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-Sheriff.
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 paused 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 the 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.