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,