Pegsworth was tried at the Central Criminal Court of London on the 12th of February, and found guilty of wilful murder, and was executed in front of the debtor’s door in the Old Bailey on the 9th of March following.

During the whole of the time that was occupied in the trial and execution of Pegsworth, a circumstance took place which excited an extraordinary sensation throughout the metropolis and its neighbourhood—namely, the discovery near the Pine Apple Gate, Edgware Road, of the trunk of a human being, tied up in a sack, dismembered of the arms, legs, and head.

The utmost vigilance was exercised to trace out the murderer, but for several days no light was thrown upon the transaction. At length, on the 6th of January, as a barge was passing down the Regent’s Canal, near Stepney, one of the eastern environs of London, the bargeman, to his unspeakable horror, fished up what proved to be a human head. Proper notice of this circumstance was forwarded to the police. It was now very generally supposed the head would prove to belong to the body found in the Edgware road, although at a distance of nearly five miles, and this conjecture proved to be correct.

On the second of February the remaining portions of the human being was discovered in a sack in an osier bed, near Cold Harbour Lane, Camberwell. These mutilated remains were carefully matched together, and at length recognised as those of a Mrs. Brown, and suspicion fell, and justly so, upon James Greenacre and his paramour Sarah Gale.

In respect to the last two murders we have cited, Mr. Henry Mayhew received from an old “running patterer” the following statement—“Pegsworth was an out-and-out lot. I did tremendous with him, because it happened in London, down Ratcliff Highway—that’s a splendid quarter for working—there’s plenty of feeling—but, bless you, some places you go to you can’t move nohow, they’ve hearts like paving stones. They wouldn’t have ‘the papers’ if you’d give them to ’em—especially when they knows you. Greenacre didn’t sell so well as might have been expected, for such a diabolical out-and-out crime as he committed; but you see he came close after Pegsworth, and that took the beauty off him. Two murderers together is no good to nobody.”

In the Greenacre tragedy Catnach did a great amount of business, and as it was about the last “popular murder” in which he had any trade concern, we give a statement in respect to the sale of “Execution Papers,” of the chief modern ‘popular’ murders, thus:—

Of Rush murder 2,500,000copies.
Of the Mannings 2,500,000"
Of Courvoisier 1,666,000"
Of Greenacre 1,650,000"
Of Corder (Maria Marten) 1,166,000"
Of the Five Pirates (Flowery Land) 290,000"
Of Müller 280,000"

So that the printers and publishers of “Gallows” Literature in general, and “The Catnach Press” in particular must have reaped a golden harvest for many a long day, even when sold to the street patterers at the low rate of 3d. per long dozen.