the awful character of his situation. Immediately on the close of the prayer he beckoned to Mr Pinson, the governor of the Castle, when the following brief conversation ensued:
Rush: Mr Pinson, I have a last request to make to you. It is that the bolt may be withdrawn while the chaplain is reading the benediction—“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all, evermore.”
Mr Pinson: I will communicate your wish to the chaplain, and I have no doubt it will be attended to.
The hangman then placed the unhappy convict under the beam on which he was to hang, and affixed the fatal rope around his neck. Rush said, “For God’s sake give me rope enough. Don’t be in a hurry; take your time.” Then moving his head about, he said “Put the knot a little higher up, don’t hurry.” The rev. chaplain proceeded with the prayers, and on arriving at the words “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” &c., Calcraft withdrew the bolt, the platform went down, and all was over. His death was greeted with loud applause by an immense crowd who had assembled to witness the execution.
Good people listen unto my song,
And girls to whom honest hearts belong,
Pay great attention to what I say,
And by the wicked be not led astray.
Poor Emily Sandford was learned well,
Yet mark what to her fatal lot befel,
The serpent’s tongue caused the tears to gush,
For she was betrayed by James Bloomfield Rush.
She begged most pleadingly to be his wife,
And lived with him a most unhappy life,
And though the hot tears down her cheeks did flow
The monster heeded not Miss Sandford’s woe.
But seeing that she now was ruined quite,
She stood upon her feet in female might,
And with her pale hand stretched towards his face
Said, “God will curse thee for my deep disgrace.”
Forboding were the words Miss Sandford said,
For murderous thoughts were in the wretch’s head.
He set to work, and speedily did plan,
The death of servants, husband, wife, and son.
A five barrelled pistol he soon did buy,
And then a mask upon his face did try,
Put on his hat and cloak and pistols drew,
Within its fold a bloody deed to do.
For Stanfield Hall he quick did start,
And old Squire Jermy he shot through the heart!
And while the grey-hair’d man lay bleeding there,
He shot his son and lovely wife so fair.
Eliza Chestney to her Mistress ran,
Saying, “dearest mistress, who is this man?”
And, while she pressed her mistress to her heart,
A bullet pierced in a dangerous part.
James Bloomfield Rush was then to prison sent,
Miss Sandford against him a witness went,
She was well avenged—for on the gallows high,
The base seducer was condemned to die!
The Judge soon told him that his race was run,—
That he must die for murderous deeds he’d done,
To use the time that yet on earth was given,
In making peace with his God in heaven.
O had you witness’d the parting hour,
Of this wretched man and his nine children dear,
Your hearts would break to think that they might see,
Their father hung upon a gallows tree.
J. Harkness, Printer, Preston.
EXECUTION OF
JOHN GLEESON WILSON,
At Kirkdale Gaol, on Saturday, September 15th, 1849, the Murderer of Mrs. Hinrichson, her Two Children, and Female Servant.
One of the most appalling murders which has for years startled and disgusted society took place on the morning of Wednesday, March 28th, 1849, at No. 20, Leveson Street, Liverpool, at mid-day. A miscreant in the most brutal manner murdered two unprotected women and two helpless children.
In due course Wilson was committed for trial, which took place before Mr Justice Patteson and a respectable jury, who, in less than five minutes, returned a verdict of GUILTY.
On Saturday morning, a few minutes before twelve o’clock, the iron gate leading to the drop was opened, and the prisoner appeared between two priests—the Rev. Mr Duggan and the Rev. Mr Marshall. A general feeling of horror seemed to pervade all present, which found expression in the most distant part of the assemblage by bursts of execration.
Calcraft, the London executioner, was unable to be present from illness, and the office was performed by Howard, from York, who was especially brought to Liverpool by the Under Sheriff. The priests read in English, the service of the Catholic Church for a departing soul until the bolt was drawn, and the wretched culprit was launched into eternity.
Thus terminated the life of one of the greatest criminals that ever disgraced the human family. Upwards of 100,000 persons were present, the railway company running cheap trains from all available parts.
THE LIVERPOOL TRAGEDIES.
Come all you feeling christians and listen unto me,
The like was not recorded in British history,
It’s of three dreadful murders committed, I am told,
By one John Gleeson Wilson, for the sake of cursed gold.
On Wednesday the 28th, consternation did prevail,
In Leveson Street in Liverpool, where thousands did bewail,
The fate of this poor family, who we’re left to deplore,
Snatched from a father’s fond embraces, who ne’er will see them more.
This monster in human shape did go there to dwell,
And that he went for plunder to all it is known full well,
And when this callous villain saw their defenceless state,
He did resolve them all to kill and rob them of the plate.
His bloody work he did commence all in the open day,
By striking at the children while their mother was away,
The servant girl did interfere, said, “should not do so,”
Then with a poker in his hand he gave her a severe blow.
Numberless times he did her strike till she could no longer stand,
The blood did flow profusely from her wounds, and did him brand,
Then the eldest boy of five years old, in supplication said,
“Oh master, spare our precious lives, don’t serve us like the maid.”
This darling child of five years old he brutally did kill,
Regardless of its tender cries, its precious blood did spill,
The youngest child to the kitchen ran, to shun the awful knife,
This villain followed after and took its precious life.
The surgeon thus describes the scene presented to his view,
A more appalling case than this he says he never knew,
Four human beings on the floor all weltering in their gore,
The sight was sickening to behold on entering the door.
The mother’s wounds three inches deep upon her head and face,
And pools of blood as thick as mud, from all of them could trace,
None could identify the boy, his head was like a jelly;
This tragedy is worse by far than Greenacre or Kelly.
To the hospital in this sad state they quickly were conveyed,
The mother with her infant dear, and faithful servant maid,
Thousands did besiege the gates, their fate for to enquire,
But in three days from incise wounds, both of them did expire.
’Twill cause the captain many a pang to know their awful doom,
His loving wife and children sent to an untimely tomb,
’Twill make his hair turn grey with grief, no skill their lives could save,
And he did go, borne down with woe, in sorrow to the grave.
But now he’s taken for this deed, bound down in irons strong,
In Kirkdale Jail he now does lie, till his trial it comes on,
May God above receive the souls of those whom he has slain,
And may they all in heavenly bliss for ever with him reign.
J. Harkness, Printer, Preston.
THE EXECUTION OF
FRED. GEO. MANNING,
AND
MARIA, HIS WIFE.
At Horsemonger Lane, November 13th, 1849,
For the MURDER and Robbery of PATRICK O’CONNOR.
This morning the last act in the tragedy of the Mannings’ was performed on the roof of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, in the presence of an immense assemblage.
The gardens in front of the houses opposite the prison, and from which the best view could be obtained, commanded high prices, and were occupied by persons of apparent respectability, and amongst them were many well-dressed females.
A few minutes before the clock struck nine, the bell of the prison chapel was heard to give forth the fatal toll, and those who had collected in the vicinity of the scaffold were observed to uncover, which was taken up by the populace below as a signal to do the same, and to call for silence. Immediately the roar of voices which had previously prevailed became hushed and still, and the mournful cavalcade ascended the steps of the scaffold,—Calcraft first, then the Chaplain, followed by the wretched man Manning, who ascended the stairs with a firm step, but appeared pale and emaciated. He was dressed in deep black, with a long frock-coat. The rope having been adjusted and the cap drawn over his face, Mrs. Manning, the female partner in his crime was brought up. She was dressed in black satin, tightly bound round the waist, with a long white collar fastened round her neck. On advancing up on the drop, and observing her husband at her side, as if acting upon the sudden impulse of the moment, she seized his right hand and shook it for several minutes. The hangman then hurriedly completed his deadly preparations, the next minute the slam of the drop was heard, and the dread sentence of the law had been accomplished. Manning gave a few convulsive jerks, and all was over, but his wife had a long struggle with death, and it was some moments before the immortal spirit had quitted her body for ever.
THE BERMONDSEY TRAGEDY.
BY J. CLARKE.
Come all you good people of every degree,
I pray you give attention and listen to me,
’Twas in the county of Somersetshire where I was bred and born,
And my wife she is a foreigner,—with her must die in scorn.
For the murder of O’Connor we are condemned to die;
My wife she said I’m innocent of that sad tragedy,
But ’twas she who shot O’Connor and swore she would shoot me,
Unless I would assist her to bury his body.
Four months before his murder his doom was ready sealed,
His grave made ready under ground his body to receive,
He little thought his death so near when to the house he came,
But his death was plann’d all by our hands his money to obtain.
For murder and plunder they both were fully bent,
They shot him with a pistol, and to his lodgings went,
They got his cash and jewels and quickly did repair,
To hide the guilt for the blood they’d spilt—oh! what a wretched pair.
At the Old Bailey, London, the trial it came on,
They were arraigned before the judge and English jurymen,
The counsel for the prisoners they nobly did defend,
And tried to prove their innocence, this point they did contend.
After the trial, Mrs Manning said,
I do protest I’m innocent and been unfairly tried,
Though you’ve pronounced me guilty, and doom’d me to be hung,
More like a dog than Christian, to a being thus undone.
With rage and desperation the keepers by them stood,
And to their gloomy prison they quickly were removed,
The coolness and courage which they before displayed,
Had now forsook them for a time, and they look’d quite dismay’d.
This wicked woman taken was unto Horsemonger Gaol,
Her husband followed after, and very soon did feel
Contrition for his guilty deeds, and to his wife he wrote,
Begging of her to think how soon she was to meet her fate.
The end of poor O’Connor will long in memory reign,
And shew the vice and folly which followed in its train.
Oh! may it thus a warning prove to shun bad company,
Never like the Mannings commit such a tragedy.
Now in their gloomy prisons bound down in irons strong,
Awaiting for the fatal morn when they will meet their doom,
For the murder of O’Connor—oh! what a horrid crime,
Now they are both cut off in the height of their prime.
Stewart, Printer, Botchergate, Carlisle.
THE ESHER TRAGEDY.
Six Children Murdered by their Mother.
You feeling christians give attention,
Young and old of each degree,
A tale of sorrow I will mention,
Join and sympathise with me;
It’s of a sad and dreadful murder,
I shall quickly let you hear,
Which was committed by a mother,
On her six young children dear.
The perpetrator of this murder,
Mary Ann Brough it is her name,
And formerly as you may see,
She nursed the blooming prince of Wales.
But now her days of happiness,
Are vanished like the evening’s sun,
Good people all, both great and small,
Reflect upon the deed she’s done.
One night she could not rest in slumber,
So her own confession says,
Her little children, six in number,
Thus she took their lives away.
’Twas with a sharp and fatal razor,
She committed this foul deed,
And one by one she cut their throats,
Which causes each kind heart to bleed.
The first and eldest whom she murdered,
Sad and dreadful to unfold,
Was a sweet and blooming girl,
Something more than ten years old,
And in her wrath and indignation,
Thus she slew them one by one.
Causing death and desolation,
What on earth could urge it on?
One little pretty boy amongst them,
Of the name of Henry,
He cried aloud with eyes of pity,
‘Mother, dear, don’t murder me,’
She heeded not his prattling tongue,
But like a demon fierce and wild,
‘My dear,’ said she, ‘it must be done,’
And thus she slew her other child.
From bed to bed, and to each chamber,
This wretched woman she did go,
While all around her own dear children,
Streams of crimson blood did flow.
The dreadful sight was most surprising,
To behold these children dear,
How their cruel hearted mother,
Cut their throats from ear to ear.
Oh! what must be the woman’s motive,
Did she think she’d done amiss,
Or did she think of death and judgment
To perpetrate a deed like this?
But now the wretch she is committed,
To a prison’s gloomy cell,
Where midnight dreams to her will whisper
And her deeds of blood will tell.
Within the prison’s massive walls,
What anguish will torment her breast.
When phantoms of her six dear children,
Will disturb her of her rest.
Such a sad and dreadful murder,
On record there is no worse,
Committed by a cruel mother,
Once the Prince of Wales’ Nurse.
Confession of the Murderess.
The following confession was made by the murderess, to Mr. Biddlecombe, chief superintendent of the Surrey Constabulary:-“On Friday last, I was bad all day; I wanted to see Mr. Izod, and waited all day. I wanted him to give me some medicine. In the evening I walked about, and afterwards put the children to bed, and wanted to go to sleep in a chair.—About nine o’clock, Georgy (meaning Georgianna) kept calling me to bed. I came up to bed, and they kept calling me to bring them some barley water, and they kept calling me till nearly 12 o’clock. I had one candle lit on the chair—I went and got another, but could not see, there was something like a cloud, and I thought I would go down and get a knife and cut my throat, but could not see. I groped about in master’s room for a razor—I could not find one—at last I found his keys, and then found his razor. I went up to Georgy, and cut her first; I did not look at her. I then came to Carry, and cut her. Then to Harry—he said, ‘don’t mother.’ I said, ‘I must’ and did cut him. Then I went to Bill. He was fast asleep. I turned him over. He never awoke, and I served him the same. I nearly tumbled into this room. The two children here, Harriet and George were awake. They made no resistance at all. I then lay down myself.” This statement was signed by the miserable woman.
J. HARKNESS, Printer, 121, Church Street, Preston.
EXECUTION AT NEWGATE
OF
WILLIAM COGAN,
For the barbarous and cruel murder of his own wife.
The execution of William Cogan for the murder of his wife took place this (Monday) morning at Newgate. The circumstances under which the crime was committed will be fresh in the recollection of the public. The prisoner and his wife were in the habit of getting drunk, and while in that state quarrels took place between them. They had been to a funeral on the day the occurrence took place, and they both drank freely, and when they got home they quarrelled. About two o’clock in the morning he rushed into the street with his throat cut. The prisoner endeavoured to make it appear that his wife had first cut his throat and then destroyed herself. Ever since his condemnation the culprit has continued to assert his innocence, and on Friday last, when he parted for the last time with his father and his sisters, he again positively declared he was innocent. The condemned man slept soundly his last night. On the fatal morning the executioner, Calcraft, was admitted into the cell a few minutes before eight o’clock, and the culprit the moment he entered appeared to recognise him, and rose from his seat and submitted to the operation of being pinioned with the utmost composure; and just as the clock of St. Sepulchre’s church chimed the hour the mournful procession moved towards the scaffold. The culprit was then placed under the fatal beam and the rope was adjusted, and after the executioner had retired he prayed most earnestly with the Ordinary for a short time, and almost the last words he uttered were a prayer to God to forgive him. The drop fell almost at the same moment, and the wretched man, after one or two convulsive struggles, ceased to exist. After hanging an hour, according to the terms of the sentence, the body was cut down and placed in a shell and removed to the interior of the prison.
The crowd that was assembled to witness the execution, was very great. During the whole of Sunday afternoon the Old Bailey was thronged, and crowds of persons had assembled so late as twelve o’clock at night, some of whom remained until the period of the execution. The officials of the prison stated that it was one of the noisiest and most disorderly crowds they ever remember to have seen upon a similar occasion. The moment the wretched man made his appearance on the scaffold there was a general cry of “hats off,” and the upturned faces of the thousands of spectators presented a most extraordinary spectacle. The culprit was twenty-six years old, and he was apparently a strong muscular man.
A COPY OF VERSES.
Come, all you feeling Christians,
Give ear, I pray, to me;
It’s of a dreadful tragedy—
Explained it shall be.
In London town it happened,
As I can truly say,
William Cogan, the barbarous murderer,
With a razor his wife did slay.
CHORUS.
Kind friends, now a warning take—
Poor William’s life is now at stake.
Oh! drink—thou cursed beverage—
What acts thou prompts us to do;
To make me kill my loved wife,
Just as a fiend would do!
I once had love, as other men,
But on my heart a brand;
Entangled with loose company,
Committed now I stand.
Heart-rending ’tis to know it,
My orphan’s left behind,
That had a fondling mother,
Who unto them was kind:
But now she’s dead and buried,
Gone to that rest above,
Where all is joy and happiness—
Blest with that sacred love.
Oh, cold and stormy was that night,
And fast the snow did drop,
When Mary Ann was forced to fly
All from her father’s cot.
Though thinly clad, with her chemise on,
Her shawl upon her swung,
“My God! my God!” she thus did cry,
As thus her hands she wrung.
Exposed to wind and weather,
In a passage there she stood;
Her limbs were shivering with the cold,
And freezing was her blood;
But then she dare not enter
Where her demon father lay,
Fearful lest, as her mother,
She might become his prey.
So now, kind friends, take warning,—
A lesson let this be
Unto those drunken fathers
Who think of nought but “spree;”
And pray may God have mercy,
And show it to him soon;
And prepare this wicked person
To meet his awful doom.
Taylor, Printer, London.
EXECUTION OF THE WARWICKSHIRE MURDERER,
GEORGE GARDNER,
For shooting his sweetheart, Sarah Kirby.
The condemned criminal, George Gardner, a ploughman, on Monday suffered the last penalty of the law at Warwick. The execution took place at ten o’clock, before the county gaol, and was performed by Smith, of Dudley. The murder was a most unprovoked and cold-blooded one, by which Sarah Kirby, his fellow-servant, was shot dead while she was standing at her washing-tub, on the 23rd of April last. Both she and the man Gardner were employed at a roadside farm, on the confines of the county, and she was a very good-looking, well-conducted, pious girl. He was a very great blackguard and a sot. Soon after he went to the farm where the murder took place she complained to Miss Edge, the housekeeper, that he annoyed her very much by his attentions, and his attempts to kiss her. Mr Edge, her master, hearing of this, called them both into the parlour, and told him he must not repeat his conduct to her, whereupon Gardner said, “Well, if I can’t have her, no one else shall.” No further complaints were made after this, though there is reason to believe he continued his suit. He amused himself by looking at her as she undressed at night through a chink in the wall which separated their bedrooms. The only complaint he had against her was that she would not draw him the proper quantity of beer; but the truth was that he wanted more than his fair share. On the morning of the murder he was at work in the plough-field, his master being absent at a cattle fair, and he made remarks to the other labourers which showed him to be contemplating some act of violence, saying he wished he had “some one” before him—he would kill them, and so on; but he appears to have left his work and returned to the house without causing any suspicion to arise in their minds that he was about to commit the crime of murder. Having reached the house, he asked this poor girl to fetch him his master’s double-barrelled gun for shooting rooks. He had been in the habit of using it for this purpose before, and no surprise was felt by the girl or by Miss Edge, the housekeeper, who saw her hand the loaded gun to him, Miss Edge remarking, “Mind, it is loaded, George.” He said, “Yes, ma’am, I know it is,” and tried it by taking off the cap and letting the hammer down. Finding it all right, he followed Kirby to the wash-house, and shot her in the back of the neck. He afterwards threatened Miss Edge, and there is no doubt that if she had not concealed herself he would have shot her. He then escaped with the gun, and was taken by the police on his way to Oxford. Some delay took place in the execution; and from the bad adjustment of the rope or some other cause, the criminal died very hard, struggling much, until at last he hung motionless in the air. The crowd contained a large proportion of women, but was orderly in the extreme, and began to disperse as soon as the drop fell. Gardner died penitent, confessing his crime. The following confession was made by Gardner before his execution:—“I did not want to pay my addresses to Sarah Kirby, but she would never draw me the proper quantity of beer, and that vexed me. I did not know the master was away on the 23rd of April, and the witness who said I asked him where he was will have to suffer for his perjury. I tried my luck in the field by throwing up the “spud” of the plough, which came down with the point in the earth. If it had fallen flat I should not have killed her, but as it came down point foremost I left the field with the determination to do it. I should have killed Miss Edge if I had got near her, and it’s a good job no one stopped me before I sold the gun.”
VERSES ON THE EXECUTION OF
GEORGE GARDNER,
FOR SHOOTING SARAH KIRBY.
Harkness, Printer, 121, Church Street, Preston.
The solemn knell does most awful sound,
Oh God in pity on me look down,
Forgive my sins and compassion take,
And grant me fortitude to meet my fate.
Oh what numbers approach to see
A wretched man upon the tree,
My time is come, and I must be soon,
A prey to worms in the silent tomb.
When I was scarce eighteen years of age,
As ploughman to Mr Edge I did engage,
He unto me was both good and kind,
But murder entered my wicked mind.
She would’t give me beer enough for weeks,
When to take her life I a plan did seek,
I pointed the gun one fatal day,
And with the same took her life away.
When from my labour I did return,
To do her harm my heart did burn,
I took the gun right speedily,
But little thinking she was to die.
Though fellow-servants I did not her like,
That was the reason I took her life,
That was the reason I did her kill,
Maidens never marry against their will.
My bosom heaves and borne down with woe,
The grave lies open and I must go,
To sleep with death till the Judgment day,
When God will pardon me I firmly pray.
It was cursed Satan led me astray,
It was Satan tempted me one day,
It was Satan prompted my guilty mind,
So slay Sarah Kirby both good and kind.
Young men and maidens ere ’tis too late,
Oh take a warning by my fate,
Trust in your Saviour who reigns above,
And never kill whom you cannot love.
It was well for me had I never been born,
To die a death of public scorn,
In youth and bloom on the fatal tree,
Oh God in mercy look down on me.
Petitions have in my favour been
Sent from Warwick town to my gracious Queen,
But alas no mercy is there for me,
And I must die on the fatal tree.
Three weeks I have lain in a gloomy cell,
Where my dreadful sufferings no one can tell,
To gain me pardon my friends have tried,
But oh, alas, it has been denied.
LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF
WILLIAM G. YOUNGMAN,
The Walworth Murderer.
On Thursday, August 16th, William Godfrey Youngman was placed at the bar of the Central Criminal Court to take his trial for the murder of his mother, two brothers, and his sweetheart.—Shortly after ten o’clock the learned judge, Mr Justice Wilhams, took his seat on the bench. The prisoner, who was described as a tailor, and 25 years of age, was then placed at the bar. He exhibited perfect coolness and self-possession, and did not seem in the slightest degree affected at his awful position. The indictment that was proceeded with was the one charging him with the wilful murder of his sweetheart, Mary Wells Streeter.—Mr James Bevan said: I reside at 16, Manor place, Walworth. The prisoner’s father occupied the top floor of the house. On the 31st of July his family consisted of his wife, two little boys, the prisoner, and the deceased. I understand the prisoner had come to see his father on a holiday, and he would sleep there. About ten minutes to 6 in the morning I was in bed, and heard a noise and a heavy fall on the top floor of the house. I got up to see what was the matter, and before I could get to the door Mr Beard knocked at it and said, “For God’s sake come here—here is murder.” I went upstairs directly, and when I got to the top of the stairs I saw the elder boy lying dead upon the landing, I did not see anything more then, but went down and dressed myself, and I then saw the prisoner standing in his nightshirt on the staircase. He said to me “My mother has done all this—she murdered my two brothers and my sweetheart, and I, in self-defence, believe I have murdered her.” I went out and fetched the police.—Susannah Beard said: Me and my husband occupied the back room as a sleeping room. About one o’clock in the morning of the 31st of July, I heard a noise overhead like something very heavy falling on the boards of the bedroom above ours. My husband went out to see what was the matter, and he called out “Murder!” and came downstairs. He afterwards went up again with the landlord. I went to the door of our room and saw the prisoner standing on the staircase. He said, Mrs. Beard, my mother has done all this. She has murdered my sweetheart and my two little brothers, and I believe in self-defence I have murdered her.”
Philip Beard, the husband of the last witness, said, I had seen the prisoner in our house a few days. I remember being awoke by my wife, and I heard a rambling on the landing. The noise was like that of children running about. I went out of my room, and I heard a slight scream. When I got to the outside of my room, I saw some blood on the stairs, and on the top of the staircase I saw the little boy lying on the landing. His throat was cut and he was dead. I then saw the body of the deceased lying a little beyond that of the boy. I did not observe any other bodies at the time, as I was very much alarmed, and I went down and called the landlord, and we went upstairs together; and I went to dress. I then fetched a policeman and a surgeon. I saw the prisoner upon the stairs, and he told me that his mother had done it all, and that he had murdered her in self-defence.
After the further examination of a number of witnesses, who corroborated the evidence already given, Mr. Best, in a powerful and touching speech, addressed the jury for the prisaner.
The jury retired, and in about 25 minutes returned into court, and amid breathless suspense gave a verdict of Guilty.
The judge then put on the black cap, and delivered the following sentence: Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of the crime of murder, and one of the most heinous ever committed, but it is no part of my office to dwell on the enormity of your guilt. It is my only duty to pass upon the sentence of the law, and that sentence is—That you be taken to the prison from whence you came, and then to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy on your miserable soul!
EXECUTION.
Tuesday, September 4th, was the day appointed for the execution of Youngman, the perpetrator of four murders at Walworth. At an early hour people of the lowest order began to assemble in the neighbourhood of the prison, and by five o’clock every available space was occupied. At seven o’clock the chaplain entered the condemned cell to administer religious consolation to the criminal, and remained with him until the time of his execution. In reply to exhortations addressed to him by the chaplain, he repeated substantially the story he had always told as to his share in the crime. The chaplain urged him not to leave the world with a lie in his mouth. “Well, if I wanted to tell a lie it would be to say that I did it.” He, nevertheless, conducted himself towards the chaplain with respect, listened to him with attention, and joined in prayer; but, beyond those mechanical observances, he showed no evidence whatever of feeling.
The minutes which remained to him to live might now be numbered. He was then conducted to a gateway; in which a corridor he had to traverse terminated, and there, a few minutes before nine, he was pinioned. The procession then formed, the gates were opened, the chaplain commenced reading the burial service, and, so escorted, the convict proceeded to the beam. On arriving at the drop and confronting the mass of human beings he looked wild and startled, but, recovering his composure he allowed himself to be placed on the drop, and, with evident fervency and an audible voice, he followed the chaplain in a prayer, clasping his hands in unmismakeable devotion. For a moment he paused to request the exeeutioner, who was adjusting the noose, to pinion his legs, which was done; and his parting words addressed to the chaplain—were, “Thank you, Mr. Jessop, for your great kindness; see my brother, and take my love to him and all at home.”
The drop fell, and he died in a few minutes.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, New Oxford Street.
THE WIGAN MURDER.
EXAMINATION AND CONFESSION
OF
JOHN HEALEY.
John Healey, who stands charged on his confession with having been concerned with four others in the murder of James Barton, at the Button or Bawkhouse Pit, Haigh, near Wigan, on the morning of the 3rd of January, 1863, was re-examined at Wigan, yesterday. The confession having been read over, Mr. Lamb asked the prisoner if it was correct. He said: it is not all correct, sir. I own to it that I had liquor with the men, but then I do not recollect where I went.—Mr. Lamb: But that portion about the murder?—Healey: I can then recollect the men and then getting drunk, but I do not know what occurred after.—Mr. Lamb: Well, then, how was it that you made that statement?—A man may be in drink and not know what he is doing.—Mr. Lamb: You were not in drink when you made the statement.—The prisoner: No.—Mr. Lamb: Then how was it you made it? The prisoner made no reply. Evidence was then tendered as to the discovery of the few remains of Barton, but nothing fresh was elicited. The only evidence bearing upon the confession of Healey, was that of Jane Little, a collier girl. She deposed that on the morning of the murder she was assisting to load a boat with coal at the Bridge or Pigeon Pit, situated on the canal bank, between the Bawkhouse Colliery and Wigan. The towering path was on the opposite side of the canal to the colliery, and the path was lighted by a light on the pit bank. About a quarter-past two she was in the boat, and a man, named Jordan, was above lowering the coals. He was approaching with a full tub, when she saw four men come in the direction of Haigh. Jordan was just lowering a tub as they came near, and when the men saw him they stopped suddenly by a heap of ashes. Whilst he was fetching another tub they walked sharply past and over the bridge, where they waited till Jordan had gone away again. The men had caps on.—Having been charged in the usual way, the prisoner said he had nothing to say, and he was committed for trial at the next Liverpool assizes.—The evidence of Little is, so far as it goes, corroborative of Healey’s confession, and as it was never made public till yesterday, there is no probability that the story of the prisoner with regard to the four men can have been manufactured from the newspapers or from hearsay.
Come all you wild and wicked youth,
Listen to me, I will tell the truth
For that sad and dreadful deed
Has caused my very heart to bleed,
I could not sleep or take my rest,
I compelled was to confess.
Chorus.
Though justice strictly searched about,
They could not find the murderer out.
Two long years have gone and pass’d,
And I, John Healey, have confessed.
At last to my grief and sad downfall,
I was taken to Wigan Town Hall,
Where I had to face Justice Lamb,
To answer was I the guilty man.
John Healey is my name,
It was strong whiskey did my head inflame,
With four companions at their desire,
At Button Pit near Wigan
To thrust poor James Barton in the furnace flames of fire.
Though, &c.
A warning take young men I pray,
For fear like me you should be led astray,
For nights rambling is my downfall,
And strong drink is the ruin of all;
I have taken father,
The mother left orphans to deplore,
May the Lord have mercy on his soul,
They will never see him more.
Alas in Kirkdale Gaol I lay,
A-waiting for the trial-day.
Harkness, Printer, Preston.
EXECUTION
OF
PRISCILLA BIGGADIKE,
at Lincoln, for the
WILFUL MURDER OF HER HUSBAND.
Priscilla Biggadike, who was sentenced to death at the recent Lincoln Assizes, for the wilful murder of her husband by poisoning, at Stickney, a village near Boston, in Lincolnshire, was executed on Monday morning, at nine o’clock.
The unfortunate woman has appearod to pay considerable attention to the ministrations of the chaplain, but she declined to make any confession of her guilt. On Saturday, she was visited by a brother and three sisters, who remained with her upwards of three hours, and strongly urged her to confess, but still she refused, and at length became passionate at their repeated entreaties. George Ironmonger, one of the persons who lodged at her house, also applied for permission to to see her on Saturday, but was refused.
On Sunday she attended Divine service in the prison. She slept well during the night, and was visited at seven o’clock yesterday morning by the Rev. W. Richter, the chaplain, who again, without avail, implored her to confess her guilt. At a quarter to nine she was pinioned by Askerne the executioner, and although she fainted under the operation, she immediately recovered. Five minutes afterwards, the sad procession left the prison for the scaffold, which was erected within the castle walls, on the east side of the Crown Court, a distance of nearly 200 yards from the prison door.
The unfortunate woman, who was supported by two of the warders, moaned piteously, and appeared to take little heed of the chaplain, while reading the solemn service of the dead. On her way to the place of execution, she said to the warders, I hope my trubles are ended, and then asked, ‘Shall we be much longer?’ to which a warder gave a negative reply. The service was brought to a close at the foot of a drop, and the chaplain turning to the prisoner, asked her whether she still persisted in the declaration of her innocence? whether she had anything to do with the crime, in thought, word, or deed? In a firm voice she replied, ‘I had not, sir.’ She was then accommodated with a chair, and the chaplain addressed her as follows:—I have spent an half an hour with you this morning, in endeavouring to impress upon you, a proper sense of your condition, for you are about to pass from this world into another, and to stand before God, to whom the secrets of all hearts are known, I implore you not to pass away without confessing all your sins; not only generally, but especially this particular one, for which you are about to suffer. I had hoped that you would have made that confession, and thus have enabled me, as a minister of Christ, to have pronounced the forgiveness of your sins, under the promise that Christ came into the world to save sinners. It has grieved me much to find that still persist in the declaration, that you are not accountable for your husband’s death; that you still say that you did not administer the poison yourself; that you did not see any other person administer it, and that you are entirely free from the crime. Do you say so, now?
The Prisoner, still in a firm voice, said, Yes.
The Chaplain.—There is only one left, that you have endeavoured to confess your sins to God, though you will not to you fellow creatures. All I can now say is, that I leave you in the hands of God; and may he have mercy on your soul. What a satisfaction it would be to your children, to your friends, to your relations, to know that you had passed from death into life, in the full persuasion that your sins were forgiven you, and that you were admitted into the blessed kingdom of God. I fear that I can hold out no further consolation to you—the matter rests between you and the Almighty. Had you made a declaration of your sins, I should have done what, as a minister of Christ, I am entitled to do—I should have told you that “your sins though many were forgiven.” I am sorry I cannot exercise that authority at the present moment. I must leave you to God.
The condemned woman was then assisted up the steps to the platform, and placed on the trap door. When the fatal rope was being affixed, she stood firm without assistance. The cap was then drawn over her face, and she the exclaimed “All my troubles are over;” then suddenly “Shame, you are not going to hang me!” “Surely my troubles are over.” The bell of the cathedral here tolled forth the hour of nine, at that instant the bolt was drawn, and the wretched woman was launched into eternity.
W. Smith, Printer, Lincoln.
EXECUTION
OF
FREDERICK BAKER.
This morning, the wretched criminal, Frederick Baker, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Winchester Gaol, for the atrocious murder of Fanny Adams, at Alton, on the 24th of August last. It is satisfactory to state that since his condemnation, the conduct of the unhappy man underwent a total change for the better, and he began to realize the awful condition in which he was placed, and his callous demeanour was changed into one of deep dejection. The prisoner has been assiduously attended by the chaplain of the prison, and to such a state of religious feeling had he been brought, that he fully acknowledged the justice of his sentence. The sheriffs arrived at an early hour. When the operation of pinioning had been performed, the wretched man thanked the chaplain, the governor, and the other officials for their kindness. The procession was then formed, and slowly took its way towards the scene of execution. The cap and rope was adjusted, the bolt drawn, and the prisoner was launched into eternity.
You tender mothers pray give attention,
To these few lines which I will relate,
From a dreary cell, now to you I’ll mention,
A wicked murderer has now met his fate;
This villain’s name it is Frederick Baker,
His trial is over and his time was come!
On the gallows high he has met his Maker,
To answer for that cruel deed he’d done.
Prepare for death, wicked Frederick Baker,
For on the scaffold you will shortly die,
Your victim waits for you to meet your Maker,—
She dwells with Angels and her God on high.
On that Saturday, little Fanny Adams,
Near the hop-garden with her sister played,
With hearts so light they were filled with gladness,
When that monster Baker towards them strayed;
In that heart of stone not a spark of pity,
When he those halfpence to the children gave
But now in gaol in Winchester city,
He soon must die and fill a murderer’s grave.
He told those children to go and leave him,
With little Fanny at the garden gate
He said, come with me, and she believing,
In his arms he lifted her as I now state;
Oh do not take me, my mother wants me,
I must go home again, good sir, she cried;
But on this earth she never saw thee,
In that hop-garden, there, poor child, she died.
When the deed was done, and that little darling,
Her soul to God her Maker it had flown,
She cannot return at her mother’s calling,
He mutilated her it is well known;
Her heart-broken parents in anguish weeping,
For vengeance on her murderer cried,
Her mother wrings her hands in sorrow grieving,
Oh would for you, dear Fanny, I had died.
The jury soon found this monster guilty,
The judge on him the awful sentence passed,
Saying, prepare yourself for the cruel murder,
For in this world, now, your die is cast;
And from your cell you will mount the scaffold,
And many thousands will you behind,
You must die the death of a malefactor,
May the Lord have mercy on your guilty soul.
What visions now must haunt his pillow,
As in his cell he lays now almost wild,
She points at him, and cries, oh tremble, murderer!
’Tis I, your victim here—that little child!
The hangman comes, hark, the bell is tolling,
Your time has come, nothing can save you,
He mounts the scaffold, the drop is falling,
And Frederick Baker fills a murderer’s grave.
DOUBLE EXECUTION AT DURHAM.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF
M’CONVILLE & DOLAN
For the Murder of Philip Trainer, of Darlington, and Hugh John Ward, of Sunderland, in the County Prison, at Durham, on the 22nd instant.
Yesterday the two murderers, Dolan and M’Conville, were executed within the precincts of the goal at Durham. M’Conville, who who was 23 years of age, worked as a furnace-man at Darlington, and was convicted of the murder of Philip Trainer, on the 30th of January last, Dolan murdered a man named Hugh John Ward, at Sunderland, on the 8th of last December. The two convicts left the condemned cell shortly after eight o’clock, each supported by a couple of warders, and attended by the Rev. Canon Consett and Rev. G. Waterton, Roman Catholic priests. A procession, headed by the under sheriff, moved to the west wing of the prison, where the scaffold was erected. The warders conducted the men chained from their cells, and they were taken through the corridors to the pinioning room, where Calcraft commenced his duties. Both men submitted quitetly, and prayed unceasingly with the priests. Canon Consett ministered to M’Conville, and the Rev. Waterton to Dolan. At 6 minutes to eight the prison bell began to toll, the hour had scarcely struck before the outer door of the pinioning room opened and the procession issued into the inner court of the prison. It passed along a narrow passage between two wards and abruptly turning to the left, come into the open work yard, where the low gallows was erected. In passing across the yard neither criminal seemed to notice the slight swelling among the cinders and gravel close to their path, which indicated the spot where their graves already dug were lightly covered until the tenants for them were ready. Close to the gallows Calcraft stepped forward and conducted M’Conville under the beam. The criminal was deadly pale, but with upright bearing and steady steps advanced without faltering, Calcraft completed his work in full view of Dolan, who shuddered perceptibly, but never ceased joining in the prayers & responses with the Rev. Waterton. At length Calcraft finished with M’Conville, and then conducted Dolan under the beam. In a few seconds this convict was made fast to the beam, the Clergy and Calcraft crept off the drop, and while petitions for mercy were spoken aloud by both the victims, the bolt was drawn. Dolan died almost instantaneously, but M’Conville struggled for several seconds. After hanging an hour the bodies were cut down, and an inquest was held at eleven.
COPY OF VERSES.
A double murder we have to tell,
Most dreadful to relate,
Dolan and M’Conville named,
Who met an awful fate.
Philip Trainer, of Darlington,
Was by M’Conville slain;
And Hugh Ward, of Sunderland,
Dolan murdered in the lane.
Two Roman priests attended them
In prayer the night before,
Who begged for mercy from on high,
And their sad crime deplore.
At eight o’clock precisely,
The prison bell did toll;
Each being led and supported,
Under the warders’ controul.
Where the gallows was erected,
And loosened from their chains;
Their graves too was constructed,
To receive their sad remains.
Within the prison they met their fate,
Now according to the law;
And Calcraft performed his duty,
For crimes mankind abhor.
A black flag was hoisted,
On the prison walls,
Denoting all was over,
The death that men appals.
May the Lord have mercy on their souls,
For their most dreadful crime;
And a warning let it be all
To the end of time.
W. Smith, Printer, Lincoln.
CONFESSION AND EXECUTION OF
SAMUEL WRIGHT,
For the MURDER of MARIA GREEN.
At an early hour on Monday evening the people began to congregate in front of the gaol and in the public-houses in the vicinity of Horsemonger-lane Gaol, but as the night wore on they gradually dispersed, until towards three o’clock there were only a few stragglers to be seen. About this time the last of the barricades was erected, and every precaution was taken to prevent any disturbance. It had been reported to the prison authorities and the police that an attempt would be made to rescue Wright, and in consequence 500 of the reserves from the A, C, H, K, L, M, and P divisions were on the spot keeping the ground round the prison clear. The arrangements made by Mr. Superintendent Bradford were well carried out by his colleagues, Superintendents White, Bray, Payne, and Gibbs, and Inspectors Silverton, Fyfe, and Turpin, As the hour for the execution approached the crowd began to increase, but all maintained the utmost decorum. At times men were seen pervading the place with a flag, on which was printed in large letters “Man’s Cry,” and several religious extracts, while some of them read aloud from the Scriptures. After them followed a number of young men singing psalms, the tunes of which were taken up by the populace.
As the hour of seven o’clock approached, the public-houses on each side of the gaol were cleared of their customers, and the doors and windows entirely closed, and at Mrs. Wrangham’s, the Masons’ Arms, a number of policemen took their station on the leads at the back and front of the house. When daylight began to break the morning was chilly, damp, and foggy; but, as the sun rose, it became more cheerful, and it was then observed that nearly every private house opposite the gaol had all the blinds down, as close as if a person lay dead within. Very few of the windows were occupied, and they seemed to be the inhabitants of the houses. The gardens were kept clear by the police.
Great surprise was felt as the hour of execution arrived at finding that there were so few persons to witness the awful tragedy. Many had refused to stay, saying they would have no hand in the murder of John Wright, and all felt that he was undergoing a penalty that ought to have been remitted. There were not on the whole more than 4,000 or 5,000 persons present, and being scattered round the avenues leading to the place of execution, there was no difficulty in walking about freely.
The unfortunate man slept soundly during the night, and rose about six o’clock. He was visited by the chaplain, who remained with him to the last.
Shortly before nine o’clock the governor of the gaol, Mr. Kean, the sheriffs, Calcraft, and other authorities, entered the cell and pinioned the culprit. They proceeded to the gallows, Wright walking under the drop with a firm step, followed by Calcraft, a warder, and the chaplain. He bowed to the crowd while the cap was put over his head and the rope adjusted round his neck. There were then loud shouts of “Shame,” “Murder,” “Disgraceful,” “Townley,” and other manifestations of displeasure on the part of the populace. Wright understood the feeling of sympathy in his favour, and several times bowed his acknowledgments, raising his hands spasmodically.
The fatal hour at length arrived, but there was some little delay before the doomed man ascended the scaffold. Since his condemnation he has behaved throughout with great decorum, and has seen the members of his family several times. The Rev. Mr. Jessop, the chaplain, has been unremitting in his attention to the unhappy man, and his ministrations have been received with the most happy results. Wright, it appears, was brought up a Roman Catholic at a place called Cossey, in Norfolk, and since he has been in prison he has received a letter from the Roman Catholic priest of that place, asking him not to desert the faith in which he was educated. Mr. Jessop asked him if he would like to see the Rev. Dr. Doyle, a Catholic priest, but he was perfectly satisfied with the instruction he was receiving from the chaplain. He took the sacrament on Monday at his own request.
At length the fatal bolt was withdrawn, and in a few moments the unhappy man was launched into eternity.
Wright saw his family and friends a few days ago, and took an affecting leave of them. He has also written two letters, of which the following are copies:—
“Jan. 10, 1864, Horsemonger-lane Gaol.
“Dear Mother,—I feel it my duty to write a few lines to you before I leave this world, although it is under such painful circumstances. Although I have not written to you before, you know how I am situated. I never thought that I should add to your sorrow. Dear mother, I call you by that name, for you have been to me as one, and I may say I to you as a son. I received a kind and welcome letter from Mr. Hazembeth, and was glad to hear that my Cossey friends showed so much sympathy towards me. It is a great crime that I have committed, and I feel that Almighty God will forgive me, and then I hope to join them that’s gone before me. Dear mother, it grieves me very much to think that my dear children will be left fatherless and motherless, but there’s one above that has promised to be a father to the fatherless.
“Since I have been here I have been treated with the greatest kindness, and I am visited daily by the chaplain, from whom I feel great comfort. I have but a few hours longer to live on this earth, and they will be taken up with reading and prayer. Dear Polly is quite well, and I will leave you to judge my parent’s care; I have seen them several times, but my dear mother does not know that I am condemned to die. I have had a great number of friends who have tried to save me from this end, and have failed; but thank God, I feel quite prepared to meet it. Dear mother, I conclude with my kindest love to you and my dear daughter. May the blessing of God Almighty be upon you now and for ever. No more from your unfortunate son,
“Good-bye.”
“Samuel Wright.”
“Jan. 11, 1864.
“Dear Mother,—I feel that I must write a few lines before I leave this world, as Almighty God has given me strength so to do. Dear Mother, although I am present here under a heavy crime, I feel as if the Almighty God had freely forgiven me, after all my sins. And what a blessing that is to think that your dear son feels so glorified—that he dies in peace with God, where I hope to meet them that are dear to us. I leave one with you, my dear child, in remembrance of me, and may the Almighty God give you health and strength to bring her up in the ways of the Lord. Dear mother, I feel as if I cannot last but a few days longer, and now I again take a farewell of father, mother, sisters, and brother, and wishing the blessing of God Almighty may be upon you, now and for ever, amen.
“Father’s blessing and a kiss for his child.
“Samuel Wright.”
He made a free confession of the whole of the shocking transaction. He said he could not exactly say how the murder originated, but it was something in this way: That he was asleep in bed, and that the woman came and took him by the waistcoat and said he should not lay sleeping there. Some words ensued, and she threatened to leave him and go with some other man with whom she had previously cohabited. Upon that he jumped out of bed, and as the razor with which he had recently shaved himself was lying on the table he took it up and cut her throat. It was all the work of a moment. The father, the brother, and the brother’s wife saw him for about an hour on Monday, and he has also seen his daughter, a little girl about four years old.
He was aware of the efforts that were being made out of doors to save his life, and appeared to feel very grateful to those who took so kind an interest in him. Mr. S. Gurney, M.P., and Mr. J. Phillips, one of the visiting justices, waited upon Mr Justice Blackburn on Monday, and had an interview of about half an hour with him, urging everything they could in Wright’s favour, but he refused to accede to their request, and said the law must take its course. Mr. Ebsworth, a surgeon, of Newington, took a petition to her Majesty at Frogmore Lodge. While he was presenting the petition to Colonel Knollys her Majesty passed up the stairs, and he saw Colonel Knollys deliver it into the Queen’s hands, but the answer he received to it was that the Queen could not undertake to advise her advisers.
Taylor, Printer, Brick Lane, London.
THE EXECUTION OF
JAMES CLITHEROE,
Of St. Helen’s, for the Murder of Mary Woods, this day.
James Clitheroe, the culprit in this remarkable case, suffered death on Saturday, in front of the Kirkdale gaol, near Liverpool, though efforts had been made to secure a reprieve. The circumstances in connexion are of a somewhat peculiar description. Clitheroe was a married man with a family, but his affections appear to have been divided between his wife and Mary Woods, a poor paralytic woman, who earned a living by keeping a school and selling small beer. The prisoner was in the habit of sharing the murdered woman’s bed, and as his neighbours knew of this he was twitted by them, in the intensely acrimonious manner peculiar to vulgar and uneducated people, as to “the poor cripple Mary Woods” being enciente by him. This seems to have annoyed Clitheroe very much, and his mortification and chagrin acting upon a morbid temperament prompted him to murder. On the night of the 28th of December last he visited Mary Woods’ house, and went to bed with her as was his wont, but early next morning he cut her throat and his own too, though the wound was only fatal in the case of the woman. Later in the morning the school children were unable to gain admission to the house as usual, and, as no one answered the door after repeated knocks, an entrance was effected at the rear of the premises, and an investigation took place. In an upstairs room the police found Mary Woods and the prisoner in bed together—the woman quite dead, and with her throat cut, and the man in an exhausted condition, with his throat cut also. The blood upon the woman’s throat was dry, and she had evidently been dead for several hours; whereas the blood upon Clitheroe was fresh, and his wound must have been recently inflicted, because the blood was flowing freely from the arteries of the neck when the police first entered. The prisoner, when asked what he had been doing, stated that he and Mary Woods had agreed to cut their throats, saying, “We made it up to cut our throats, She told me that the razor was in the drawer, under the looking-glass. I fetched the razor, got into bed, and first cut my own throat.” The prisoner never deviated from this account of the transaction, either before or after the trial, but it must have been untrue in point of fact, because the strong and irresistible probability is, that the woman’s throat was cut at five o’clock in the morning, and that she was dead several hours before the prisoner made the attempt upon his own life. When the prisoner was on his trial, Mr Justice Willes directed the jury that if the prisoner counselled, assisted, or directed the woman to destroy herself, he was guilty of murder.
THE EXECUTION.
The culprit, who was pinioned by Calcraft in the usual way, struggled hard. To the last he persisted in the story of suicide. The crowd was not so great as had been expected.
After hanging the usual time, the body was cut down, and the crowd soon after dispersed.
J. Harkness, Printer, Preston.
HORRID
MURDER
OF
A GENTLEMAN,
IN A
RAILWAY CARRIAGE.
Another base and dreadful murder,
Now again, alas, has been,
One of the most atrocious murders
It is, as ever yet was seen;
Poor Thomas Briggs, how sad to mention,
Was in a first-class railway carriage slain,
Between Old Ford and Hackney Wick,
Which caused excitement, care and pain.
Oh, listen to this railway murder
Poor Briggs received the fatal wound,
Between Old Ford Bridge and Hackney Wick
And very near great London town.
They found a hat in the railway carriage,
Made in Crawford-street, St. Marylebone,
In which poor Thomas Briggs was riding,
On his journey to his home;
Alas, poor man, he little thought
That he would be deprived of life,
In the railway carriage, by a villain,
At ten o’clock that fatal night.
Oh, little did he think they’d kill him,
He had no thought he was to die,
Upon that fatal Saturday evening,
On the 9th day of July;
The villains in the carriage slew him,
For plunder Thomas Briggs was killed,
In a first-class carriage they did rob him,
And all around his blood was spilled.
Thomas Briggs was a faithful servant,
To Robarts, Lubbock and Company,
Three hundred pounds rewards is offered,
Soon may the murderer taken be,
And brought to justice for the dreadful
Deed he done, as we may hear,
And glad we are there is before us,
A clue to the wicked murderer.
They have traced his watch-chain in the city,
The very key, as we are told,
Stole from poor Briggs that fatal evening,
Albert curb, with swivel seal in gold.
Robbed of nearly all that he possessed,
He was, upon that fatal night,
Between Old Ford and Hackney Wick,
In the Railway Carriage in daylight.
This sad affair has caused excitement,
Far and near, for miles around,
And thousands to the spot are going
From all around great London town.
And on the spot they look with horror,
Where poor Thomas Briggs was killed,
They view with grief, with pain and sorrow,
Where his crimson blood was spilled.
Oh, God above, look down from Heaven,
Point the murdering villains out,
Let stern justice close pursue them,
Never let them roam about;
On him, or them, we all are certain,
Has on the brow the mark of Cain,
Thus ends the brutal horrid murder,
Which has caused such grief and pain.
On that fatal Saturday evening,
They left him in his crimson gore,
July the 9th, in a railway carriage,
Eighteen hundred and sixty-four.
Murder in the Railway Train.
Listen to my song, and I will not detain you long,
And then I will tell you of what I’ve heard.
Of a murder that’s been done, by some wicked one,
And the place where it all occurred;
Between Stepney and Bow they struck the fatal blow,
To resist he tried all in vain,
Murdered by some prigs was poor Mr Briggs
Whilst riding in a railway train.
Muller is accused, at present we cannot refuse
To believe that he is the very one,
But all his actions, you see, have been so very free,
Ever since the murder it was done;
From his home he never went, but such a happy time he spent,
He never looked troubled on the brain,
If he’d been the guilty man, he would have hid all he can,
From the murder in the railway train.
Muller he did state that he was going to emigrate
Long before this dreadful tragedy;
He often used to talk, about travelling to New York,
In the Victoria, that was going to sea.
Mr. Death, the jeweller, said, he was very much afraid,
He might not know the same man again,
When he heard of the reward, he started out abroad,
About the murder in the railway train.
If it’s Muller, we can’t deny, on the Cabman keep your eye,
Remember what he said the other day,
That Muller a ticket sold for money, which seems so very funny,
When he had no expenses for to pay.
They say his money he took, and his name entered on the book,
Long before this tragedy he came;
Like Muller’s, the Cabman had a hat, and it may be his, perhaps
That was found in the railway train.
Would a murderer have forgot, to have destroyed the jeweller’s box,
Or burnt up the sleeve of his coat,
Would he the chain ticket have sold, and himself exposed so bold,
And to all his friends a letter wrote,
Before Muller went away, why did not the cabman say,
And not give him so much start on the main
If the cabman knew—it’s very wrong—to keep the secret up so long,
About the murder in the railway train.
When Muller does arrive, we shall not be much surprised,
To hear that that’s him on the trial;
Give him time to repent, though he is not innocent,
To hear the evidence give no denial.
Muller’s got the watch, you see, so it proves that he is guilty,
But like Townley don’t prove that he’s insane
For if it should be him, on the gallows let him swing,
For the murder on the railway train.
Now Muller’s caught at last, tho’ he’s been so very fast,
And on him they found the watch and hat,
Tho’ across the ocean he did roam, he had better stayed at home,
And hid himself in some little crack,
Tho’ he pleads his innocence, but that is all nonsense,
For they’ll hang him as sure as he’s a man,
For he got up to his rigs, and murdered Mr. Briggs
While riding in a railway train.
London: Printed for the Vendors.
CHASE, CAPTURE, AND ARRIVAL OF
MULLER,
FOR THE MURDER OF MR BRIGGS, IN A RAILWAY TRAIN.
The clue to the murderer of Mr. Briggs was obtained as follows:—A little girl, the daughter of a cabman, was playing with a small card box, such as jewellers put small trinkets in, and upon exhibiting it to her father, he remembered the name of the jeweller with whom the chain of the late Mr. Briggs had been exchanged, and upon questioning the girl, she said that Franz Muller had given it her four days ago. Muller, who is a German, a tailor’s cutter, had previously lived at the house of the cabman. The police were immediately communicated with. On the box being shown to Mr. Death, he at once identified it. Mr. Death then accompanied the cabman and the police to a cottage at Bow, where Muller had lived, and upon seeing a photograph Muller had given the child, he at once recognised the features of the man who changed the chain. The cabman identified the hat found in the railway carriage as the one he had purchased for Muller about four months ago. Inquiries were made, and it was ascertained that the suspected murderer had sailed for New York, on board the Victoria. Inspector Tanner and other officers immediately started for New York, to await the arrival of Victoria. The Victoria, after a passage of forty days, arrived on the 24th of August, when Muller was arrested, and the missing property found in his possession. After certain forms were gone through, Muller started for England, Sept. 3rd, on board the Etna, and arrived at Queenstown on the 15th.
On Friday evening, September 16th, Muller arrived at Liverpool. Upon landing he was taken to the central police-station, Liverpool, and there remained till seven o’clock on Saturday morning. To avoid the crowd Inspector Tanner took the prisoner to Edgehill station. He was taken to a private room till the arrival of the nine a.m. train from Lime-street, when he walked between Inspector Tanner and Superintendent Wide to the carriage. When the train moved off attempts were made at groaning, but cries of “Good bye, Muller,” prevailed. At twenty-five minutes past three o’clock on Saturday afternoon the Liverpool express train drew up to the ticket platform at the London and North Western Railway, near Camden Town. Muller was taken to Bow-street police-station, and the charge formally entered against him by Inspector Tanner.
What a consternation there has been,
And time has swiftly gone by,
What great excitement has been seen,
Since the ninth of last July,
In Eighteen-hundred and sixty-four,
When Thomas Briggs was slain,
And found welt’ring in his crimson gore
Upon the railway train.
When Muller did the dreadful deed,
He flew across the main,
But Justice followed him with speed,
And brought him back again.
It was to New York, in America,
That wretched man did sail;
And justice for one moment,
To find him did not fail.
They followed the Victoria ship,
Unto Columbia’s land,
Determined, if ’twas possible,
To take that wicked man.
While the ship was on the ocean,
The stormy winds did blow,
She could not get a headway,—
A murderer was below;
The passengers did oft remark,
We all must rest assured;
There must something dreadful have been done,—
A murderer is on board.
On the twenty-fourth of August,
The Victoria was espied,
And the officers of justice,
On board her quickly hied;
All things were planned so cleverly,
Just as it ought to be,
That Muller had not the least chance
From Justice for to flee.
They soon had him in custody,
All on the raging main,
And found upon the murderer,
Poor Briggs’s watch, ’tis plain;
Although the crime he did deny,
When the property was found,
The murderer was landed
Upon America’s ground.
In New York he was examined,
Then in the Etna, o’er the main,
They brought the wretched murderer
To England again.
News flew like wind the country round
Franz Muller had arrived,
They ran from every quarter,
To behold him they did strive.
Conversations on the murder,
Has by thousands taken place;
Though the circumstances are as clear
As the nose upon his face:
His flying to America,
Across the ocean wide,
They found on him poor Briggs’s hat
And the gold watch besides.
Franz Muller now is landed,
Once more on England’s ground,
A verdict of wilful murder
Against him has been found.
He has caused great consternation,
Great agony and pain,
And he must answer for the deed he done
All on the railway train.
H. DISLEY, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
THE EXECUTION AND CONFESSION OF
FRANZ MULLER,
For the Murder of Mr. BRIGGS, November 14th, 1864.
At two o’clock on Saturday afternoon Sir George Grey returned an answer to the memorial presented to him, praying for a respite of the convict Muller, by the German Legal Protection Society. Previous to the delivery of his decision he had a long conversation with the Lord Chief Baron Pollock and Mr. Baron Martin, which terminated in his arriving at the conclusion that the memorial did not warrant his interfering with the verdict of the jury.
Immediately upon the receipt of the letter, Mr. Beard, with Alderman Wilson, proceeded to communicate to Muller the result of the efforts that had been made on his behalf. They were received by Mr. Jonas, the governor of Newgate, who conducted them to the condemned cell. They found the prisoner engaged in writing. He immediately rose, and extended his hand to Mr. Beard, who asked him how he was. The convict said, “I am very well.” Mr. Jonas then informed the prisoner of the efforts that had been made to save his life, and that Mr. Beard had just received a reply from the Secretary of State, which he read to him. At the conclusion the convict said, in a low voice, “I did not expect anything else.” Mr. Beard then said to the prisoner, “Did you know that any efforts had been made on your behalf?” The prisoner replied, “Yes, I did think so.” Mr. Beard then said, “Have you any statement that you wish to make?” The prisoner, “No, nothing.” “Because,” continued Mr. Beard, “now that all has been done that can be done for you, and there is no hope in this world, if you have anything to acknowledge, you had better do so.” In reply to this Muller said, “I should be a very bad fellow if I had done it. I have no other statement to make than that which I have already made.” Mr. Beard then asked him if he had made his peace with God. The prisoner said, “Yes;” and in every respect appeared resigned to his fate. Mr. Beard then shook hands with him, and said, “Good-bye Muller; God bless you;” The prisoner returned the pressure of his hand, and was left to himself.
The prisoner on Sunday attended Divine service in the chapel, both in the morning and the afternoon, and listened apparently with deep attention to the discourse delivered by the Rev. Mr. Davis, the Ordinary. He was visited in the evening by Dr. Walbaum and Dr. Cappell.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXECUTION.
Up to Sunday night Muller preserved the same quiet, firm demeanour, and although he occupied some of his time in writing, he did not lie down till considerably after his usual time, and slept but little. He rose at five o’clock on Monday in good spirits, and was soon afterwards joined by the Rev. Mr. Davis, the chaplain of the gaol, and the Rev. Mr. Walbaum. He in every respect appeared calm and resigned to meet his fate. He joined devoutly in prayer with the rev. gentleman, and otherwise conducted himself in a manner becoming his awful position. A little before seven o’clock he was visited by Mr. Jonas, the governor of the gaol, to whom he extended his hand, and feelingly thanked him for the kind attention he had received since his incarceration. Calcraft arrived at six, but was not recognised by the mob, and thus escaped the usual hooting.
Although the fixing of the scaffold was completed by four o’clock, still the clang of hammers in putting up barriers continued till day had dawned.
At five o’clock a heavy drenching rain set in, which had the effect of driving the majority of those who during the night had taken up positions, from their strongholds, and to hastily beat a retreat to the now open public-houses and coffee-shops, as well as to other places offering anything like shelter. At this time there could not have been more than five hundred people actually upon the scene. But at six o’clock the rain abated, and from this time the crowd was recruited by an increasing flow of new comers.
At six o’clock the main body of police, under Mr. Inspector Duddy, was stationed at the approaches to, and in the Old Bailey, and preserved throughout the morning in the strictest order.
Soon after seven o’clock, Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Besley, Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Dakin, and the Under Sheriffs, Messrs. Davidson and De Jersey, arrived at the Sessions House, where they remained until summoned to the prison by the governor. About twenty minutes to eight they were informed that the condemned man would soon leave his cell. Upon receiving this intimation these officials left the Sessions House. A few minutes after this, the procession reached the door which opens into the chapel-yard. Here they awaited the arrival of the culprit.
THE EXECUTION.
While the officials were on their way from the Sessions House to this spot, Mr. Jonas had gone to the cell of the prisoner, and informed him that it was time for him to leave. The prisoner, who was deadly pale, trembled with emotion, but sought to bear the awful announcement with all the fortitude possible. He rose up, shook hands with the gaolers who had been principally with him since his incarceration, and with a firm and rather quick step left his cell, accompanied by Mr. Jonas, followed by two or three other officials. As soon as they left the cell the shouts and cries of “They are coming,” “They are coming,” “Hats off.” At this moment the most intense excitement and confusion prevailed, in the midst of which terrible din reverberated the echoes of the solemn knell, which, from its increased rapid tolling, indicated that the mournful procession had gained the steps of the hideous, cloth-draped gibbet. A moment afterwards Calcraft, the hangman, made his appearance on the scaffold, and then withdrew to see that all was right. He had no sooner disappeared than Muller, accompanied by the Rev. J. Davis, chaplain, and Dr. Cappell, followed by other officials, made his appearance. This was a signal for the renewed excitement and clamour of the swerving multitude, who had largely, and as it were imperceptibly increased, and whose upturned anxious faces met the gaze at all points.
The culprit ascended the scaffold with a firm step, and placed himself under the drop. He cast his eyes once up towards the beam, and his lips quivered with emotion, but this he evidently sought to check. After the cap had been drawn over his head and the rope put round his neck, Dr. Cappell took hold of his hand and again prayed with him. This he did for some minutes, and concluded by addressing the following words to the now fast dying man:—“In a few moments you will be before your God. I ask you, for the last time, are you innocent or guilty?”
Muller: I am innocent.
Dr. Cappell: You are innocent?
Muller: God Almighty knows what I have done.
Dr. Cappell: Does God know that you have done this deed?
Muller was silent.
Dr. Cappell: I ask you now, solemnly, and for the last time, have you committed this crime?
Muller: Yes, I have done it.
Almost at the same instant, and while the words were upon the lips of the wretched man, the drop fell, and Muller died without a struggle.
Dr. Cappell nearly fainted.
Immediately after the execution the sheriffs despatched a communication to Sir George Grey, informing him that the culprit had confessed. A similar communication was made to Sir R. Mayne, at Scotland-yard.
The following despatch was immediately after the execution forwarded to the Home Secretary:—
“Gaol of Newgate, 14th day of November, 1864.
“To the Right Hon. Sir George Grey, Bart.
“Sir,—By direction of the sheriffs I have the honour to acquaint you that the prisoner Muller has at the last moment, just before the drop fell, confessed to the German minister of religion attending him that he was guilty of the deed for which he suffered.
“I have the honour, &c.,
“Septimus Davidson, one of the under-sheriffs.”
London: Printed for the Vendors.
LAMENTATION & EXECUTION OF
JAMES LONGHURST,
At Horsemonger Lane Gaol, on Tuesday, April 16th, for the wilful murder of Jane Sax, a little Girl seven years old, at Shere, in Surrey,
Terrible Scene in the Prison with the Culprit.
James Longhurst was executed this morning, April 16, on the top of Horsemonger-lane gaol. Since his condemnation he has expressed contrition for his crime, and hoped that God would forgive him. Notwithstanding, the prisoner appearing to be in a state of mind becoming his awful position, when he was taken down from the condemned cell to the yard to be pinioned, a frightful scene ensued. The moment the culprit saw Calcraft, the executioner, approach him with the straps to pinion his arms, he started back with an aspect of terror depicted on his countenance, and began to struggle violently with the turnkeys. The chaplain spoke to him and endeavoured to calm him, and this for a moment appeared to have the effect, but upon the executioner requesting that the culprit might be taken outside, as he could not see to fasten the straps properly, another fearful struggle ensued, and it required five warders to hold him on the ground while he was being pinioned, and one or two of the turnkeys were very much hurt by the kicks they received. The prisoner’s conduct seemed to be actuated by an uncontrollable horror of the executioner and the apparatus of death. After he had been secured he walked quietly by the side of the chaplain until he arrived at the steps leading to the scaffold, and immediately he caught sight of the gibbet his horror appeared to return. He again struggled violently as well as he was able, and was forcibly dragged up to the steps and held under the beam by several turnkeys while the rope was adjusted round his neck, and as speedily as possible the bolt was drawn, and after a few struggles the wretched youth ceased to exist.
Good people all I pray draw near,
And my sad history you soon shall hear,
And when the same I do relate,
I trust you will a warning take.
At Horsemonger lane on the scaffold high,
For a cruel murder I was doomed to die.
James Longhurst, it is my name,
I’ve brought myself to grief & shame
Through the dreadful deed that I had done,
At Churchill field, near Guildford town
It was in last June, the twenty-eighth
I did this deed as I now state;
An innocent child I there did slay,
And with a knife took her life away.
Poor Jane Sax, on that fatal day,—
A child scarce seven years of age;
In Churchill field I her did meet,
And shamefully did her illtreat.
Then coward-like I drew my knife,
To rob this helpless child of life:
I stabbed her in the throat—her blood did pour,—
Then left her welt’ring in her gore.
Then I was taken for this cruel deed,
And sent for trial, as you may read;
At Kingston assizes, tried and cast,
Oh, would I could recall the past.
She cried for help, did poor little Jane,
David Ensor to her assistance came;
Whilst I, a guilty wretch did stand,
And licked her blood from off my hand
The Judge said, James Longhurst, you are guilty found,
You will go from here to London town
And there you’ll die a death of shame,
And meet your fate at Horsemonger lane.
While I lay in my prison cell,
My state of mind no tongue can tell;
I could not rest by day or night,
Poor Jane was always in my sight.
My tender parents came to visit me,
My heart was breaking their grief to see,
Tears from their eyes did in torrents fall,
While for mercy to my God did call.
I hope that none will them upbraid,
While I am in my silent grave;
Farewell to all—the bell does toll,
Have mercy, God, on my sinful soul.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles, London.
MILES WEATHERHILL,
THE YOUNG WEAVER,
And his SWEETHEART, SARAH BELL.
The prisoner, Weatherhill, was Executed at Manchester, on Saturday, April the 4th, for the Murder of Jane Smith, at Todmorden, a fellow-servant of Sarah Bell.
Oh give attention, you pretty maidens,
A tale of love I will here unfold,
And you will say, when the same is mentioned,
’Tis as sad a story as ever yet was told;
Miles Weatherhill was a brisk young weaver,
And at Todmorden did happy dwell,
He fell in love with a pretty maiden,
The parson’s servant named Sarah Bell.
It was at Todmorden where these true lovers,
At the parson’s house, tales of love did tell,
And none on earth could be more constant,
Than Miles the weaver and young Sarah Bell.
Deep in each heart was true love engrafted,
They had sworn for ever to happy be,
No power on earth could those lovers sever,
They met in joy and felicity;
But they was parted, and broken hearted,
Separated was those true lovers far,
Those constant lovers adorned each other,
And love will penetrate through iron bars.
Miles Weatherhill was but three and twenty,
His mind was noble, he good did mean,
And Sarah Bell was fair and virtuous,
Young blooming, aged seventeen;
They would have married, but tales were carried,
Which caused displeasure, as you shall hear,
Miles was refused to meet his lover,
And she left Todmorden, in Lancashire,
She left her true-love quite broken hearted,
And to her mother at York did go,
And when such a distance from each other parted,
Caused them sorrow, grief, pain, and woe;
In a fit of sadness, overcome with madness,
He made a deep and solemn vow,
If separated from his own true lover,
He would be revenged on Parson Plow.
With four loaded pistols, in a fit of frenzy,
Miles to the Vicarage did haste forthwith,
And with a weapon wounded the master,
And shot the maiden, named Jane Smith;
To the lady’s bedchamber, in rage and anger,
Bent on destruction, with intent to kill,
He did illtreat her, with a poker beat her,
And her crimson blood on the floor did spill.
Oh, God, in mercy guide evil passions,
Thou seest all things from heaven above,
Three innocent lives has been sacrificed,
And one serious injured, all through true love,
If they’d not been parted, made broken-hearted,
Those in the grave would be living now,
And Miles would not have died on the gallows,
For slaying the maiden and Parson Plow.
Young men and maidens, you constant lovers,
If true and honourable you make a vow,
Be just and upright and oh, remember,
Todmorden Vicarage, and Parson Plow;
And all good people, oh, pray consider,
Where true love is planted, there let it dwell,
And recollect the Todmorden murder,
Young Miles the weaver, and Sarah Bell.
Miles and the true-love by death is parted,
In health and bloom, he the world did leave,
And his true love, quite broken-hearted,
For Miles the weaver, in pain do grieve;
At the early age of three and twenty,
In the shades below, with the worms do dwell,
On the fatal drop, he cried, broken-hearted,
May we meet in heaven, my sweet Sarah Bell.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.—W.C.
TRIAL AND SENTENCE
OF
CONSTANCE KENT.
On Friday, July 21st, Miss Constance E. Kent was placed at the Bar of the Salisbury Assize Court, charged with the murder of her brother, Francis Saville Kent.
The Clerk of the Assize, addressing the prisoner, said: How say you, are you guilty or not guilty? The prisoner in a voice scarcly audible, said—Guilty.
A profound silence then ensued in court, which was broken by Mr Coleridge, the prisoner’s counsel, standing up and saying, I desire to say three things before your Lordship pronounces sentence. First, solemnly before Almighty God, she wishes me to say that the guilt is her own alone, and that her father and others, who have so long suffered most unjust and cruel suspicions, are wholly and absolutely innocent; and secondly, that she was not driven to this act by unkind treatment at home, as she met with nothing there but tender and forbearing love, and I may add that it gives me a melancholy pleasure to be the organ of these statements for her, because, on my honour, I believe them to be true.
The Judge, with much emotion, then said—Constance Kent, it is my duty to receive the plea which you have deliberately put forward. I can entertain no doubt that the murder was committed under great deliberation and cruelty. You appear to have allowed your feelings and anger to have worked in your breast, until at last they assumed over you the influence and power of the Evil One. It remains for me to pass the sentence which the law adjudges. The learned Judge then passed upon her the usual Sentence of Death. During the passing of the sentence, prisoner burst into a violent flood of tears, sobbing aloud.
Oh, give attention, you maidens dear,
My dying moments are drawing near,
When I am sentenc’d alas to die,
Upon a gallows gloomy and high.
Oh what s sight it will be to see,
A maiden die on the fatal tree.
I am a maiden in youth and bloom,
I a wretched murderer to die am doom’d,
And in the city of Salisbury,
My days must end on a dismal tree.
My little brother, a darling sweet,
That fatal morning did soundly sleep,
I was perplexed. I invented strife,
Fully determined to take his life.
To the dirty closet I did him take,
The deed I done caus’d my heart to ache,
Into the soil I did him thrust down,
Where asleep in death he was quickly found.
My own dear father they did suspect,
That he would suffer they did expect,
I was apprehended, but I got clear,
Tho’ I was the murderess of my brother dear.
Long, long I pined in deep distress,
At length the murder I did confess,
The vile Road murder, as you may see,
Committed was no one but me.
Farewell my father, my father dear,
I know for me you will shed a tear,
Yes, your wicked daughter in shame must die,
For that cruel murder on a gallows high.
How many maidens will flock to see,
A female die upon Salisbury’s tree.
Constance Emily Kent is my dreadful name,
Who in youth and beauty dies a death of shame.
I must go to my silent grave,
Father, is there no one your child to save,
Oh the awful moments are drawing near,
Father, forgive your daughter dear.
Oh, God in heaven, look down on me,
As I stand on the dreadful tree,
Forgive the crime, I, alas, have done,
Wash me with the blood of thy blessed son.
I must not live, I am bound to go,
I must be hurried to the shadows below,
My guilty heart long did quake with fear,
Why did I kill my little brother dear.
I see the hangman before me stand,
Ready to seize me by the law’s command,
When my life is ended on the fatal tree,
Then will be clear’d up all mystery.
Disley, Printer, High street, St. Giles, London.
LIFE, TRIAL, CHARACTER, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF
STEPHEN FORWARD,
For the Horrid Murder of THREE CHILDREN near Holborn, also of his WIFE AND CHILD at Ramsgate.
Murder of Three Children by Poison, near Holborn.
On Wednesday, August 9th, 1865, the neighbourhood of Red Lion Square, was thrown into a state of excitement owing to a report that three brothers had been murdered at the Star coffee-house, Red Lion street.
It appears that on the Saturday, a man called at the above hotel, and inquired if three children could be accommodated with a bed for a few nights. Having been informed that there was one room unoccupied, he said the children were aged respectively six, eight, and ten years, and that accommodation would be suitable. He called again on the Monday evening with the three children, and saw them to bed.
Half-past eight, when one of the chambermaids entered the first room in which the two younger children were in bed, and to her extreme horror found they were dead. She immediately raised an alarm, when the proprietor and others entered the room in which the eldest child had been placed, and there found that he also was in the sleep of death. Medical assistance and the police were instantly summoned, the surgeon firstly arriving, and upon his examination of the bodies, pronounced life to have been extinct for some hours, the limbs being rigid and cold.
From information gained by the police, it appears that the person who left the children at the coffee house went by the name of Southey.
Murder of Mother & Daughter at Ramsgate, by the person who committed the other Murders.
On Thursday morning, August 10th, Ramsgate was thrown into a state of intense excitement by a report that a man named Stephen Forward had committed a double murder in a dyer’s house in King street. It appears that Forward, who was formerly a baker in the town, left Ramsgate some eight years ago, leaving his wife and a little girl behind him in a state of almost total destitution. On Wednesday evening Forward suddenly appeared in Ramsgate, and made his arrival known to his wife. On Thursday morning, about twenty minutes past eight, Forward went to Mr Ellis’s house. His wife was there, having some breakfast with Mr Ellis and his daughter. He was asked if he would take any breakfast, but he declined. He sat down and commenced talking. Shortly before nine Ellis went into his workshop, and while there his daughter told Forward and his wife if they had anything to say in private they might go up stairs. They both went up stairs, and had not been there many minutes before the daughter of Forward went up with them. She had hardly got there when Mr Ellis and his daughter were startled by two rapid reports of a pistol, and on the latter rushing up stairs she arrived at the landing just in time to see Forward’s daughter fall down dead, she having been shot by her father. Miss Ellis then called out to her father, who came in, and he saw Forward standing at the top of the stairs. He said, “What have you done, Forward?” and seeing that he had a pistol in his hand he called on him to give it him, which he did. Forward at this time had a black moustache and dark whiskers on. Ellis then saw the feet of Forward’s wife, and on looking over the table he saw her head, and that blood was oozing therefrom. He told Forward to sit down, and he then perceived that he had neither moustache nor whiskers on. He asked Forward where they were, and he replied that they were under the grate. He looked there, but could not find them, and Forward then gave them to him. He then called out to send for the police and a surgeon. Forward added, “Yes; send for a policeman.” He was then given into custody.
At twelve o’clock at noon Forward was brought before the magistrates, charged with the murder of his wife and child.
Previous to the calling of any witnesses, the prisoner, addressing the magistrates, said: I have here a paper to Sir Richard Mayne, which I hope you will permit me to read to you. I have a reason for it. If you will grant me a favour, I think you will see that my reason justifies me in asking it. Immediately I was brought to the station-house I asked for some paper, a pen, and some ink, that I might draw up this statement, but it is not finished. I also made a statement to the inspector in charge. I inquired whether he had heard of the murder of three children in London. My reason for asking this question was, that previous to my being charged with this crime I was guilty of the murder of the three children in London. I hope this may be taken as a communication to Sir Richard Mayne, and also that it is made quite voluntarily.
The evidence having been gone through, he was fully committed to take his trial at the next Assizes for wilful murder, when he was found guilty of the murders, and was EXECUTED THIS MORNING and died without a struggle.
COPY OF VERSES.
Of all the crimes we ever heard, of all the crimes we read,
Sure none on earth did ever know, a more sad dreadful deed;
Five murders were committed—he with Satan did connive—
It was in the month of August, eighteen hundred and sixty-five.
The murderer’s name is Forward, he led a wicked life,
Living with a married woman, whose husband’s name was White;
She had four little children, three of which he vile did slay,
In Red Lion street, in Holborn, then he did from London stray.
The cruel murderer Forward, at Ramsgate had a wife,
She had a youthful daughter; but the murderer lived with White,
Who of his cruel usage, had cause oft to complain,
Not long ago she left him, and sailed o’er the briny main.
When he had killed the little boys, from London he went down,
Where dwelt his wife and daughter, in peace, in Ramsgate town.
He shot his wife and daughter dear, it cruel was, and sad,
And wanted to make it appear the villian, he was mad.
Five innocents he did destroy, how dreadful to unfold,
Mrs. White’s three little boys, his wife and child, were told;
The boys he killed in London, which caused great excitement round,
And his wife and lovely daughter he killed in Ramsgate town.
When Mrs White’s dear children he did in London slay,
He with a dreadful weapon to Ramsgate went straightway;
His own wedded wife and daughter, so maliciously he shot,
And thousands flocked from far around to view the dreadful spot.
For those five cruel murders, may the villian punished be,
And die a malefactor upon the fatal tree;
More cruel dreadful murders we very seldom hear,
And wonderful excitement it has caused both far and near.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
The Execution of Five Pirates, for Murder, which took place
on Monday, February 22nd, at the Old Bailey.
This morning, Monday, February 22nd, 1864, will long be remembered by the inhabitants of the city of London, as one of the most remarkable in the annals of hanging, by the execution of five foreign sailors, viz.: John Lyons, Francisco Bianco, Mauriccio Durranna, Marcus Watter, Miguel Lopez, alias Joseph Chances, alias The Catelan, for the wilful murder of George Smith upon the high seas. The attendance of persons to witness the execution was enormous, being greater than was ever remembered by the oldest inhabitant in the City, and was much of the same class as usually attend these exhibitions, with the addition of a fair sprinkling of seafaring men. The prisoners have been very assiduously attended by the worthy Priests of the Catholic persuasion, to which creed the prisoners belong, and they had been brought to a full knowledge of the enormity of the crimes which they had committed; and to such a state of religious feeling had they been brought, that they all fully acknowledged the share each one took in the horrible crime, and recognized the justice of their punishment. The sheriffs, with their usual attendants, arrived at a very early hour at the prison, and immediately visited the various criminals in their cells. The worthy priests who had been attending the criminals since their condemnation, was in the prison the whole night, and were early in their attendance on the unhappy criminals. After the usual formalities had been gone through of demanding the bodies of the prisoners into their custody, the executioner, with his assistants, commenced pinioning the prisoners, which operation was quickly performed, considering the number of prisoners. The arrangements having been completed, the mournful procession began to move towards the scaffold, the worthy priests praying fervently with the wretched prisoners, who appeared to have been fully brought to a thorough state of penitence. The prisoners ascended the scaffold in an orderly manner, and directly they appeared on the drop, the immense multitude gave a deep and loud groan, which seemed to make some of the wretched men tremble. The executioner having adjusted the fatal ropes, and drawn the caps over their eyes, left the platform, and the priests administered the last parting words of scriptural consolation to them. The signal was then given, the bolts were withdrawn, and the wretched murderers were launched into eternity.
COPY OF VERSES.
Is there not one spark of pity,
For five poor unhappy men,
Doomed, alas! in London city,
On a tree their lives to end?
The dreadful crime which they committed,
On the raging, stormy sea,
By every one must be admitted,
They each deserved to punished be.
Five poor unhappy sailors
On the drop did trembling stand,
And their lives did pay a forfeit,
For their deeds on board the Flowery Land.
Sometimes at sea there’s cruel usage,
And men to frenzy oft are drove,
They’re always wrong by men in power,
And that there’s many a sailor knows.
But those unhappy seven sailors,
Did commit a dreadful deed,
Killed and slaughter’d, sad to mention,
On board the Flowery Land, we read.
Great excitement through the nation,
This most sad affair has caused,
Sent across the briny ocean,
To be tried by English laws;
Seven tried and there convicted,
And sentenced each to hanged be,
For the dreadful murders they committed,
When sailing on the raging sea.
For two of them they did petition,
Alas, there nothing could them save
Sad indeed was their condition,
To lie side by side in a murderer’s grave;
Far away from friends and kindred,
They unpitied on the drop did stand,
Sad was the deed that they committed,
On board the fatal Flowery Land.
Thousands flocked from every quarter,
Seven unhappy men to see,
Sailors from distant foreign nations,
Suspended on a dreadful tree.
The fatal signal soon was given,
The awful drop at length did fall,
It caused a groan—it caused a shudder,
May God receive their guilty souls.
May this to sailors be a warning,
The dreadful sight the world did see,
In London, that fatal morning,
The seven died on Newgate’s tree.
Was there not a tear of pity,
While trembling they in death did stand,
To die for crimes in London city.
Committed on the Flowery Land.
Their victims they did show no mercy,
No time for to prepare did give,
They kill’d them in a barbarous manner,
And though they were not fit to live,
We pity to them on the gallows,
Englishmen could not deny,
Now, alas, their days are ended,
They died on Newgate’s gallows high.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
CONDEMNATION & EXECUTION
OF
LEIGH,
For the Murder at Brighton.
On Thursday, March 22nd, J. W. Leigh was indicted at the Lewes assizes for the wilful murder of Mrs. Harton, at Brighton, on the 1st of February, 1866.
The first witness, Charles Hastings, deposed—On Thursday night, February 1st, I was in the bar parlour of the Jolly Fisherman tavern with another person named Manuel, and Mrs. Harton, the landlady. She was sitting near the fire, and furthest from the door. Prisoner came into the bar with a revolver in his hand, and as soon as Mrs. Harton saw him she ran to witness for protection. While coming towards Witness prisoner fired the pistol at her and shot her, the ball grazing the forehead of witness. Mrs. Harton fell on the shoulder of witness, and asked him to save her. Prisoner followed her, and placing the revolver within two feet of the woman’s back fired again. Mrs. Harton then left the bar and ran down into the cellar. Witness went for a doctor.
Stephen Loveday, a dyer, deposed he was in the bar, outside the bar-parlour, and saw the prisoner come. Prisoner fired at Mrs. Harton, who ran down the cellar steps. Witness followed her, and found her lying half-way down the stairs, groaning. He got her up stairs into the back room, where he left her.
Serjeant I. Barnden said—From information I received, I went to the Jolly Fisherman tavern about 11 o’clock on the night of February 1st. I saw Mrs. Harton there wounded, and in a fainting state. I went out and saw the prisoner standing in the street, leaning against a house near the King’s road end of Market street. Some one told me not to go near the prisoner, or he would shoot me. I went towards the prisoner and said, “What’s all this about?” He said, “Stand off, or I’ll shoot you,” at the same time bringing the pistol from his breast pocket. I said, “Will you?” At that moment the pistol went off, and I closed with him. I must have touched his arm at the precise instant, for the ball went through my overcoat and trousers, so that it just missed me. I threw him down, and several people assisted me to take him to the Town Hall.
After the examination of several other witnesses, the prisoner’s counsel addressed the jury for the defence, and the judge having summed up, the jury returned a verdict of Guilty. The judge passed the usual sentence of death upon the prisoner, and he was executed this day in front of Lewes Gaol, before an immense crowd of spectators, who came for many miles round.
On the first of February,
In Brighton we see,
There did appear a murderer,
By name John William Leigh.
He led a dissipated life,
To wickedness gave way,
That fatal night he left his wife,
And he did her sister slay.
For this cruel murder he must die,
And end his days on the gallows high.
With a six barrelled revolver,
He went on Thursday night,
To the Jolly Fisherman, in Market st.,
To take away the life
Of the landlady, Mrs. Harton,
He was by Satan led—
Where her husband, Mr. Harton,
Had been ten months ill in bed.
He fired the fatal weapon,
Oh, twice he fired the shot,
His victim soon lay bleeding,
Upon that fatal spot;
Her husband, ill, ran trembling,
And there beheld his wife,
By the hand of a wicked murderer,
Deprived of her life.
John William Leigh, the murderer,
In Brighton town did dwell,
A very wicked troublesome man,
And many knew him well;
He, mad with desperation,
If he could but had his way,
The police, and all around him,
The murderer would slay.
In the American service,
A Confederate, he had been,
Though aged only twenty-eight,
Much villany had seen;
There is nothing now can save him,
For that atrocious deed.
Of such an audacious scoundrel
We scarcely ever read.
Leigh left his wife and entered
The Jolly Fisherman;
He looked just like a demon,
With the revolver in his hand;
He killed his own wife’s sister,
Alas! she soon lay dead,
And her poor afflicted husband,
Lay consumptive in his bed.
He had no consideration,
No pity in his breast,
His wicked desperation
Caused horror and distress
Confined in Lewes dungeon,
For a short time he must be,
Then for the Brighton murder,
They will hang the prisoner Leigh.
Leigh a native was of Brighton,
To the family a disgrace,
By every one detested,
Who knew him in the place;
She was his own wife’s sister,
Who received the fatal wound,
Which has caused such consternation,
Many miles round Brighton town.
C. Phillips, Printer, Market Street, Brighton.
BARBAROUS
MURDER OF A CHILD
BY A
SCHOOLMISTRESS.
A child murder has been committed at Park Horner, in the parish of Hampreston, under circumstances of the most shocking barbarity. At the Coroner’s inquest it was given in evidence that the child had been beaten on the head with a heavy flint stone, and its tongue cut completely out at the root. It was found wrapped up in another part of a drawer where the body was discovered. The inquiry lasted four hours and a-half, and resulted, in the first instance, in a verdict, “That the child was born alive and murdered by someone.” The Coroner pointed out that the evidence was conclusive against Emma Pitt, the national school-mistress, who was the mother of the child; and he expressed his surprise that such a verdict should have been returned. The Jury after reconsidering their previous finding, returned a verdict of “Wilful murder against Emma Pitt.”
We have read of sad and dreadful deeds
Of mothers cruel and unkind,
But in the annals of history
Such as this we seldom find;
In the parish of Hampreston,
This deed was done we hear,
Near to the town of Wimborne,
In the county of Dorsetshire.
This Emma Pitt was a schoolmistress,
Her child she killed we see,
Oh mothers, did you ever hear,
Of such barbarity.
With a large flint stone she beat its head
When such cruelty she’d done,
From the tender roof of the infant’s mouth
She cut away it’s tongue;
Sad and wicked, cruel wretch,
Hard was her flinty heart,
The infant’s tongue from the body was
Wrapped in another part.
The murderess placed in a drawer,
And it there, alas! was found,
The news of this dreadful murder,
Soon spread for miles around;
And first upon the inquest,
She expected to get free,
Although she was the author
Of this dreadful tragedy.
A schoolmistress too, how sad to tell,
Well known for miles around,
Who had many children under care,
In and near to Wimborne town.
Oh, what a sad example,
To children she did set,
There was never such a cruel wretch,
As the barbarous Emma Pitt.
She committed is for murder,
Soon her trial will take place,
And if she is found guilty,
How sad will be her case.
If she has a woman’s feelings,
She surely will go wild,
She in such a barbarous manner killed
Her tender infant child.
The hour is approaching,
The moments near at hand,
When before a Judge and Jury,
This monster soon must stand;
And if she is found guilty,
She her deserts will get,
And mother’s, miles round Wimborne,
Will remember Emma Pitt.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
FAREWELL TO THE WORLD
OF
RICHARD BISHOP,
Who now lies under sentence of Death in Maidstone Gaol, For the Murder of Alfred Cartwright.
In Maidstone Gaol, I am lamenting,
I am borne down with grief and pain,
I for my deeds am now repenting,
I shall Sydenham never see again;
I have been tried for wilful murder,
No power on earth can me now save,
I am doomed to die, my time’s approaching,
And I must lie in a silent grave.
Now I, alas! must die for murder,
Oh, how awful is my doom,
Richard Bishop, one and twenty,
In youth and vigour, health and bloom.
Alfred Cartwright was my neighbour,
We both at Forest Hill did dwell,
Alfred, servant was at the Swiss Cottage,
Where he was respected well;
I went with others to annoy him,
It was upon that fatal night,
Ere he returned from his day’s labour.
Unto his home and loving wife.
I never did intend to kill him,
Why should I my neighbour slay,
He never gave me any reason,
To take his youthful life away?
I was given in charge, and in a passion,
I drew the awful, deadly knife,
And plunged it in poor Alfred’s body,
And there deprived him of his life.
The solemn funeral of my victim,
Caused consternation miles around,
Thousands flocked from every quarter,
The funeral dirge did mournful sound;
Poor Alfred, to his grave respected,
Proceeded by a solemn band,
And I must die upon the gallows,
A wicked and degraded man.
Farewell, vain world, I now must leave you,
Farewell, my friends and neighbours all,
Around Forest Hill no more you’ll see me,
The hangman’s voice on me does call;
Saying, Richard Bishop, now be ready,
To die upon the fatal tree,
Oh, aged only one and twenty,
What a dreadful sight to see.
Poor Alfred’s friends, will you forgive me,
His father, mother, tender wife,
I him did kill, his blood did spill,
And I pay a forfeit with my life?
And God, look down from heaven upon me,
Forgive the crime that I have done.
I see grim death standing before me,
Saying, Richard Bishop’s glass is run.
Oh, pray, young men, by me take warning,
Remember me and what I done,
Ponder, yes, oh! and consider,
Let passion you not overcome;
I did the deed in the heighth of passion,
I had no animosity.
Little thought my tender parents,
I should die upon a gallows tree.
When the Judge did pass the awful sentence
Saying, Richard Bishop, you must die,
For the murder of young Alfred Cartwright,
On Maidstone’s tree so awful high;
Oh think, dear friends, what was my feelings,
Sad and wretched and forlorn,
Doomed at the age of one and twenty,
To die a dreadful death of scorn.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION OF
J. MAPP,
Who now lies under Sentence of Death in Shrewsbury Gaol, for the Murder of Catherine Lewis.
On Monday, March 23, at the Shrewsbury Assizes, John Mapp, a labourer, was placed at the bar, charged with the wilful murder of Catherine Lewis, on the 22nd of December, 1867, at the parish of Longden.
Jane Richards deposed that after leaving chapel she accompanied deceased and John Mapp as far as Wood Farm, where she left them together going down Long lane.
Edward Lewis, the father of the deceased, deposed to Mrs. Hutchins bringing him his daughter’s hat covered with blood. I at once started in search through several fields till I saw a hovel. There were marks at the door as if something had been dragged along, and on entering saw the body of my child in a little bin, covered with straw and loose litter.
Mr. Harris, surgeon: I made a post mortem examination of deceased. I found a shawl tied round her neck, and about eight inches shoved tightly into her mouth. There were five incisions on the right side of the throat, finishing in one deep wound on the left. The windpipe was cut through. I attribute her death to loss of blood and suffocation.
Edward Jones, police-constable, produced a brooch belonging to deceased, which was found on the prisoner when he took him into custody.
John Aston, a waggoner, deposed to finding the hat of the deceased in a holly bush.
Mrs. Davies: I reside at Longden. I knew the deceased. The brooch produced is the one she wore.
The counsel for the prisoner then proceeded to address the Jury for the defence, and the counsel for the prosecution having replied,
The Judge then summed up, and the Jury without retiring from the box returned a verdict of Guilty. The usual Sentence of Death was then pronounced upon the prisoner.
John Mapp, in Shrewsbury, does now bewail,
Doomed to die for murder in a dreary gaol;
Such a dreadful murder, as you may see,
Which we may compare to the Alton tragedy.
In Shrewsbury Gaol, now in grief do lie,
John Mapp, the murderer, condemned to die.
The cruel monster was not afraid,
To kill a youthful and innocent maid.
Little Catherine Lewis on a Sunday night,
Mapp, without a reason, deprived of life.
Returning home from chapel, he embraced her fast,
’Twas the twenty-second of December last;
He cut and mangled her, took her from the road,
And her murdered body in the hovel throwed.
Oh! how could any one so vile engage,
To kill a child but nine years of age;
Her clothes he scattered over ditch and field,
For which he finds now his fate is sealed.
The child was missed—news spread far and wide,
John Mapp was questioned, he the deed denied,
He prevaricated—untruths did state,
And he must meet his untimely fate.
Little Kitty’s brooch that was found on Mapp,
And he took her ribbon from her Sunday hat;
He had a heart harder far than steel,
He was quite composed, working in the field.
Mapp was apprehended and sent to gaol,
And in a dungeon does now bewail;
On the tree a forfeit he must pay, his life,
His murdered victim haunts him day and night.
Now Mapp is cast and condemned to die,
Although the murder he does now deny;
The jury found him guilty, the case was clear,
And his last moments are drawing near.
How sad and dreadful it is to state,
The horrid murders that have been of late;
In every quarter both far and near,
Such atrocious deeds before this no one did hear.
Little Catherine Lewis, as I unfold,
Was but a little more than nine years old,
Innocent and charming, pious and kind,
Sweet disposition, and amiable mind.
What motive could the horrid murderer have,
To send the child to an early grave?
It was not for lucre, he could nothing gain,
To cause such horror, such grief and pain.
When he appears on the fatal tree,
Not a a spark of pity will there be for he;
He must die a murderer, nothing can him save,
Aged thirty-five, lie in a murderer’s grave.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION OF H. LINGLEY.
Within a dungeon in Norwich gaol,
One Hubbard Lingley in grief bewails,
His own kind uncle he did kill and slay,
On a Friday morning in the month of May.
For that cruel murder he’s doomed to die
On Norwich fatal sad gallows high.
He is doomed to suffer as I relate
On the very tree where Rush met his fate
In health, in vigour, in youth and bloom,
The murderer Lingley must meet his doom.
In the morning early at four o’clock
He fired a sad and dreadful shot
Which caused his uncle’s fatal death wound
Where he fell bleeding upon the ground.
A kind good uncle as may be seen
To his wicked nephew he had been;
Reared him up tenderly and used him well,
And in his cottage with him to dwell.
But he resolved he his blood would spill
His uncle Benjamin he wished to kill;
On Friday morn, the seventeenth of May,
The nephew did his kind uncle slay.
Early in the morning, at four o’clock,
To attract his uncle he fired a shot
And by that spot received the fatal wound.
The murderer flew and left him on the ground
Some labouring men who were passers by,
Saw the murdered in his blood to lie;
Suspicion did on his nephew fall,
And innocent blood did for vengeance call.
Many excuses did Lingley make,
Not having courage to meet his fate;
He before a jury for the deed was tried,
And condemned to suffer on the gallows high.
Hubbard Lingley thought when his uncle died
His place to him would not be denied;
So he was determined to kill and slay,
His uncle dear the seventeenth day of May.
He is doomed to die, nothing can him save,
By the side of Rush in a murderer’s grave;
His bones will moulder till the Judgment day,
How could he take his uncle’s life away?
At Norwich castle he was tried and cast
And his last moments approaching fast;
The hangman anxious does now await
To terminate Hubbard Lingley’s fate.
Oh! all young men a warning take
Think and consider ere it is too late;
How could he dare lift his murderous hand.
Base, vile, ungrateful, and cruel man.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High-street, St. Giles.
TRIAL, CHARACTER, CONFESSION, BEHAVIOUR, & EXECUTION OF
ALICE HOLT,
In front of Chester Gaol, this day, for the Wicked Murder of her own Mother.
This day the extreme sentence of the law was carried into effect on Alice Holt, at Chester Gaol, for the murder of her mother by poison. The evidence at the trial showed that prisoner, her mother, and a man named Holt, with whom she cohabited, lived together at Stockport. In February last the deceased, Mary Bailey, was taken ill, and the prisoner insured her life for £26, at a premium of 6d. per week. She induced a woman named Betty Wood to personate her mother before the doctor, telling her that the agent said “Any one would do.” The proposal was accepted by the Wesleyan Assurance Society, and from that time the mother became worse. Prisoner called in the parish surgeon and the infirmary visiting officer, both of whom were ignorant of the other’s visits, and complained of their medicine not being given. On the 25th and 26th the prisoner bought some arsenic—a quarter of a pound each time—which she put in a jug with some boiling water, and sprinkled about the room where her mother lay to kill vermin. The night of the 26th deceased had some brandy-and-water, and complained of “grounds” being at the bottom. Prisoner said, “You ought to have drunk grounds and all.” Mary Bailey died in the morning with all the symptoms of arsenical poison, and was buried. The personation came to the ears of the office, and the body was disinterred, when it was found perfectly fresh, but “saturated with arsenic,” of which no less than 160 grains were found in the stomach and adjacent parts.
The unfortunate woman was not tried at the Summer Assizes, in consequence of her being in the family-way. The child has since been adopted by Holt’s uncle, the only person who has visited her since during her imprisonment. She has been sullen, and strongly protested her innocence.
CONFESSION.
On Sunday, the prisoner made the following statement:—On the Monday before mother died, I brought the insurance paper home, insuring my mother’s life for £26, and mine for £28. He then proposed I should get some charcoal and put it under mother’s bed alight, when she was asleep, and she would never wake more. On Wednesday night Holt and I never went to bed. He said it would be a great releasement if she was in her grave, and he would buy some stretchnine (strychnine) if I would give it her. I said, “Thou’lt be found out.” He said, “They cannot find it out by that.” I said, “Thou hast brought me to destruction, and now thou wants to bring me to the gallows.” He then beat me. In the beer of which I spoke, I saw, after my mother had drank it, a quantity of blue arsenic grounds. I said, “Thou hast given my mother arsenic.” He said, “If thou tell aught, I will have thee up for defrauding the insurance,” and said, “Nobody will believe but what thou hast done it thyself.” This was the only arsenic my mother ever had.—Another statement was afterwards made by the prisoner.
THE EXECUTION
Took place this morning. When near the drop her courage failed her, and she was half dragged, half carried to the scaffold. On the platform she fell on her knees, and moaned piteously, “The Lord have mercy upon me,” which she continued to do whilst Calcraft pulled the bolt. The drop fell, and the culprit was launched into eternity before a great many people, particularly women-folks.
COPY OF VERSES.
A dreadful case of murder,
Such as we seldom hear,
Committed was at Stockport,
In the County of Cheshire.
Where a mother, named Mary Bailey,
They did so cruelly slaughter,
By poison administered all in her beer
By her own daughter.
The daughter insured the life of the mother,
For twenty-six pounds at her death,
Then she and the man that she lived with
Determined to take away her breath.
And when Betty Wood represented the mother,
She did’nt act with propriety,
For the poor mother lost her life,
And they all swindled the Society.
Now that the old gal’s life’s insured,
Holt to the daughter did say,
Better in the grave she were immured,
And the money will make us so gay.
Now that you have got me in the family way,
And from me my virtue you’ve wrung,
You’ll never be happy a day,
Till on the gallows I’m hung.
She laid a plan to murder her,
As we now see so clear,
To put a quantity of arsenic
Into her poor mother’s beer.
To see her lay in agony,
Upon that dreadful night,
With a dreadful dose of arsenic,
Oh, it was a dreadful sight.
She lived but just six hours,
Then the poor woman did die,
And this base murdering wretch,
The dreadful deed did deny.
On the man Holt she laid the blame,
Vowed he did her mother slay,
Holt on her did the same,
Saying she took the mother’s life away.
The father of her unborn infant,
Whom she vowed to love most dear,
And when confined in prison,
She was overcome with fear,
She made a rambling statement
’Bout the arsenic in the beer
Laid all the blame on Holt and Betty Wood
Expecting for to get clear.
But there’s no doubt the base wretch
Did her poor mother slay.
For which on Chester’s scaffold,
Her life did forfeit pay,
So all young women a warning take,
By this poor wretch you see,
A hanging for the mother’s sake
On Chester’s fatal tree,
W. Smith, Printer, Chester.
CRUEL AND INHUMAN MURDER
Of a little Boy, by his Father.
COMMITTAL OF THE PRISONER.
On Monday morning a cruel and inhuman murder was committed by the father on a child aged six years, in Neal’s passage, Seven Dials. The father has been separated from his wife for some time, and the boy had been brought up by its maternal grandmother, a poor old woman. The child being an unusally intelligent and nice-looking boy was a great favourite with the grandmother and an aunt who lived in the same room. It appears the mother had been living with another man as his wife, and the father also had formed an illicit connection with another woman. The poor boy had consequently become a source of trouble to both of them, although the merest trifle was required for its maintenance.
On Sunday evening the father (Jeffery) called at the grandmother’s for the boy. She asked him what he wanted with the child, but he became very violent, ordered the child to dress himself, and swore that “he would do for her and the child too,” if she did not mind. Jeffrey then went to his sister, in White Lion street, taking the child with him, and asked for a bed. He was accommodated with one, and went to bed with the boy; but at two o’clock in the morning he rose, and took the child away. He could not have walked many yards away—for Neal’s passage, where the body of the deceased was found, is close at hand. The child was found suspended from a projecting beam or bracket in a cellar to which all the residents had access for water, &c. Horrible as it seems, it is apparent from the condition of the body, that the cruel father tied its hands behind, and had literally enacted the part of executioner of his own child, holding its legs, and forcing down its body to complete the strangulation of the poor boy. The child remained in this position till about half-past six o’clock, when it was seen by a girl who had occasion to go to the cellar, and who gave the alarm. Dr. Harvey, the parish surgeon, attended directly, and pronounced the child to have been dead about three or four hours.
Dr. Lankester, the coroner, held an adjourned inquest on Wednesday, and there being no further evidence the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder by hanging and suffocation of Richard A. Jefferey, by his father, John R. Jefferey. The prisoner was examined at Bow street yesterday, and committed to Newgate.
You kindest fathers, tender mothers,
To this sad tale, oh! list awhile,
Hark you, sisters, too, and brothers,
To a murder on the Seven Dials;
Such a crime indeed,—no never!
Its baseness I can scarce reveal,
In Neal’s Passage, Earl Street, Seven Dials,
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
In all your troubles and your trials,
You never knew, as I reveal,
Such a murder, on the Seven Dials,
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
In Earl Street lived a wretch named Jefferys,
Who a tailor was by trade we find,
A sad, a base, and cruel villain,
Wickedness ran in his mind;
A child, the villain ought to cherish,
His offspring which he should adore,
Seventeen weeks ago he left him,
At his old Grandmother’s door.
His little boy named Richard Arthur,
By the wretched father, we are told,
Was cruelly and basely murdered,—
The child was only seven years old;
The villain took him to a cellar,
Resolved his offspring to destroy,
Tied his little hands behind him,
And hanged the pretty smiling boy.
Vengeance against the boy he threaten’d
Determin’d for to take his life,
And to commit the dreadful action,
He often did produce a knife;
’Twas his only child, he had no other,
A rogue in grain, devoid of fear,
He’d been separated from the mother
Of the little boy for three long years.
The grandmother, his mother’s mother,
Her little grandchild long did keep,
Receiving nothing from the father,
For the space of seventeen long weeks,
And then the villain did demand him,
He clandestinely took him away,
That fatal evening he determined
Was his little boy to slay.
Then he to the cellar took him,—
His heart was harder far than steel,
The wicked, base, inhuman monster,
His actions no one can reveal.
His only chlld, to hold beside him,
With rope he bound his little hands,
When behind his back he placed them,
He in the cellar did him hang.
He flew, but Justice close pursued him,
And taken he has been we see;
When tried, no doubt, they’ll find him guilty,
And he’ll be hanged on Newgate’s tree;
Hanging is too good for such a villain,
He who would his flesh and blood destroy,
The child, we are told, was six years old,
A pretty little prattling boy.
We all have got our cares and trials,
And unto fate compelled to yield,
This deed was done on the Seven Dials.
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
H. DISLEY, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION & CONFESSION
OF
J. R. JEFFERY
Who now lies under sentence of death, for the wilful murder of his little boy.
Within a dreary cell I lie,
A wretched murderer, condemned to die
For the murder of my darling boy,
Whose precious life I did destroy.
I am doomed to die, my glass is run,
For the murder of my darling son.
John Richard Jeffery, it is my name,
Why did I do that deed of shame?
I confess my crime, but do declare,
No ill feeling to my child did bear.
From my wife I long had parted been,
Which disturbed my mind, as may be seen;
And Satan’s doubts they filled my mind,
Which led me to this dreadful crime.
I could not bear the child to see,
It seemed to increase my misery,
While thinking of my absent wife,
I form’d a plan to take his life.
At his grandmother’s he found a home,
And with fiendish thoughts I’m asham’d to own;
Quick dress that child, to her did say,
For I was determined the boy to slay.
Poor little boy, it seemed filled with fear,
And cried, don’t dress me granny dear;
Don’t let father take me away,
With you, dear granny, I’d rather stay.
But to his wishes I paid no heed
But left with the child, as you may read;
Then proceeded in the dead of night,
To a lonely spot to take his life.
To a dismal cellar I took the helpless child,
The thoughts of which now drives me wild;
Poor boy, he fainted with affright,
And in that state I took his life.
With a handkerchief I bound his hands,
And to the cistern I did him hang;
Poor innocent, unconscious quite,
Knew not his father had took his life.
When this fearful act the hand had done,
From the fearful scene away did run;
With stricken conscience, like the murderer Cain,
But peace of mind could not obtain.
I strove to forget it for a time,
But my murdered boy so haunted my mind,
I gave myself up, as you may read,
To make some atonement for the deed.
I soon upon the drop must stand,
A guilty and heart-broken man;
My darling boy I shall no more behold,
Have mercy, God, on my guilty soul!
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
MURDER OF A WIFE
AT ASHBURNHAM, NEAR HASTINGS.
A shocking murder of a wife was committed on Sunday, at Ashburnham, a village near Hastings. Near the village is a quantity of land called Gardener’s Farm, which is farmed by an old man named Stubberfield and his son Jeremiah. The son, who is married, has a separate residence about sixty yards from that of his parent. There were living in the same house with the son, his wife Matilda, their son, Mary Deeprose (a companion to Mrs Stubberfield), and several farm labourers and servants. The boy, eight years old, who occupied the same room with his parents, states that early on Sunday morning he saw his father kneeling upon his mother, and squeezing her throat. Hearing his mother say, “Oh!” feebly, as is in pain, he said to his father, “Your hurting mother.” “You hold your tongue,” replied the father, “I’m only tickling her.” The boy again made a similar remark, upon which the father said that if he didn’t hold his tongue he would “see to him.” Stubberfield then dressed himself, and having kissed his wife and child, went down stairs. The boy immediately aroused the other inmates of the house, who were soon in the bedroom of the murdered woman. The police were sent for, and in a short time, some two hundred persons were scouring the neighbourhood in search of Stubberfield, and it was not till the afternoon he was discovered, and then he was making his way towards home. He had secreted himself in a pit, and tried to drown himself, but could not do so, for he always floated on the top of the water.
A dreadful deed, as you may read,
I am going to unfold,
A base and cruel murder,
That will make your blood run cold;
At a village called Ashburnham,
A few miles from Hastings town,
Where the family of the Stubberfields
Was known for miles round.
Jeremiah Stubberfield killed his wife,
At Ashburnham, we see,
Which caused many a tear both far and near,
The Sussex tragedy.
There lived old Farmer Stubberfield,
An aged, wealthy sire,
At Gardner’s Farm, and near him lived,
His son, named Jeremiah;
Who had a wife, Matilda,
Virtuous, good, and kind,
Who had a son, and her companion,
Labourers and servants, too, we find.
On Sunday morn, the twenty-third of May,
The little boy, but eight years old,
Saw his father squeeze his mother’s throat,
Most awful to unfold;
He called unto his father,
While trembling with fear,
Saying, oh, cruel father,
You are killing mother dear.
The murderer kissed his wife and child,
After that he did slay,
Then placed his coat upon his arm,
And from the farm did stray;
The servants and the labourers,
Went to the fatal bed,
And there beheld Matilda
Quite cold, and lying dead.
They did pursue the murderer,
They in numbers went along,
Searched the hedges and the ditches,
Dragged the rivers and the ponds;
But late on Sunday afternoon,
As they in numbers on did stray,
They saw him wandering to his home,
Where his murdered wife did lay.
He says he dearly loved her,
A kind, good, and tender wife,
Oh, whatever could possess him,
To take away her life;
It has caused great excitement,
Far round the country,
A farmer’s son the murder done,—
The Sussex tragedy.
To end this dreadful tale of woe,
Confined within a gaol,
Lies Jeremiah Stubberfield,
In anguish to bewail;
He loved his wife, far more than life,
He her corpse sweet kisses gave,
He has brought his aged parents,
In sorrow to the grave.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION & FAREWELL TO THE WORLD
OF
JOHN FLETCHER
AND
ANN LAWRENCE
Who now lies under Sentence of Death at Maidstone Gaol.
A poor unhappy man and woman,
Does in agony bewail,
Sentenced to die, alas for murder!
In separate cells, in Maidstone gaol.
Ann Lawrence aged eight-and-twenty,
For the wilful murder of her child,
And John Fletcher, only twenty,
For the dreadful murder of James Boyle.
In agony, now lies lamenting,
John Fletcher, who is frenzy wild,
In Chatham prison killed the warder,
And Ann Lawrence her own darling child.
Ann Lawrence is a married woman,
Who with a man named Highams did dwell;
He also had a wife still living,
Highams and Lawrence lived at Tunbridge Wells,
They lived unhappy, often quarrelled,
Faults on both sides we may see,
Ann Lawrence in a fit of frenzy,
Overpowered with jealousy.
Determined was to kill her offspring,
Revengeful, shocking to unfold,
To aggravate her own paramour,
Her little boy but four years old;
At Tunbridge Wells she basely murder’d.
Wickedness ran in her mind,
When her child she’d slain, said with disdain,
The innocent child was killed by Highams.
The little boy named Jeremiah,
Looked in his mother’s face with tears
When her little boy she did destroy,
Aged only four years;
Her counsel for her pleaded clever
To free her every way he tried,
When the Judge the sentence passed upon her,
The dreadful murder she denied.
John Fletcher who must die beside her,
A convict was for seven years,
He in Chatham prison killed the warder,
To give the blow he was prepared,
He says the warder did illuse him,
And tantalized him day by day,
And in a fit of desperation,
He with a hammer did him slay.
At Maidstone they were tried and sentenc’d
To die a murderer’s death of scorn,
In youth and health they are lamenting,
In grief and agony forlorn;
The awful moments are approaching,
And there is nothing can them save,
They soon must leave this world of sorrow,
And sleep within a murderer’s grave.
Oh male and female curb your passions,
Think and consider ere too late,
Passion, jealousy, and vengence,
Has caused those wretched person’s fate;
Let their fate be an example,
Oh! pray be guided one and all,
Think of John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence,
Remember what caused their downfall.
Passion, jealousy, and vengeance,
Was the cause, we plainly see,
Of bringing John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence
To die on Maidstone’s dismal tree.
Disley, Printer, High street, St. Giles, London.
EXECUTION OF
MICHAEL BARRETT,
Who was executed this morning at the Old Bailey, for the wilful murder of Sarah Ann Hodgkinson, one of the sufferers at the Clerkenwell Explosion.
This morning the unfortunate Fenian convict, Michael Barrett, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at the Old Bailey. The prisoner has been attended by the Rev. Mr. Hussey, a Roman Catholic priest, who has remained with him a considerable time every day. He was very taciturn, and although he was no doubt aware of the efforts that were being made to obtain a reprieve, it was a noticeable fact that he never attempted to declare his innocence. Down to recently he used to attend the service in the prison regularly, but after Mr. Hussey had been with him he entirely refrained from doing so. He has not been visited by any one since his conviction. All his relations appear to reside in Ireland, and he does not seem to have had any connexions or friends in this country.
The sheriffs of the prison arrived at an early hour, and immediately proceeded to the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner in devotional exercises with the Rev. Mr. Hussey. He declared himself ready to die, and seemed to consider himself a martyr. The time having arrived, Calcraft, the executioner, was introduced to the prisoner, who immediately commenced pinioning him, which operation having been gone through, the prisoner thanked the governor and other officials of the prison for their kindness towards him. The procession was then formed, and slowly took its way towards the scene of execution. The prisoner ascended the scaffold with a firm step. Everything having been prepared, the cap was drawn over his eyes and the rope adjusted, the bolt was drawn, and he appeared to struggle but slightly before life was extinct.
COPY OF VERSES.
Adieu, vain world, I now must leave you,
Here I cannot longer dwell,
I have been tried, and I am sentenced
To die for the deed in Clerkenwell;
Oh! that dreadful sad explosion,
Which did so much destruction cause,
Brought me to the tree at Newgate,
My sufferings sure no one knows.
I must leave this world of sorrow,
On earth I must no longer dwell,
Sentenced to be hanged for murder,
For the sad affair in Clerkenwell.
Alas! my name is Michael Barrett,
Born and brought up in Erin’s isle,
I did adore my native country,
Wheron I oft did sweetly smile;
Oh yes, my own dear native Erin,
Behold me on the fatal tree,
A miserable malefactor,
In a murderer’s grave I soon shall be.
A traitor did swear hard against me,
A wretch, Mullany known by name,
Worse by far than any other,
And many persons know the same;
Only one amongst the prisoners,
And that poor one, alas! was me,
Poor unhappy Michael Barrett,
Condemned to die upon a tree.
I twice have been respited,
I did not expect to die,
But I must go in grief and woe,
On Newgate’s tree so high;
That I should gain my liberty,
Some thousands did believe,
But, oh, alas! all hope is passed.
And I have been deceived.
Farewell, my friends, I’m doomed to leave you,
With you I can no longer stay,
Let not my departure grieve you,
I die upon the twenty-sixth of May,
On the fatal tree at Newgate,
For the affair at Clerkenwell,
Called a Fenian, Michael Barrett,
Friends and kindred, farewell!
I see the hangman now before me,
Standing on the fatal drop,
In the prime of life and vigour,
Hard is Michael Barrett’s lot:
Only one of all the number,
All the rest, alas! but me,
Acquitted was, but Michael Barrett
Dies on Newgate’s fatal tree.
A last adieu, vain world, I leave you,
I am going to the silent bourne,
Lovely Erin, I grieve for you
But I never shall return;
Approaching is the Tuesday morning,
I am summonsed far away,
Erin, remember Michael Barrett,
Who died upon the twenty-sixth of May.
EXECUTION OF
ALLEN, GOULD, & LARKIN,
At the New Bailey Prison, Manchester, on Saturday, November 23rd, charged with the Wilful Murder of Sergeant Brett, at Manchester, on September 18th, 1867.
This morning, Saturday, November 23rd, the three unfortunate convicts, Gould, Allen, and Larkin, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at the New Bailey prison, Manchester. Since their condemnation the culprits have behaved in a most exemplary manner, and have paid great attention to the Rev. gentlemen who attended them. They continued to declare their innocence to the last, and appeared to think themselves martyrs to a grand cause, and appeared quite ready for the event. The mob was very great, but not so large as it might have been, but for the precautions taken by the authorities, who had erected barricades about every thirty yards, and so prevented the great pressure that would have been. The prisoners were astir at an early hour, and partook of the holy communion, and at the appointed time. Calcraft, the executioner, was introduced, when the operation of pinioning was gone through. The prisoners the meanwhile showed wonderful confidence, and appeared to be the least concerned. They all shook hands together and affectionately embraced one another, and declared themselves ready. The mournful procession was then formed, and at once proceeded towards the scaffold, where on their appearance there was a slight manifestation of applause. Everything having been prepared, the ropes adjusted, the signal was given, and the unhappy men were launched into eternity. The prisoners appeared to die very easy.
You true friends of liberty, and sons of the Emerald Isle,
Attend with an ear of sympathy to what I now relate,
And to my sad story, I’d have you to list awhile,
Its of those poor unhappy men who now have met their fate;
Its Allen, Larkin, and Gould I mean, who of treason have convicted been,
Coupled with the crime of murder, for which we all deplore,
To the scaffold were condemned we see through struggling for liberty,
Of that poor unhappy country, the poor old shamrock shore.
Now its well known that Irishmen have oft upon the battle field,
Nobly fought our battles, against old England’s foes.
And with the hearts of lions have forced her enemies to yield;
But to friends they are warm-hearted, as all the world well knows.
Its but for their rights they crave, old Ireland’s honour for to save,
That has led to this calamity, for which we all deplore,
But by treachery they were betrayed, and these poor men have the forfeit paid,
And Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
It was at Manchester, as I now state, they sought their comrades to liberate,
And where is the man in such a state, would not have done the same?
Those poor men they were taken, for whom many hearts are aching,
For there is no one in reason their conduct can well blame.
It was in the midst of that strife, that poor Brett he lost his life,
That has caused the sons of Ireland most deeply to deplore,
And through that sad unhappy day, there’s many a pitying heart will say,
Poor Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
These men they were convicted, and by the judge was sentenced,
And for murder and treason they were condemned to die,
And left to meet their fate to the gaze of all spectators,
Tho’ that their lives would be spared it was the country’s cry.
To God I recommend them, in his mercy to defend them,
May their souls shine in glory upon that blessed shore,
Safe within his keeping where there will be no weeping,
Now Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles, London.
The Last Moments and Confession
OF
WM. SHEWARD.
On Tuesday, April 20, the last dread sentence of the law was carried out in the case of Wm. Sheward convicted at the last Norwich Assizes for the murder of his wife. The culprit died without any very painful struggles. He showed a considerable amount ef nerve, although he trembled a good deal at the drop, to which he had to be carried on account of his rheumatism. In the prisoner’s confession he stated that he killed his wife in June, 1851, and that he afterwards mutilated the body. He placed the head in a saucepan, and put it on the fire to keep the stench away. He then broke it up, and distributed it about Thorpe. He then put the hands and feet in the same saucepan, in hopes they might boil away. Carried portions of the body away in a pail and threw them in different parts of the city. The long hair on my return from Thorpe, he cut with a pair of scissors in small pieces and they blew away as he walked. The blankets, where there was any blood he cut in small pieces, and distributed them about the city, and made off with anything that had the appearance of blood about them. The prisoner also stated that he never saw or knew his present wife until June 21, 1852, twelve months after the occurrence.—The confession was taken in the presence of a magistrate, and the governor and chaplain.
I am a sad and wretched man,
Borne down in care and woe,
I am doomed to die for a murder done
Near eighteen years ago;
A dreadful deed, as you may read,
I long kept in my breast,
I’had no comfort day or night,
Until I did confess.
With the dreadful knife I slew my wife,
And her body round did throw,
Now I must die for a murder done,
Near eighteen years ago.
I her body into pieces cut,
And scattered it around,
Here and there, I scarce knew where,
I placed it on the ground.
I now must die for that foul deed,
And in a murderer’s grave lie low,
I did her kill, her blood I spilled,
Near eighteen years ago.
I boiled her head, how sad to tell,
I was mad without a doubt,
I threw it in the different parts,
I placed it round about;
Kept the secret eighteen years,
Within my guilty breast,
And till the same I did divulge,
I day nor night could rest.
For eighteen years, in grief and tears,
I passed many a dreary night,
I had not one moment’s happiness,
Since I killed my own dear wife;
At length I did confess the deed,
For which I now must die,
For a murder eighteen years ago—
The which I don’t deny.
There was letters sent from different parts,
To say my wife did live,
To save me from the gallows,
But none would they believe;
I could not from Justice flee,
I do deserve my fate,
No pen can write, or tongue can tell,
My sad and wretched fate.
My moments they do swiftly pass,
I soon shall sleep below,
I done that dreadful awful deed,
Near eighteen years ago;
I cut and mangled that poor soul,
My heart was flinty steel,
Her limbs and body strewed about,
In hedges, lanes, and fields.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.—W.C.
THE EXECUTION OF
JOHN DEVINE,
In front of Newgate, for the Murder of JOSEPH DUCK, at Marylebone.
THE EXECUTION.
On Monday morning, at Eight o’clock, John Devine suffered the extreme penalty of the law, in front of Newgate. Not so much excitement was created as we have noticed on similar occasions, although a very large concourse of persons had assembled to witness the shocking spectacle. In fact, we might say every available spot was occupied by both male and female, all of whom were anxious to get a “good place,” to see the wretched culprit on the drop. Precisely at the appointed time the sheriffs, with their usual attendants, arrived at the prison, and, after the necessary ceremonies had been observed, of demanding the body of the prisoner to be delivered into their custody, they were conducted to the waiting room. The executioner then commenced pinioning the arms, which operation he quickly dispatched. During the awful preparations the unhappy prisoner appeared to feel his sad position deeply.
At length the arrangements having been completed, the bell of the prison commenced tolling and the chaplain read in a distinct tone the burial service for the dead. When the bell commenced tolling, a movement was heard from without, and the words “Hats off” and “Silence” were distinctly heard, from which time no sound, excepting the sighs of the unhappy prisoner, interrupted the chaplain as the procession moved along the subterranean passage. The prisoner, on arriving at the scaffold, hastily glanced around at the immense concourse of persons assembled. After which he was placed in the proper position for Calcraft to adjust the ropes. The executioner having drawn the cap over his face retired from the scaffold, and the signal having been given the bolt was withdrawn, and the unhappy criminal was launched into eternity.
CONFESSION OF THE CULPRIT.
On Thursday the unhappy criminal was visited by the worthy chaplain, to whom he made a confession, and fully admitted the justice of his sentence.
COPY OF VERSES.
Young Devine was a graceless youth,
And bold in every sin,
In early years with petty thefts,
His life he did begin.
But God whose vengeance never sleeps,
Though he delays the blow,
Can in a single moment lay
The prosperous villain low.
One night was in the King’s Head,
Joseph Duck he did meet,
Whom he then robbed of all he had,
And cruelly did him beat.
Suspicion fell on young Devine,
So well they knew his face,
Imprisoned, tried, condemned to die,
So he now has run his race.
Of gambling and theft pray beware,
Let me beseech you in time,
Lest you like me should be cut off,
Whilst you are in your prime.
It was these that caused me to run,
From virtuous paths astray,
Deaf to advice and every good,
I sought destruction’s way.
The 10th day of March last,
I went to the King’s Head,
And there I met an aged man,
Joseph Duck he was named.
I cruelly did him use,
And on the ground him cast,
He cried for help, but no one came,
So now he has breathed his last.
Those deeds I mournfully repent,
But now it is too late,
The day is past, the die is cast,
And fixed is my fate.
Young men be taught by this dreadful fate,
Avoid the paths I have trod,
And teach yourselves in early years,
To love and fear your God.
LIFE, TRIAL, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF
MARTIN BROWN,
FOR THE DIABOLICAL MURDER ON NEWMARKET HILL NEAR,
LEWES.
The facts of this deliberate and cruel murder must be fresh in the minds of all persons. The deceased was a labourer (in the employ of Mr Hodson, farmer, at Kingston, near Lewes), and lived in a cottage on Newmarket Hill, about a mile and a half from the village. Martin Brown worked for the same employer, and lodged with the deceased and his family, and left about six weeks before the murder, but continued in the same service, lodging with the farm bailiff, named Wickham. The deceased was paid fortnightly, and on the 9th of October he left home for Kingston, to receive the wages of himself and two sons, boys; and he was paid £2 11s. He was also paid 24s. by another son at Kingston, and he had 5s. 3d. in his tobacco-box when he left home, at half-past six o’clock in the evening. He never returned; and early the next morning he was found dead on the hill, about a quarter of a mile from his home. His pockets were then empty. It was discovered that he had been shot through the back—three small bullets were taken from the body—and that he had been severely beaten about the head with some heavy instrument, but after death had taken place. The trigger of a gun and a small piece of gun-stock were found close to the body, and in a copse not far from the spot there was subsequently found a broken gun-stock, to which the pieces found close to the body accurately fitted. This gun-stock belonged to a gun which the prisoner had purchased three weeks before the murder; and which he took out on the night of the murder, stating that he was going to take it to his brother at Brighton, and should not be back till the next day. He returned, however, the same evening, and in less time than it was possible for him to go to Brighton and get back again; and on the following evening,—the murder was freely talked of, and prisoner was even suspected,—he absconded.
He was apprehended by Mr Superintendent Crowhurst, at Maidstone, where he had enlisted under the name of Reuben Harvey.
He was tried at the Sussex Winter Assizes, found guilty, and sentenced to death.
THE EXECUTION.
The execution took place this morning, at eight o’clock, It was the first execution at Lewes since the passing of the recent act of Parliament; which is carried out in private, within the prison walls. Shortly before eight o’clock, the black flag was hoisted, and the prison-bell began to toll. All the arrangements being completed, Calcraft began the process of pinioning the condemned man, who appeared to be quite calm. At eight o’clock, the mournful and melancholy procession began to move towards the gallows; the culprit walked slowly, but firm, and having arrived at the foot of the gallows, he mounted the steps on to the top of the platform, and placed himself on the trap-door, under the fatal beam; Calcraft then put over his head the cap, and placing the rope round his neck, he then shook hands with him, and instantly the bolt was withdrawn, and the unhappy man was launched into eternity. After a few short struggles, life was extinct. After hanging an hour, the body was cut down, and buried within the precincts of the prison.
COPY OF VERSES ON THE CONFESSION OF MARTIN BROWN.
I am a wild and wicked youth,
And my name is Martin Brown,
I was brought up by honest parents,
I once did dwell in Brighton town;
And for a horrid and cruel murder,
I am condemned, as you may see,
It’s for the murder of poor old Baldey,
I shall be hanged upon a tree.
Poor and honest David Baldey,
In a lonely spot his cottage stands,
For many years did happy dwell there,
Has fallen by a murderous hand:
Poor Baldey, he was much respected,
In Kingston and for miles around,
They little thought on Hodson’s farm,
Of such a villain as Martin Brown.
’Twas a fatal day I did waylay,
Poor Old Baldey on Newmarket Hill,
I with my gun did shoot him through,
His harmless blood I did there spill.
And then his pockets soon I rifled,
And took from him all his gold,
I left him dead where he was found,
A sight most shocking to behold.
My victim then, I from him fled,
But the eye of God did on me frown,
Oh, what a wretch I must have been,
To strike the poor old shepherd down;
I for a soldier soon enlisted,
When I arrived in Maidstone town,
But justice soon did overtake me,
In Maidstone barracks I was found.
My wicked career now is run,
I’m taken, and in irons bound,
In a dismal cell in Lewes gaol
To wait my trial, young Martin Brown.
My guilt I strongly did deny,
Until my strength it did give way,
My guilty conscience, I must confess
I took poor Baldey’s life away.
’Twas at the Assizes I took my trial,
For two long days at the bar did stand.
The jury they did find me Guilty,
For murdering of this poor old man.
So sad a crime, and so revolting,
The judge did say there could not be,
The sentence is, that you be hanged,
Young Martin Brown, upon a tree.
My parents, when they heard my doom,
Their eyes with tears did fall like rain,
When death was passed on Martin Brown,
It filled their hearts with grief and pain.
In my dismal cell I am now lamenting,
Strange visions they do appear to me,
My troubled mind, both night and day,
My victim’s blood I often see.
Now to this world I bid adieu,
For on the gallows I must die,
To meet my God I must prepare,
My sentence just I can’t deny;
And when my history you do read,
It will make your very blood to chill,
And for ages will not be forgotten,
The Murder on Newmarket Hill.
C. Phillips, cheap and expeditioius Printing Office, Market Street, Brighton.
EXECUTION OF ALEXANDER MACKAY
For the Wilful Murder of Mrs. Grossmith.
This morning the unfortunate convict, Alexander Mackay, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Newgate, for the murder of Mrs. Grossmith, at Norton Folgate.
This is the second execution that has been carried out in private, under the provisions of the recent statute, and it, of course, necessitated the making of a great many alterations with regard to the details. It was at first proposed that the scaffold should be erected in one of the yards adjoining the scaffold, upon the level; but, although the original plan was adhered to, it was decided that the scaffold should not be on a level, and the culprit, as was the case before, had to reach the drop by ascending a ladder.
It is due to the prisoner to state that he seems to have conducted himself very well since his condemnation, and as far as outward appearance can be relied upon, he seems to have felt severe remorse for his crime. He was visited last week by his father, his brother-in-law, and two sisters, and these interviews, as may be readily imagined, were of a most painful character.
The sheriffs of the prison having arrived, immediately proceeded to the condemned cell. The executioner was shortly afterwards introduced to the prisoner, who immediately commenced pinioning him. During this very trying operation, the wretched criminal only once he exclaimed, “May the Lord have mercy on my soul!” Everything having been completed, the prisoner thanked the chaplain and officers of the prison for their kindness towards him. The procession was formed, and slowly took its way towards the scaffold, which the prisoner ascended with a firm step; the rope was then speedily adjusted, the bolt was drawn, and the wretched man after a few struggles ceased to exist.
The bell of St. Sepulchre tolled as the prisoner left his cell; and immediately on the drop falling a black flag was raised, announcing that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried into effect.
COPY OF VERSES.
My dying moments are approaching,
Inside of Newgate’s gaol I die,
Nothing now, alas! can save me,
I see the hangman standing by;
A dreadful murder I committed,
Upon the fatal eighth of May;
At No. 11, Artillery Passage,
My own kind mistress I did slay.
Barbarously I did her murder,
I cruelly her blood did spill,
With a rolling pin and bar of iron,
I did Mrs. Grossmith kill.
Farewell my parents, friends and kindred,
Adieu! a last and fond adieu!
Your unhappy son, that deed has done,
Don’t let it bring disgrace on you;
The day I killed my dearest mistress,
Sudden, in anger, spleen, and rage,
Upon the floor, I shed her gore,
I die now eighteen years of age.
My master was away on business,
My mistress offended me,
I seized the rollig pin and iron,
Killed Mrs. Grossmith, then did flee,
I knew, alas! that I was undone,
I knew not where to hide my face,
I went away some miles from London,
Covered with shame and great disgrace.
Justice closely did pursue me,
In agony I did bewail,
In Woolwich I was apprehended.
And sent from thence to Maidstone Gaol;
Although I was an unknown murderer,
I did not feel the least surprised,
When by a photograph description,
I in the gaol was recognised.
Then, oh dear, sad was my feelings,
What pain and anguish filled my breast,
I found that Justice overtook me,
And I did the deed confess;
The dreadful sufferings I endured,
I sufficient cannot unto you state,
From Maidstone Gaol I was conveyed,
To a prison cell in Newgate.
I was tried for the dreadful murder,
The Jury they convicted me,
The Judge he passed the dreadful sentence,
Which was to die on the gallows tree;
I left the Bar in grief and sorrow,
Went to my cell for to deplore,
Inside the Gaol I die to-morrow,
Where no one ever died before.
My dying moments are approaching,
The authorities me do surround,
The hangman by me is preparing,
My limbs by him will soon be bound;
No one but those inside a prison,
A poor unhappy youth can see,
Young and old pray take a warning,
And while you live remember me.
Printed by Talyor, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London.
SHOCKING MURDER
OF
A WIFE AND SIX CHILDREN.
On Monday morning last, a terrible tragedy took place in Hosier-lane, City, in which a man named Duggin, his wife, and six children were found poisoned. On Saturday evening Duggin returned from his work, and he then looked rather sad, and his wife told a female neighbour that her husband had been dismissed his employment, and they had also received notice to leave their lodgings at 12 o’clock on Monday. On Sunday evening Duggin took his wife and children out for a walk, and on his return went to the Wheatsheaf-tavern, Hosier-lane, and asked the landlord for a quart of ale. He then left, and was not seen again until half-past 4. o’clock on Monday morning, when a man saw him drop a letter in the Hospital pillar letter-box, and then walked towards his home. Two hours afterwards the police received a letter signed James Duggin, stating that he had murdered seven persons, and that he was about to destroy his own life. In it he said the police would be able to obtain further particulars of his brother at Sheffield. Constables were immediately despatched to 15, Hosier-lane, where they found the writer of the letter lying dead upon a bed in a room by himself. In another room they found lying on a bed, a boy aged 4, and a girl aged 3, lying upon the arms of the dead body of the mother. At the foot of the bed was the dead body of a girl aged 12, and on another bed lay the dead body of another child.
Attend you feeling parents dear,
While I relate a sad affair;
Which has fill’d all around with grief and pain
It did occur in Hosier Lane.
On Monday, June the 28th,
These crimes was done as I now state,
How horrible it is to tell,
Eight human persons by poison fell.
In London city it does appear,
Walter James Duggin lived we hear,
And seemed to live most happily,
With his dear wife and family.
They happy lived, until of late,
He appear’d in a sad desponding state,
At something he seem’d much annoy’d
At his master’s, where he is employed.
He was discharged, and that we find,
It preyed upon his anxious mind,
Lest they should want, that fatal day,
His wife and children he did slay.
Last Sunday evening, as we hear,
To the Wheatsheaf he did repair,
Then homewards went, as we may read,
For to commit this horrid deed.
To the police he did a letter send,
That he was about this life to end,
And that he had poisoned, he did declare
His wife, and his six children dear.
To Hosier Lane in haste they flew,
And found it was alas, too true,
They found him stretched upon the bed,
His troubles o’er—was cold and dead.
They searched the premises around,
And they the deadly poison found;
And the shocking sight, as you may hear,
Caused in many an eye a tear.
They found upon another bed,
The ill-fated mother, she was dead,
While two pretty children we are told,
In her outstretched arms she did enfold,
It is supposed this wretched pair,
First poisoned their six children dear,
Then took the fatal draught themselves,
Their state of mind no tongue can tell.
Of such an heartrending affair,
I trust we never more may hear,
Such deeds they make the blood run cold,
May God forgive their sinful souls.
This wholesale poisoning has caused much pain
It did take place in Hosier Lane.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
EXECUTION
F. HINSON,
Who suffered the extreme penalty of the law, at the Old Bailey, this morning, Monday, December, 13th, 1869, for the Wilful Murder of Maria Death.
This morning Frederick Hinson suffered the extreme penalty of the law at the Old Bailey, for the murder of Maria Death.
The prisoner previous to his trial behaved in a most sullen manner, scarcely heeding anything that was said to him. It is satisfactory to state that since his condemnation the conduct of the unhappy man underwent a total change for the better, and he began to realize the awful condition in which he was placed, and his callous demeanour was changed into one of deep dejection. The prisoner has been assiduously attended by the chaplain of the prison, and to such a state of religious feeling had he been brought, that he fully acknowledged the justice of his sentence. He has frequently alluded to his great affection for the unfortunate woman, and his regret at having sent her before her maker totally unprepared. Since his condemnation, the prisoner has been visited by his children, and also his father, the final parting from whom was of the most affecting character, and will not be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
The sheriffs arrived at an early hour, and immediately proceeded to the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner earnestly engaged in his religious duties with the chaplain of the prison. The time had now arrived for the prisoner to be pinioned, the operation of which was quickly performed, and the wretched man having thanked the chaplain, the governor, and other officials for their kindness towards him, the procession was then formed, and slowly took its way to the scene of execution. The cap and rope having been adjusted, the bolt was drawn, and the wretched man ceased to exist. Simultaneously with the drop falling, a black flag was hoisted at one corner of the prison, announcing that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried into effect.
Young men and maidens pay attention,
You married and you single all,
List to my sad lamentation,
And pity, pity my downfall;
For those double Wood Green murders,
I alas am doom’d to die,
How can I meet my heavenly father,
Or dare to him for mercy cry.
So all young men I pray take warning,
Your passions curb, ’ere ’tis too late,
My dying prayer do not be scorning,
Think of Frederick Hinson’s wretched fate.
At Wood Green I was respected,
With all around in peace did dwell,
Now broken-hearted and dejected,
I pine within a gloomy cell.
With Maria Death I lived contented,
’Till Boyd he caused her for to stray,
And by the tales that he invented,
He affection stole from me away.
When I found she was false-hearted,
Jealousy fill’d my mind, ’tis true,
I grieved from her for to be parted,
For I loved her, and our offspring too;
Poor darling orphans, let none upbraid them,
When my soul is gone, I know not where,
That God above from harm may save them.
Shall be my last, my earnest prayer.
When at the station on her did gaze there,
In company with that treacherous man,
One kindly word from her would saved her
And stay’d alas my murderous hand;
But she braved my anger, and in madness,
Recall the dead I never can,
I saw her fall, and gazed in sadness,
A guilty and heartbroken man.
Now for my crimes I was convicted,
And the dreadful sentence on me pass’d,
Condemn’d by some, by many pity’d,
And in a dreary cell was cast;
The Judge said on passing sentence,
Frederick Hinson you must prepare,
Ask God to grant you true repentance,
And bend to him in heartfelt prayer.
My days are spent in lamentation,
My sleepless nights were spent in prayer,
My mind was filled with agitation,
For Maria’s shade was always there.
But I trust her soul is now in heaven,
But a little time she’s gone before,
This sinful world I must be leaving,
And so my sad end will deplore.
A last farewell, I must be going,
To meet with my offended God,
My state of mind there is no knowing,
My soul’s bow’d down with deeds of blood.
Now once again I pray take warning;
For me the fatal bell does toll,
My dying prayer do not be scorning,
May the Lord have mercy on my soul.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High-street, St. Giles.
Execution of J. Rutterford,
At Bury St. Edmunds, for the MURDER
of J. HIGHT.
This morning, at the county prison, Bury St. Edmunds, James Rutterford underwent the last dread sentence of the law, for the wilful and deliberate murder of John Hight, a gamekeeper, in the employ of Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, at Eriswell, Suffolk, on the 31st of December last. The prisoner, since his condemnation, has displayed a perfect indifference as to his awful situation, and when spoken to about the murder, always tried to avoid it. He has been constantly attended by the worthy chaplain, and has paid particular attention to what he said, but in a quiet surly mood. The prisoner was visited last week by a government inspector, for the purpose of examining the neck of the prisoner, the gaol surgeon having reported that he had a malformation, which might cause an unusual degree of suffering on death being inflicted by strangulation. The inspector came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the neck of the convict to prevent his being hanged in the usual manner.
The sheriffs arrived at an early hour, and immediately proceeded to the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner earnestly engaged in his religious duties, with the worthy chaplain of the prison. The time had now arrived for the prisoner to be pinioned, the operation of which was quickly performed, and the wretched man thanked the parson, the governor, and other officials for their kindness towards him. The procession was formed, and slowly took its way to the scene of execution. The cap and rope having been adjusted, the bolt was drawn, and the wretched man soon ceased to exist. Simultaneously with the drop falling, a black flag was hoisted at one corner of the prison, announcing that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried into effect.
You Suffolk lads of each degree,
And all young men of each degree,
And when my mournful tale you hear,
For my sad end shed a silent tear.
Upon the dreadful scaffold high,
A murderer’s death I am doom’d to die.
James Rutterford it is my name,
I now must end my life in shame;
Repentance, alas! it is too late,
I must prepare to meet my fate.
My parents reared me tenderly,
And good advice they gave to me;
If to my dear mother I did attend,
I should not have met a murderer’s end.
On the 31st of December last,
Oh would I could recall the past,
With Heffer I went in search of game,
Which led to that deed I dread to name.
When poor John Hight, on that fatal day,
To the plantation came that way,
I owed him no spite, I tell you true,
It was but his duty he did do.
I know you Rutter, poor John Hight said,
Those words filled my mind with dread,
To secure my safety, I did him kill,
And his precious blood on the ground did spill.
As Heffer says, I then struck him down,
And covered him with deadly wounds,
I stopp’d his mouth I do declare,
For his dying groans I could not bear.
And then I dragg’d him in his gore,
His mangled body then covered o’er,
As my mate said, it was a sickening sight
But the eye of God brought my crime to light.
Of that deed alone I am to blame,
Heffer is innocent, I declare the same,
With my dying breath, I do him forgive,
And trust he a better life may live.
Since I have taken poor Hight’s life,
I cannot rest by day or night,
His form is ever before my eyes,
And for vengeance on his murderer cries.
That my sentence it is just, I own,
Farewell to friends, farewell to home,
How can I meet my offended God,
With my soul bow’d down with guilt and blood.
“This man was to have been hung, but they let him off because they thought it would hurt him, good Christians.”—MSS. Note attached to our copy of the above by the intended Printer and Publisher.
THE HEROES OF THE GUILLOTINE
AND GALLOWS,
OR, THE
AWFUL ADVENTURES
OF
Askern, Smith and Calcraft, the Three Rival Hangmen
Of York Castle, Stafford Gaol and Newgate;
And SANSON, the Executioner of Paris,
With his Cabinet of Murderer’s Curiosities.
FULL OF ASTONISHING DISCLOSURES
Concerning their Private and Public Lives, and Startling Incidents before and after the performance of their dreadful office.
LONDON:—FREDERICK FARRAH, 282, STRAND, W.C. And all Booksellers.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
THE HEROES OF THE GALLOWS AND GUILLOTINE.
“One murder makes a villain, a million a hero.”
The above words of our illustrious bard may well be re-applied to the professional manipulators of the gallows and the guillotine, in England and France. In both countries, said to be the head of European civilization, the executioner seems to be a beloved and venerated object, and regarded as a hero worthy of the support of majesty and power, while smaller and less pretending kingdoms around are, one by one, abolishing his hideous and useless office.
It is a most striking and instructive anomaly, and worthy of the statesman, the philanthropist, the Christian, and all who wish for the moral progress of society, to consider and seriously examine the seeds of evil it is sowing broadcast among the human family. France is a huge nation of contradictions, never to be thoroughly understood, and England is now, in a threefold sense, her sister! Every since their first sanguinary revolution some classes of the French people have fondly hugged the guillotine as a national toy of great worth, and petted three generations of Sansons as their most excellent scientific headsmen; they have also at every execution followed the criminal sitting in a cart, bound and bare-necked, on his coffin, beside his confessor, and gloated with open mouths and staring eyeballs upon the descending blade and the head rolling into the basket of sawdust; and have dipped their handkerchiefs in the bloodsplashes that appeared to fall beyond the bounds of the gibbet. Other classes, of which judges and juries are made, have tried murderers of the most demoniac nature, and to the amazement of the whole woard, by the fiction of “extenuating circumstances” appended to their verdicts, have saved them from capital punishment and consigned them to the galleys; in violation of their own consciences and oaths and the law, which sustains the guillotine as an engine of terror and example!
In our own country within the last few months we have witnessed the passing of a law abolishing public executions, on account of the demoralization that always attended their exhibition in the public highway, and which was complained of for many years by the virtuous and good of every class, who could discern the evils they generated and their inefficiency for either terror or example!
But oh! most singular inconsistency, with the passing of that law, and the substitution of private strangling within the prison-yard, the last tatters of the old worn-out argument in favour of executions as a terror to evil-doers and an example to embryo-offenders, are completely torn away, and yet England at this time nurses three rival hangmen in her official lap for performing her secret hanging business! The three worthies are Askern, of York Castle, Smith, of Stafford-gaol, and Calcraft, of Newgate, in London. Three heroes of the gallows—three professional stranglers—yes, “three servants of the law,” England can now boast of, against France’s single hero of the guillotine to hang up their fellow sinners for a terror and an example! Let us now enquire of the advocates of death punishments how secret executions can terrify or afford an example in the eyes of those they are intended to influence, when they are permitted no longer to witness them?
It needs not a waste of words to prove clearly, that what was before a barbarous and demoralising exhibition, and an inefficient preventative of crime, is now a useless operation and a ghastly tragedy for sickening and torturing all those whom the law compels or the authorities permit to be personal spectators. As the daily and weekly papers published since Calcraft’s and Smith’s joint essays with the first private strangling machine at Maidstone, have proved, murders and other sanguinary offences tending to the same end, do not in the least decrease; but on contrary, the graphic accounts of the first private execution, and the form and action of the new method that were afterwards given in every morning and evening journal, served only to entertain and amuse the lovers of horrors, and were followed by a repetition of capital crimes in several places, as if no such punishment awaited the perpetrators of them. And so will it be after the second trial of the new system, on the boy Mackay, at Newgate, for the Norton Forgate murder, until society to its lowest depths is more moralised and humanised; and a more exacting retribution is enforced against the hardened classes, whom no law of capital punishment will now terrify into submission.
As the Star’s special reporter’s description is worth preserving in its entirety, both for what it says, and for what it does not say. in favour of our argument, at its conclusion, we shall transcribe it into this part of our book:
The first execution within the prison walls, and in presence only of a limited number of spectators, in accordanoe with the new Act of Parliament for the better regulation of capital punishment, took place on Tuesday morning, August 13th, at Maidstone Gaol. The culprit who suffered sentence was Thomas Wells, late a porter in the employ of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company, who was left for death after the last assizes for the murder of Mr. Walsh, the station-master at Dover. In the course of his duties Mr. Walsh had occasion to find fault with Wells, who took reproof in very ill part, and revenged himself on the first available opportunity on the unfortunate station-master by shooting him dead as he sat alone at his work in his office. The alarm was raised, and Wells was found hiding close at hand. The proofs of his crime were so positive that he scarcely attempted to deny it, and on his trial he was at once found guilty and condemned to death. The reports which from time to time have appeared in the public prints since his condemnation have described the young man—he was little more than eighteen years of age—as sincerely penitent, and these reports are borne out by the prison officers, who seemed to have been much impressed by his quiet and decorous conduct.
The curious in such matters will note as an odd coincidence the fact that Maidstone—a town so notorious for its anti-capital punishment feeling, that lawyers will tell you it is most difficult to get a jury to return an adverse verdict against a prisoner on trial for his life—should have been the first place in which the arrangements of the death sentence under the new law should have been carried out. Whether in pursuance of this feeling the inhabitants wilfully ignored the tragedy which was about to be enacted in the immediate outskirts of their town, or whether they were indifferent to it, or whether the exact period of the execution has been hidden from them, it is impossible to say; but it is certain that, amongst the people freely scattered about the broad and handsome streets on Wednesday evening, there was not the slightest indication that anything unusual was to take place among them the following day. A travelling menagerie, which had pitched its tent close by the borders of the canal, was thronged with delighted gazers, among whom the private-soldier element was strongly represented. The local volunteers, headed by their band, were attended in their march by many of the youthful population, and a still larger gathering followed the band of the militia regiment, and grouped round them as they played in front of their headquarters, the Mitre Hotel. But in none of the crowds, composed as they were of townspeople—old and young, male and female—did one hear the best allusion, either in earnestness or ribaldry, to the criminal who was spending his last hours within a few hundred yards of the place where this gaity was beingcarried on, and to whose ears, deafen them how he might, abstract his senses how he would, the clangour of the drums must have been painfully audible. Nor was there any remarkable difference yesterday morning. It had been expected that a large majority of the shops would remain closed until after the execution, which was fixed to take place at half-past ten, but the shutters were taken down at the usual hour, men proceeded to their usual avocations, and there was not the smallest sign—not even that most ordinary sign of men and women conversing in knots and groups—of anything unusual being about to happen, until one reached the immediate neighbourhood of the gaol, and there, on the far side of the broad road running round by the court-house, was a thin fringe of humanity, some fifty persons in all, in one long line, looking towards the great gate of the gaol, and talking among themselves. Emphatically a “bad lot” this, tramps out on hopping excursions, beggars, a female gipsy or two—men and women, too, the lowest scum of the population, and a dozen eager-eyed, wolfish, cunning-looking blackguard boys. They gape and stare, though there is nothing for them to look at as yet; the gaol-gate is closed, and there is no one in the immediate neighbourhood, so they take stock of the flagstaff, on which, in accordance with official injunctions, the “black flag” is to be run up at the moment of the execution, and find matter for comment in the exit from the gaol of certain stonemasons who have been at work inside the prison walls.
At half-past nine exactly a four-wheeled cab drives rapidly up the street, and pulls up at the door of the New Inn, immediately opposite the Court house. The cab door and the inn door open simultaneously; from the former descends a man, who inters the inn, the door of which is again immediately closed upon him, while the cab drives off. In two minutes this man emerges from the inn and makes for the gaol. He is an elderly man, with white hair and white beard, broad and thick-set, and dressed in black, with a peculiar tall hat, and carries a small carpet bag in his hand. This is Calcraft, the hangman. As it were intuitively the little crowd becomes aware of this, a whisper runs round among it that the bag contains his “tackle” of pinioning straps, &c., and the blackguard boys, excited beyond bearing, spring to their feet and start in pursuit. The man, taking no notice and looking doggedly before him, crosses the road, and getting close to the gaol railings, half slinks, half shambles along till he reaches the gate which opens at his approach and closes behind him. Five minutes afterwards another man issues from the inn and makes for the gaol—a tall, thin, wiry man, with a keen eye, with his cheeks and part of his forehead closely shaved, dressed in a velveteen shooting coat, loose trousers, and billycock hat, and looking like an acrobat who had donned his private clothes over his professional costume. The little crowd does not know this man, though he is almost as notorious as the other. He is Smith, of Dudley, the hangman of the Birmingham district, who hanged Palmer, and who occasionally assists Calcraft on great occasions.
At ten o’clock the representatives of the press, who have been provided by the authorities with proper credentials, are admitted into the prison, and are first ushered into the round-house, a building in the debtors’ division, where the turnkeys on duty pass the night. It is fitted with a desk and benches, is glazed on all sides, and overlooks the front court and several of the exercise yards. Several of the warders are here, and from them one learns that the prisoner passed a quiet night, sleeping from half-past ten till half-past four, but that the extraordinary equanimity which he had hitherto displayed is failing him now, and that he is beginning to “break down.” This conversation is carried on in a low whisper; the silence of the place is singularly oppressive; and this, combined with the knowledge of what one is about immediately to witness, renders this period one of the most painful suspense. There are five hundred prisoners within the gaol, but one might as well be in the City of the Dead for all one hears of them, the only sound, the jingling of the warders’ keys, grating on the ear. A little excitement is caused by the hurried entrance of a warder from the direction in which the prisoner is known to be, and his equally hurried disappearance bearing some brandy in a tumbler, but the silence sets in afresh, and one is reduced to watching two little knots in the fore court. One of these consists of the under-sheriff (who is deeply affected), the medical officer, and a nonchalant person in a wideawake hat, who is said to be the governor, but who takes no part in the proceedings, and who is poking up the ground with his walking-stick in a very degagé manner. The other knot is formed of Calcraft, his assistant, and two of the warders who are chatting together. At twenty-five minutes past ten the party—consisting of four reporters of the London journals, six from various local papers, a carpenter who is in attendance lest his service should be required in connection with the arrangements of the drop, and a warder in plain clothes who has been sitting up all night with the prisoner—is summoned from the round-house and ushered into a narrow vaulted ante-room, whence, after five minutes’ delay, they are led through a narrow passage into the presence of the gallows.
There it stands, erected under a shed at the further end of a small yard some thirty feet square, the old square gallows formed of two uprights and one crosebeam, and whose form has been familiar to us from woodcuts and description for years, only in this instance it is painted buff instead of the ordinary dead black. The uprights across have iron supports fixed into the wall, and in the crossbeam there is a hook, immediate under which stands Thomas Wells, with the rope round his neck. There is no built scaffold; the drop on which the prisoner stands is flush with the ground, and the public (if the little representative party can be so called) is placed behind a barrier breast-high, yet so close to the prisoner that they can see every movement of his face, and hear every word he utters. He looks a mere youth, short, yet strongly built. He is dressed in his railway porter’s uniform of velveteen, with the company’s initials in red on the collar, and in his waistcoat, just above his pinioned hand, wears a small flower. He evidently knows little of anything of what is going on around him. He is absorbed in prayer—his face, of a livid hue, is upturned, and his eyes are looking upwards. Standing by him, the chaplain, the Rev. W. C. F. Sugden Frazer, reads, in a voice broken with emotion, the burial service. Suddenly the prisoner begins, in a low, thick, trembling voice, to sing a hymn—one, as we afterwards learn, which he has been recently repeating in his cell—and continues to sing it after Calcraft has pulled the cap over his face, and the chaplain has shaken hands with him—is singing it when, at a signal from his superior, Smith pulls the bolt, and then, with a sickening rattle, the drop falls, Calcraft standing behind, and, as it were, guiding the falling figure. In our belief, life was not wholly extinct for three or four minutes after the falling of the drop. It is usual on these occasions to speak of the movements of the limbs as being “merely muscular,” in this instance there was scarcely any muscular contortion, but there were undoubtedly deep respirations and other undeniable evidence that asphyxia did not immediately happen.
Such is the history of the first private execution in England. Anticipated with just horror by those who were compelled to be present, it was carried out with every decency and all decorum, in a manner calculated to give the least pain to those whose duty it was to witness it. The presence of the representatives of the press at a private execution is a guarantee to the public, whose delegates they are, that the sentence of the law which has been passed upon a certain criminal is duly carried out. But there is no occasion to inflict upon them, as was the case at Newgate, the horror of witnessing the pinioning, the procession, and all the awful details of the scaffold. These, thanks to the visiting justices and to the under-sheriff of Kent, Mr. Furley, of Ashford, were spared at Maidstone, and will, it is to be hoped, be spared in future. Meanwhile, so far as this one instance affords means of judging, IS THE EXECUTION UNDER THE NEW LAW MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN UNDER THE OLD? We answer, decidedly, in the affirmative. The applause or censure of the mob, the desire to “die game” before his friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst influence on the prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard, with its handful of spectators, must have been IMPRESSIVE in the most awful degree, while a peaceful provincial town is left to its usual avocations, entirely free from the influx of pestilent blackguardism, drunkenness, and obscenity which always attended a public hanging.
For the moral purpose of our theme, there are but three items worth noticing in the above account; they are 1st.—The black flag, hoisted as a terror and example to the “bad lot” of “tramps out on hopping excursion, beggars, a female gipsy or two, men and women, the lowest scum of the population, and a dozen eager-eyed, wolfish, cunning-looking boys!” 2nd.—The officials and representatives of the press who “anticipated with just HORROR” the coming scene at which they “were compelled to be present, and then when it is enacted as the primary National Play for the time being, staring at the prisoner in his “railway porter’s uniform of velveteen,” roped to the fatal beam, with a faded flower “in his waistcoat, just above his pinioned hands,” absorbed in prayer—his face of a livid hue, upturned, and his eyes looking upwards; at the same time singing a hymn “in a low, thick, trembling voice,” “after Calcraft has pulled the cap over his face,” and the Chaplain, who had been reading “in a voice broken with emotion, the burial service,” “has shaken hands with him;” and then listening to the “SICKENING RATTLE” in the criminal’s throat, mixed with the whirring sound of the collapsing machinery, as “Smith pulls the bolt,” and “the drop falls,” while “Calcraft is standing behind, and, as it were, guiding the falling figure” into the newly-dug pit below; and 3rd—the summing-up question and answer of the reporter, after making one of a group at this disgusting performance. “Is the execution under the new law more impressive than under the old?” “We answer decidedly in the affirmative. The applause or censure of the mob, the desire to ‘die game’ before his friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst influence on the prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard, with its handful of spectators, must have been impressive in the most awful degree.”
Impressive upon whom let us here ask? Not upon the “bad lot” contemplating the black flag! The very class who needed some wholesome impression of fear, and who never realised it at public hangings, were shut out and left to indulge their idle fancies and curious promptings—a kind of pleasure to them! If it were impressive upon the “gentlemen of England,” and the representatives of the press, while looking upon a drama so horrible, we should imagine that it was in a sense different from that for which capital punishments were enacted; unless we were to believe that, notwithstanding their high refinement, they were susceptible of murderous emotions.
Then there remains only what the conclusion of the report seems to point at, that it was impressive upon the dying criminal, thus leaving only one poor miserable pretence for sustaining the existence of the gallows as a moral preventative, and a wholesome example. Of what use to society is the transitory impression of an agonised wretch about to die unobserved by the world? None whatever, and therefore the advocates of death punishments must soon give way to those of our opinion, that the gallows is an effete institution, unfit for its purpose; and that solitary confinement and hard labour for life would not only be a greater and more deterring punishment, but a security against prematurely hurrying into eternity, as in days of old, innocent persons, wrongly convicted through some vile perjury of the wicked, mistaken identity, or imperfectly unravelled circumstances.
Amongst the earliest converts, we expect soon to number the reporter of the above quoted narrative, and most of his literary brethren. For promoting the cause of abolition, we have issued this pamphlet, and although we notice the awful adventures of the heroes of the gallows and guillotine in our progress, we have no wish to pander to the taste of the illiterate and depraved, but to point a moral that shall leave a trace of some good impression behind.
As we have placed Askern foremost in our list of modern living British hangmen, the most unknown and least experienced, we shall first give a short biographical notice of his life and professional career.
Except in the performance of their dreadful office, and the associations it brings them into, before and after every execution, there is nothing in their private antecedents and habits above the common run of men of their class. No extraordinary genius has ever been manifested by either of our gallows-heroes, beyond the horrible calling which fate has marked out for them. But under the irresistable spell of an evil destiny, they are compelled by fate to perform deeds which all other men shudder at, although they know their legal necessity; and in their endeavours to become proficient in their strangling art, so as to earn the praise of their official superiors, and the admiration of the multitude, they stand out from the rest of society with more than ordinary prominence, and in that respect are regarded as the chief of remarkable public characters. From the most reliable information current amongst the old friends and associates of Askern about York and adjacent districts, also from officials of the castle, which is now used as a gaol, a career of abject poverty, want of employment, ill-luck in almost every one of his undertakings, and a too-fast life whenever his chequered destiny placed money, in small sums at a time, within his power, led him into temptation, and from that temptation came the commission of a deed which consigned him a prisoner to York Castle, from the sombre scenes of which he never emerged, except as a convict, whom evil fate had long marked for her own! In charity, we throw a veil over his particular offence, as our object is only to here show cause and effect, and warn the yet pure and innocent from evil courses.
It was while a convicted prisoner and when an execution was pending without any hangman to do the “job,” after an unsuccessful application to Calcraft of London, who was then fully engaged, that an offer of pardon was made to him on condition that he performed the office on the doomed man.
Moved by the love of liberty, which like life is said to be sweet to everyone, and promises of remuneration and perquisites, Askern accepted without much hesitation the office of public executioner, and to qualify himself in his new and ominous business, he diligently employed his time (as all others in the same line have done before him) in tying and knotting several lengths of rope after the hangman’s fashion, and testing their tightening effects upon an effigy suspended to a rope stretched across the private room where he lodged. To acquire speed and precision in the tying of a hangman’s “noose,” also in the “turning off and cutting down” without the least blundering and rousing the execrations of the depraved mobs which generally assemble to view such ghastly sights, many trials he had to make upon the suspended figure to fit him for the work of the scaffold.
At length the fatal morning came for his first practical essay on the neck of a human being over the top of the castle wall, and in the presence of a vast hideous-looking concourse of people, who hissed at the culprit when he appeared; and strange inconsistency, also hooted the man who was employed to execute the bidding of justice on the object of their detestation!
Askern, at a scene so horribie and new to him, trembled, and would have rushed at once from the scaffold the very moment he had stepped upon it, if he had possessed the power and freedom to do so; but alas! for him there was no chance, his apprenticeship to the strangling trade must be fulfilled according to the prescribed conditions previously mentioned.
Therefore, nerveless as he felt, and ready to sink into the death-trap beneath, amongst the machinery of the drop, he had to summon up all the courage and fortitude which draughts of intoxicating liquor then plentifully supplied to him, could instil into his drooping frame.
At one bound he approached the pinioned wretch, roughly seized him, placed him under the cross-beam of the gallows quickly, with blanched features and trembling hands, hurriedly pulled the white cap down over his livid face, placed the rope over his neck, and drew the noose most scientifically as he thought, in the true Calcraft style, and as his preceding lessons had taught him; but, lo, and behold! a turnkey had no sooner hastened down and drawn the bolt that lets fall the flooring on which the murderer stands, and sets him swinging in the air, than the culprit’s awful convulsions and desperate struggles to clutch the rope and free himself from the tortures he was suffering, showed the ghastly fact, that his first attempt did not succeed, and that the yelling multitude around and below, all horror-stricken at the sickening spectacle, were clamoring against the unfortunate servant of the law! Speedily he had to release the quivering half-strangled wretch, and do his work of hanging over again, ere death terminated the writhings of the doomed man, and at the same time quieted the unearthly cries of the heaving and seething crowds of men and women who had come from various distances, near and far, to behold the great National Show!
Subsequent experience “got his hand in” as the saying is, and made him more adroit at strangling, but except among a very few relatives and old acquaintances, he was a man shunned and despised, and often liable to insults and desperate encounters in public company, when once the whisper went round that he was the hangman of York Castle.
Another unhappy being, fated to follow the same horrible vocation, is Smith, of Dudley. On the outskirts of the town there used to be seen the old half-tumbled down cottage, surrounded by a marshy piece of ground, where “Dudley Smith,” as he is often called, resided at the time he took it into his head to become a second rival to London’s famous hangman. The news of Askern’s exploits gave Smith courage, but made Calcraft only laugh and wonder how many more fools, ambitious of a black notoriety, were going to compete with him. Events soon followed to settle the question, and afford Smith the opportunity he sought.
“Red-handed guilt, the child of woe” then made rapid progress, and cast a gloom over many a household in Staffordshire, and throughout the adjacent “black country.” The difference of a few guineas settled the matter in the minds of the authorities of Stafford gaol, and struck the balance against the pecuniary demands of the skilful Calcraft, and in favour of the lesser price of the inexperienced Smith, who, however, supplemented the want of experience with that species of brazen impudence and animal confidence which men of his class possess. Mentally and physically he was of rougher mould than either of the two former gallows heroes. Nurtured from birth among miners, the companion of the most illiterate pottery hands, and with bull-dog tastes and habits, he was well fitted for the office of public executioner. A man being wanted for the coming “job,” he applied, sent in the “lowest tender,” and was accepted. Visions by day and night now haunted his mind; asleep or awake the gallows and all its appurtenances dwelt strongly upon his imagination, and flitted before his eyes in his drunken moments. Coils of rope here, there, and everywhere rose up before him, and sometimes twined about his own neck in his midnight dreams, like fiery serpents. Time was getting brief, and he must prepare to perform his task neatly and expeditiously, and in dexterity equal the renowned William Calcraft. So, accordingly, after being shown the sort of rope he must use, he set himself to the work of experimenting and forming slip knots round logs of wood, knobs of furniture and fixtures, the tops of his garden rails, and sometimes round his own neck, close under the ear, and sufficiently tight to satisfy himself that it would answer at the proper time. He practised also the pinioning process on his “young woman” in secret; who, not at all enamoured at his intended profession, at first stoutly resisted, but his importunities and determination made her submit to his strange proceedings.
Without overburdening our confined space with an enumeration of the criminals he afterwards executed at Stafford and elsewhere, suffice it to say, that after a few blunders and the usual violent outcries of the brutal multitudes, he became tolerably expert, and was considered a fit assistant to Calcraft, when a change of the law and private executions were determined upon. As we have been informed in the before quoted narrative of the first private execution, on account of Calcraft’s great age, and in obedience to the overtures of the authorities, Smith performed the subordinate part of moving the bolt that supported the platform on which the criminal stood; preliminary, it is supposed, to taking Calcraft’s place, if death or inability should ere long necessitate a change.
Such a change may be nearer than people suppose, for Calcraft is expected to be a successful applicant for a retiring pension, on account of his infirmities, now too plainly visible, in which event Smith might have for a competitor the notorious “Long Tom Coffin,” a costermonger of old Clare Market, lately pulled down, and a quaint character about town, who addressed an epistle in the following form to the authorities of Newgate, which we give in its original orthography, and “with all its blushing honours” and beauties “thick upon it”:—
“Wild Street, March 1st, 1868.
“To the Gaol Committee of Newgate,”
“Gentilmen,—As Ive heerd Calcraft yure ould hangmon iz goin to leeve iz plaise, Ive just takin the libertee too ask yu too chuse me, as I am villin too do the jobs on murdrers for the same pay, and vill ever bee punkshal hat it, ven ever yu vant to hang em up at the gallerse. Ive no objecshun to exshecute any vun yu pleese, without feer or favur too any relashun or aquanetense, but vill do my dooty imparshul, for vich I can git a goood karacter,”
I am Gentilmen,
Yure humbel sirvent,
Thomas Coffin.”
“P.S.—Nevyew by my granmuther’s side to the late Doctur Coffin.”
The secret execution of Wells, the railway porter, at Maidstone, on August 13th, 1868, marks in the criminal calendar William Calcraft’s disappearance from public life. He will henceforth be surrounded by the mystery becoming his terrible office, and the rising generation of criminals who take an interest in the matter, will have to ask their seniors what kind of man he was, and to trust to their imaginations for the picture of him. To no man probably will this mystery be more welcome than to Calcraft himself. He has shown, on more than one occasion, that his dread of facing the crowd was equal to his victim’s dread of facing the gallows.
At the execution of the Manchester Fenians, and of Barrett in London, he was seen to manifest more fear and nervous weakness than any of the men whom he was to put to death. On both occasions he received violent threatening letters from the fenian friends of the culprits. He therefore shuffled about the prison yard, and seemed afraid to mount the gallows-steps, while the sweat fell from his face, and stood in large drops upon his brow. It is a great relief to him for his few remaining years, and a moral gain in every sense to society, to have lost sight of him; for after all, he constituted perhaps the most revolting part of a public execution. The strong prejudice, and the intense savage hatred of the crowd against him was, no doubt, a most unjustifiable feeling, seeing that as the mere instrument of justice and of judgment, he was neither to be hated nor to be loved; but it existed in such intensity that there was no prospect of its ever being lessened. The effect was extremely injurious even to the poor kind of morality that public executions were supposed to promote. The passive feeling of awe with which men might be disposed to look on a criminal going to a righteous doom, was changed into an active feeling of disgust and horror, when they beheld the man by whom he was publicly strangled; and there was too much reason to believe that they left the precincts of the gibbet with more of this unjust feeling uppermost in their minds, than that which open-air executions were meant to inculcate.
All this is now changed by the private system of hanging, but it also destroys every plea for retaining the use of the gallows, as we have before argued in previous pages.
In sketching the career of Calcraft, much is necessary to be said respecting his predecessor, Tom Cheshire, to whom he acted for some years as an assistant hangman, and who gave him during that time repeated instructions in the art of putting criminals to death.
The commencement of his professional life reaches back far into the reign of George the Third, when Tom Cheshire first employed him, and was in the height of his fame. A very remarkable character was old Cheshire, who used to wear always a snuff-brown coat reaching down to his heels, and on that account was often hooted at wherever he was seen, as the “snuffy skull thatcher!” Many of the ancient customs of Newgate he was an eye-witness of, and which will be interesting to mention here.
When the last night of some poor condemned wretch had arrived, at midnight, and from hour to hour, till the dawn of the execution morning, a bell man used to parade outside the prison walls under the grating of the condemned cell, and in loud solemn tones accompanied the harsh sounds of his bell with his warning-cries, to “prepare for death.” With a blush of shame for our forefathers, we are obliged to confess that, murder by law on the gallows was then so common for burglary, highway robbery, forgery, horse and sheep stealing, shop-lifting to the value of forty shillings, and other minor offences, that “hanging Monday” was regularly looked for, after every Old Bailey sessions, when a batch of males and females, sometimes amounting to half a dozen, would be hung up like so many dogs and cats on a Monday morning, although only found guilty and sentenced on the preceding Friday. Simple stealing from a house or the person was then oftener punished with death than were murderous offences. And so awfully unscrupulous were the “Bow-street runners,” as the officers of police were termed, that the innocent used to be “planted” with stolen property, entrapped, sworn positively against, and put to death for the sake of the £40 “blood money” then given for every one capitally convicted. Then the horror of the “condemned cell, and pew, and press yard” were kept continually going, and the blood-thirsty monsters afterwards held their nightly saturnalias together, with spies, informers, bawdy-house pimps of both sexes, and the master and deputy-hangman amongst them; who revelled and toasted the success of their trade of blood-spilling. Then also, the “press yard” witnessed every sessions the torturing of its many youthful victims by the lead-knotted lash; and the “press room” resounded with the piercing shrieks of a prisoner undergoing the punishment awarded to those who refused to plead. Whenever a prisoner at the bar declined to say whether he was guilty or not guilty (a formality required by the law before he could be tried), he was taken to the “press room,” laid on the stone floor naked, and with arms and legs extended, chained fast by the wrists and ancles; and a stout board was placed on the front of his body, on which heavy iron weights, one by one, were gradually placed, after every time he was asked if he would plead to the question first put to him, “guilty or not guilty?” Some poor tortured wretches, after a certain number of ponderous weights, never less than half-hundreds or hundreds, had been heaped upon them, would be terrified into pleading and standing the chance of their trial; but others would be obstinately dumb till such a pile of weights was added, that they were, according to the sentence of the law, crushed to death! The murderer’s pew in the chapel, on the sabbath day, often presented a spectacle, that once seen, never was forgotten. While the late Rev. Dr. Cotton, then the prison chaplain, was preaching the “condemned sermon” one time scowling assassins deep-dyed with the blood of many victims would be seen grouped together; at another time youth and innocence, wrongfully condemned to die a felon’s death on the gallows (as history has since proved), through perjury, or misconstrued circumstances and uncertain evidence. Amongst these we must not forget the fair and beautiful Eliza Fenning, a virtuous maiden servant of a tradesman’s family in Fleet Street, who suffered death on the public gibbet for an offence which she called God to witness that she was totally innocent of! She was convicted on doubtful circumstantial evidence of attempting to poison the whole family, by putting arsenic into the flour of some dumplings she made for their dinner. All her solemn asseverations of innocence availed her not, and the best of characters was entirely useless: sentenced to die she was, and she was ruthlessly hanged by her fair neck, before a vast sympathising multitude of men, women, and children in the Old Bailey, all melted to tears, and crying out “shame,” “shame!”
The beauteous innocent creature appeared on the gallows platform in a new white dress from head to foot, as spotless as her own purity; and we doubt not her soul, the moment it was released by the executioner’s vile hands, was caught up by attending angels and carried to the haven of eternal bliss.
Long after it was too late to wipe out the stain of her judicial murder, her master’s son confessed on his death bed that he secretly mixed the arsenic in the flour she used, during her brief absence from the kitchen, as an act of revenge for refusing to submit to his embraces.
Tom Cheshire and Newgate has witnessed other ghastly scenes, and his predecessor has had adventures with “Sixteen-string-Jack, Jerry Abershaw, Jonathan Wild, Jack Shepherd, Betsy the bank-note forger and foot-pad, who was half executed and restored to life; when the CONDEMNED used to go in an open cart, sitting on their coffins, from Newgate all through Holborn to a public half-way house in St. Giles’s, where they were allowed to stop and drink their “parting draught” with their friends, and be presented with their “last nosegay,” and then resume their procession through Oxford Road, and at the top of it, in the open space facing the gates of Hyde Park, near the turnpike that then existed, to be at once executed on Tyburn’s three-corner’d gibbet.
Passing to later times, Cheshire and his man Calcraft knew something about the noted Dr. Brooks and the dreadful secrets of old surgeon’s hall at the back of Newgate. Subjects for dissection being very scarce, “BODY-SNATCHERS,” sometimes called “resurrectionists” used to watch funerals during the day time in the church-yards of London, mark where the youngest and plumpest subjects were interred, and at night, with digging tools take them up and bag them in sacks, which they would speedily convey to a hired hackney coach standing conveniently near, and drive off with them to the said hall, or to St. Bartholomew’s, according to orders. As body-snatching did not always supply enough subjects for the numerous doctors and students who required them for lectures and experiments, a viler class of offenders sprang to way-lay the friendless and unfortunate, entice them into some lonely out of way house surrounded by vacant ground walls, and there poison and smother them. These horrible villains were called Burkers, who contrived for a long time to sell the bodies of their victims undetected for large sums, as persons who had died naturally and been buried. At last a poor Italian boy who exhibited white mice in the streets, was burked by Bishop, May, and Williams, in a lone house in Bethnal-green, and one night was offered at Bartholomew’s hospital. The doctor to whom they took it, feeling certain after a minute examination, that the corpse had died a violent death, quietly sent for the officers of justice, and gave them into custody. They were tried and found guilty on the clearest evidence of Italians who identified the boy, and were hanged by Calcraft and his master amidst the loudest execrations ever heard in the precincts of Newgate.
During the earlier times of that awful looking gail, the classification and administration were so loose as to render it a perfect HELL ON EARTH. Depravity, ribaldry, drunkenness, gambling and debauchery there reigned unchecked in its dark dungeon, between gaolers and the lowest of their male and female prisoners. The latter sex often times exchanged clothes with their keepers, when the govener was, at night, fast asleep, and in their cells they carrried on whatever lewd revels they had a fancy for, and made a pandemonium of the prison. At the death of Cheshire, Calcraft became principal executioner. He was previously a private watchman at Reid’s brewery, Liquorpond Street, and by trade a lady’s shoemaker. He is also celebrated as a first-class rabbit-fancier, whose breed has won prizes, and unknown, has graced the festive board of many London families. At the Tiger public house, corner of Devizes Street, near the Rosemary Branch, Hoxton, next door to his old residence in his younger days, he used to meet great numbers of his brother snobs, rabbit-breeders, and skittle players, and there held jollifications and played skittles with them. On account of the prejudice of the neighbours, and the too-great freedom of impudent boys in calling out “Jack Ketch,” his habit was to go out very early in the morning and after dark. He is married, and is the parent of a goodly number of sons and daughters, morally brought up and schooled, who have sometimes, been unjustly annoyed by ignorent people on account of their unfortunate parentage. To show the full force of this prejudice we will mention a curious circumstance that happened to one of his daughters.
She was accustomed to meet and court a young mechanic at a friend’s house. One night a supper was appointed to be held there, and the sweetheart had promise of a good merry-making with mutual acquaintances of both sexes, not one of whom knew Miss Calcraft by her paternal name. Through some mysterous cause we have never had explained, just as all were comfortably seated around the smoking viands on the table, and were pledging the lovers and each other in preliminary bumpers of beer and gin, strange footsteps were heard on the stairs, followed by a knock at the door, and when it was opened, the whole company, especially Miss Calcraft’s lover, were suddenly petrified with horror. No sooner was the fatal name pronounced and a recognition passed between father and daughter, than the young man at one bound cleared the table, rushed down the stairs, ran fast away from the house and was seen no more; thus proving again to the deserted hangman’s daughter, that “the course of true love never runs smooth.”
A parallel to the iniquities of the old Bow Street runners are to be found in the records of our modern police force of London. “Jack Ketch’s warren” was well supplied by police scoundrels from many quarters of the poverty stricken districts. One of the most infamous was the “prig’s haunt” in Tyndal’s Buildings, Gray’s Inn Lane, inhabited by low Irish, where King, a policeman in disguise, attended daily when off duty, to teach pocket-picking and all the arts of burglary to poor outcast boys. Between experiments with various instruments, and lessons on the way to use them, a coat was swung across a line, and the young ones were shown how to pick the pocket single-handed when a thief was by himself, and when they went together in twos and threes. As fast as they became adepts in the art and went into the streets to obtain their living by it, King, who always knew their walks, watched them in his uniform, and the moment they committed a robbery, pounced upon them and procured their conviction, for which he obtained the praise of his superiors for extraordinary vigilance, and rewards, besides court-fees at the sessions. At last this vile thief-trainer became too clever; he was denounced by some boys sharper than himself, and some of his honester brother-constables took the clue up, unravelled it to the end, and on the clearest evidence got him sentenced to penal servitude for life. A more recent proof, while we are penning this, has come out, that perjury is still rife in the Metropolitan police force. Three policemen have been wrongfully procuring the conviction of a drover on the charge of stealing several sheep from a field at Tottenham, and have received their “blood money” from the County of Middlesex funds. Since their poor victim has been suffering incarceration, the real thief, at the trial of one of his confederates, has confessed to his own guilt, and declared the entire innocence of the man formerly sworn to by the said policemen. May justice soon overtake them.
Returning to Calcraft and his latter days, we have to congratulate our readers upon his religious conversion, and regular Sunday attendance with his wife, at a church near Poole-street, Islington. He has long ceased to love his office and make money by sales of the clothes of the numerous culprits, and bits of the ropes that hanged them. The ancient ceremony of swearing in the executioner was an awful one. Amidst a collection of ropes, fetters and handcuffs, with his hand upon the bible, he was required to solemnly swear that he would execute every criminal condemned to die, without favouring father or mother, or any friend whatsoever; and when he had taken the horrible oath he was dismissed with the ominous words—“GET THEE HENCE WRETCH!”
The latest performance of Calcraft is reported below, and shows that the first private execution at Newgate was like the one at Maidstone, privately barbarous and publicly useless.
At nine o’clock in the morning of September 8th, the first private execution in London took place in the interior of Newgate Prison. The culprit was Alexander Arthur Mackay, a youth of only eighteen years of age, who, on the 8th of May last murdered a woman Emma Grossmith in whose service he was, at 11, Artillery-passage, Norton Folgate. It now only remains to tell how he expiated his crime upon the scaffold in the presence not of a roaring, surging mob, but in the solitude of a prison, and before a few persons, whose number did not much exceed a score.
Inside the gaol the scene was solemn to the last degree. The representatives of the morning newspapers whose duty it was to witness the execution were admitted to Newgate at half-past eight, and after traversing several gloomy corridors found themselves in an inclosed yard near the prison chapel, in front of the scaffold. A few words will enable the reader to picture for himself the scene.
The yard is a square one, entered by a wicket gate at the south-east corner, and in the corner to the north-west stands the scaffold. In the south-west corner, near the grating through which prisoners undergoing punishment hold converse with their friends at periods arranged for by the prison rules, is a space railed off for the representatives of the press, and standing at invervals of a few yards apart are men of the City police, occupying the remainder of the yard. Behind the scaffold the prison buildings rear their massive walls, and from the roof peers down upon the solemn scene below a stolid warder stationed there in order that, so soon as the ghastly business is at an end, he may signal the man in whose hands are the ropes to hoist the black flag, as a witness to the outside world that justice is satisfied; on the opposite side of the yard are other prison buildings with grated windows, but no outward sign of the life within, while flanking the yard north and south are walls—the one is topped by a terrible cheveaux de frise, and over the other hangs suspended a large cloth, the sound of whose rustling as shaken by the wind—it beat against the prison wall,—was as the flapping wing of a huge bird of prey. The silent expectation of the twenty minutes spent in that dreadful yard was the most painful experience of the present writer’s life. Absence of sound when a man is alone in the heart of a trackless forest is said by travellers to be fearfully oppressive, but the involuntary silence of twenty men waiting the entrance of the messengers of death and their victim becomes painful to the last degree. Sometimes there is a slight murmur heard from the outside of the prison, with now and again the clanking of a latch or the grating of a bolt within the gaol itself, and occasionally a low hum of conversation in the yard—these are the only sounds heard, and they only serve to intensify the oppressiveness of the silent intervals that intervene. What was going on within the prison during this time was not known to the representatives of the press. Under the new Act of Parliament they are excluded from what was known as the pinioning room, and only see the very last scene of all, an alteration very agreeable to the feelings of gentlemen upon whom is imposed a most painful duty. They learned after the execution that Mackay had since his condemnation conducted himself with great decorum, had frequently expressed his great sorrow for the crime he had committed, and his perfect readiness to die. The poor youth, we were told, lost his own mother when he was about the same age as one of his victim’s children, and this deepened in his own mind the intense feelings of piognant regret he seemed to experience between his sentence being pronounced and carried into effect. He was most attentive to the ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Jones, ordinary of Newgate, and took the sacrament at his hands on Sunday, The condemned youth slept soundly until about six o’clock in the morning, when he rose and remained in communion with his spiritual adviser until the last. So much for the interior of the prison; outside the silence remained unbroken, save by the sounds of which we have spoken, until within a quarter of an hour of nine, when from the neighbouring church of St. Sepulchre a passing bell began to toll, and a slightly increased murmur from the outside world reached the ears of those who waited within the prison. At about this time Mr Sheriff M’Arthur, with his under sheriffs, Messrs Roche and Davidson Mr. Jonas, the governor; and Mr. Gibson, the surgeon of Newgate, entered the yard, and having satisfied themselves that all the arrangements were complete, retired, leaving the space again to the reporters and policemen, one of the latter body having some few minutes earlier turned sick and left the yard. This almost unbearable suspense lasted until the clocks in the neighbourhood were heard to strike the hour, and then the clanking of a latch behind the black screen surrounding the scaffold was followed by the appearance of the Rev. Mr. Jones, who supported the doomed man as he ascended the few steps leading from the ground to the drop. The chaplain, whose voice trembled with emotion, read the Litany from the Church of England Prayer-book, and Mackay joined with a loud, clear voiee in the responses, his voice being heard distinctly over the yard, even after he was capped and noosed. Just at this supreme moment the young man’s firmness seemed about to forsake him, and he tottered as though to fall, but the hand of the chaplain laid upon his arm sustained him, and in another second the trap on which the unhappy man was standing fell, and he hung suspended. The fall was a very short one, and signs of life were visible for a longer time after the bolt was drawn than we remember to have seen on any similar occasion. As soon as possible every one concerned in the ghastly business was glad to make his escape from this last act in a doleful drama. To the spectators, judging from our own experience, and the appearance of many persons present, nothing could have been more terrible than this sight of a man, calmly, methodically strangled under shadow of a prison wall, without any of the frothy excitement that has up to within a very short time formed part of an execution ceremony. Few things could be more impressive, so far as the outside spectators were concerned (by reason of its fearful suggestiveness) than the silent running up of a black flag from the gaol wall just as the murderer passed down into the valley of the shadow of death; and nothing we should say could have been more awful than the sight of those four high, hard, pitiless walls to the wretch brought forth to die. Such is an account of the first execution of a murderer in London that has taken place out of sight of such as chose to brave the horrore of an execution crowd in order to see a fellow-creature die a shameful death.
The body, after hanging an hour, was cut down, and a coroner’s inquest, as prescribed by the Act of Parliament, was held in the course of the afternoon, previous to burying it.
The last personage we shall record here as a fit companion to all the before-mentioned, is Sanson, the renowned HERO OF THE GUILLOTINE. On the outskirts of old Paris, in a small neat cottage overlooking the banks of the Seine, surrounded by palings at the front, and thick hawthorn hedges at the sides and back, lives secluded from vulgar gaze a descendant of three generations of the Sansons, who from father to son have inherited the office of public executioner. He is a grim-looking old man of strong build; and is complacent to all visitors whose curiosity leads them to see and converse with him, and view his curious cabinet of murderers’ relics and criminals’ curiosities; and who make their request with becoming civility. He is full of anecdotes about the exploits of his ancestors at chopping off the heads of Louis the XVI, Maria Antonette, Charlotte Corday, the authoress of the famous saying “O! liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name,” as she was about to put her neck under the guillotine knife. He will exhibit at the same time, models of guillotines, instruments of torture, amongst them spokes of the blood-stained breaking wheel of former days, locks of the hair of various nobles and their ladies, rings, brooches, and other trinkets of the victims of the bloody Robespierre, with pieces of the robes and surplices of the bishops and priests who were then brought out of dungeons and guillotined in multitudes early every morning for weeks together, till the ground where the scaffold stood ran with blood. A few skulls and finger-bones of remarkable persons he will also show, and tell how he obtained them. We will now spare our reader’s feelings, and conclude by hoping that the day is not far off, when the awful adventures of the heroes of the gallows and guillotine will be numbered among the things of the past.
THE END.
Elliot, Printer, “The West-End News” office, 475, Oxford Street, W.C.