By giving himself up too much to gambling and field sports he was led to the murder of J. P. Cooke to repay his losses. He was executed at Stafford, and was only temporarily under our custody here. In person he was strong built, about the ordinary height, and had very strong nerves.
Mrs. Manning was a very resolute woman, but her husband was a very imbecile character, and had been dragged into crime through the strong mind of his wife, who had formerly been lady’s maid to the Duchess of Sutherland.
The deputy-governor informed us he had taken notes of the executions in Newgate since 1816, when criminals were hanged for cutting and wounding, burglary, forgery, uttering base coin, &c.
The law was changed in the year 1836 in reference to capital punishments, and the sentence of death is now restricted to murder and high treason. In 1785 nineteen persons, and in 1787 no less than eighteen were executed at one time.
When females are convicted of murder they are asked by the Clerk of Arraigns if they have anything to urge why sentence of death should be passed on them. The matron who sits in the dock beside a female culprit, asks if she is in the family way. A curious case took place in 1847.
Mary Ann Hunt, being convicted of murder, was asked by the Clerk of Arraigns if she had anything to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon her. She replied through the matron in the dock that she was with child. An unusual step was here taken. A jury of twelve married women were summoned to court, who on being sworn, examined her.
After they, were absent for some time, they returned into the Court, and stated that she was not with child. She was afterwards examined by the medical officer in Newgate, and found to be pregnant. She gave birth to a son on the 28th of December following. When before the Court she must have been eight months gone with child.
CHAPTER CXLVI.
PEACE’S EXPERIENCE OF THE INTERIOR OF NEWGATE.
We left Charles in charge of a prison warder who ushered him into a vaulted apartment of a gloomy cheerless description, like most others in the prison.