T. C. S.
"A little Bird told me" (Vol. iv., p. 232.).
—C. W. might have discovered the origin of this saying in an authority much older and much more familiar to English readers than the Koran. Instead of going to Mahomet in search for legends of King Solomon, if he had opened his Bible, and turned to the Book of Ecclesiastes x. 20., he would there have found the wise monarch of Israel himself saying,
"Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."
TYRO.
Dublin.
[R. G., MACKENZIE WALCOTT, P. S. Q., ROVERT, H. T. E., A. H. B., J. A. PICTON, and other friends, have kindly forwarded similar replies.]
The Winchester Execution (Vol. iv., pp. 191. 243.).
—The story, of which a summary appears under this title in a recent Number, resembles one I have repeatedly heard told in the city of Durham by those who had personal recollection of the facts and persons; it occurred about thirty years ago. A servant girl was capitally convicted of administering poison to the household of a farmer, in a fit of passion at some petty injury: a legal doubt raised in her behalf was submitted for consideration in London, and some months elapsed in determining it. During the interval, her character and conduct being good, she came to be employed as a servant in the household of the governor of the gaol, then situated in an old gatehouse at the entrance of the Bailey; and one of my informants has seen her drawing water at the pant in the market place, two or three hundred yards from the gaol, in the heart of the town. One morning the governor and all Durham were struck with horror at the receipt of an order for her execution, within three days; the city being then two days by coach from London, and an appeal for compassion impossible. The execution, singularly, was attended with distressing circumstances. The rope employed broke, another was not at hand: and the wretched girl sat crying under the beam, until a man sent into the town (in a field outside of which, on the Newcastle road, this scene occurred) could return with another cord, with which he was seen flogging his horse up to the gallows. So I have been told by grave and trustworthy witnesses.
F.