The Jolly Fisherman;
He looked just like a demon,
With the revolver in his hand;
He killed his own wife’s sister,
Alas! she soon lay dead,
And her poor afflicted husband,
Lay consumptive in his bed.
He had no consideration,
No pity in his breast,
His wicked desperation
Caused horror and distress
Confined in Lewes dungeon,
For a short time he must be,
Then for the Brighton murder,
They will hang the prisoner Leigh.
Leigh a native was of Brighton,
To the family a disgrace,
By every one detested,
Who knew him in the place;
She was his own wife’s sister,
Who received the fatal wound,
Which has caused such consternation,
Many miles round Brighton town.
C. Phillips, Printer, Market Street, Brighton.
BARBAROUS MURDER OF A CHILD BY A SCHOOLMISTRESS.
A child murder has been committed at Park Horner, in the parish of
Hampreston, under circumstances of the most shocking barbarity. At
the Coroner’s inquest it was given in evidence that the child had
been beaten on the head with a heavy flint stone, and its tongue cut
completely out at the root. It was found wrapped up in another part of
a drawer where the body was discovered. The inquiry lasted four hours
and a-half, and resulted, in the first instance, in a verdict, “That
the child was born alive and murdered by someone.” The Coroner pointed
out that the evidence was conclusive against Emma Pitt, the national
school-mistress, who was the mother of the child; and he expressed his
surprise that such a verdict should have been returned. The Jury after
reconsidering their previous finding, returned a verdict of “Wilful
murder against Emma Pitt.”
We have read of sad and dreadful deeds
Of mothers cruel and unkind,
But in the annals of history
Such as this we seldom find;
In the parish of Hampreston,
This deed was done we hear,
Near to the town of Wimborne,
In the county of Dorsetshire.
This Emma Pitt was a schoolmistress,
Her child she killed we see,
Oh mothers, did you ever hear,
Of such barbarity.
With a large flint stone she beat its head
When such cruelty she’d done,
From the tender roof of the infant’s mouth
She cut away it’s tongue;
Sad and wicked, cruel wretch,
Hard was her flinty heart,
The infant’s tongue from the body was
Wrapped in another part.
The murderess placed in a drawer,
And it there, alas! was found,
The news of this dreadful murder,
Soon spread for miles around;
And first upon the inquest,
She expected to get free,
Although she was the author
Of this dreadful tragedy.
A schoolmistress too, how sad to tell,
Well known for miles around,
Who had many children under care,
In and near to Wimborne town.
Oh, what a sad example,
To children she did set,
There was never such a cruel wretch,
As the barbarous Emma Pitt.
She committed is for murder,
Soon her trial will take place,
And if she is found guilty,
How sad will be her case.
If she has a woman’s feelings,
She surely will go wild,
She in such a barbarous manner killed
Her tender infant child.
The hour is approaching,
The moments near at hand,
When before a Judge and Jury,
This monster soon must stand;
And if she is found guilty,
She her deserts will get,
And mother’s, miles round Wimborne,
Will remember Emma Pitt.
H. DISLEY, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
FAREWELL TO THE WORLD OF RICHARD BISHOP,
_Who now lies under sentence of Death in Maidstone Gaol, For the Murder
of Alfred Cartwright._
In Maidstone Gaol, I am lamenting,
I am borne down with grief and pain,
I for my deeds am now repenting,
I shall Sydenham never see again;
I have been tried for wilful murder,
No power on earth can me now save,
I am doomed to die, my time’s approaching,
And I must lie in a silent grave.
Now I, alas! must die for murder,
Oh, how awful is my doom,
Richard Bishop, one and twenty,
In youth and vigour, health and bloom.
Alfred Cartwright was my neighbour,
We both at Forest Hill did dwell,
Alfred, servant was at the Swiss Cottage,
Where he was respected well;
I went with others to annoy him,
It was upon that fatal night,
Ere he returned from his day’s labour.
Unto his home and loving wife.
I never did intend to kill him,
Why should I my neighbour slay,
He never gave me any reason,
To take his youthful life away?
I was given in charge, and in a passion,
I drew the awful, deadly knife,
And plunged it in poor Alfred’s body,
And there deprived him of his life.
The solemn funeral of my victim,
Caused consternation miles around,
Thousands flocked from every quarter,
The funeral dirge did mournful sound;
Poor Alfred, to his grave respected,
Proceeded by a solemn band,
And I must die upon the gallows,
A wicked and degraded man.
Farewell, vain world, I now must leave you,
Farewell, my friends and neighbours all,
Around Forest Hill no more you’ll see me,
The hangman’s voice on me does call;
Saying, Richard Bishop, now be ready,
To die upon the fatal tree,
Oh, aged only one and twenty,
What a dreadful sight to see.
Poor Alfred’s friends, will you forgive me,
His father, mother, tender wife,
I him did kill, his blood did spill,
And I pay a forfeit with my life?
And God, look down from heaven upon me,
Forgive the crime that I have done.
I see grim death standing before me,
Saying, Richard Bishop’s glass is run.
Oh, pray, young men, by me take warning,
Remember me and what I done,
Ponder, yes, oh! and consider,
Let passion you not overcome;
I did the deed in the heighth of passion,
I had no animosity.
Little thought my tender parents,
I should die upon a gallows tree.
When the Judge did pass the awful sentence
Saying, Richard Bishop, you must die,
For the murder of young Alfred Cartwright,
On Maidstone’s tree so awful high;
Oh think, dear friends, what was my feelings,
Sad and wretched and forlorn,
Doomed at the age of one and twenty,
To die a dreadful death of scorn.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION OF J. MAPP,
_Who now lies under Sentence of Death in Shrewsbury Gaol, for the
Murder of Catherine Lewis._
On Monday, March 23, at the Shrewsbury Assizes, John Mapp, a labourer,
was placed at the bar, charged with the wilful murder of Catherine
Lewis, on the 22nd of December, 1867, at the parish of Longden.
Jane Richards deposed that after leaving chapel she accompanied
deceased and John Mapp as far as Wood Farm, where she left them
together going down Long lane.
Edward Lewis, the father of the deceased, deposed to Mrs. Hutchins
bringing him his daughter’s hat covered with blood. I at once started
in search through several fields till I saw a hovel. There were marks
at the door as if something had been dragged along, and on entering
saw the body of my child in a little bin, covered with straw and loose
litter.
Mr. Harris, surgeon: I made a _post mortem_ examination of deceased.
I found a shawl tied round her neck, and about eight inches shoved
tightly into her mouth. There were five incisions on the right side of
the throat, finishing in one deep wound on the left. The windpipe was
cut through. I attribute her death to loss of blood and suffocation.
Edward Jones, police-constable, produced a brooch belonging to
deceased, which was found on the prisoner when he took him into custody.
John Aston, a waggoner, deposed to finding the hat of the deceased in a
holly bush.
Mrs. Davies: I reside at Longden. I knew the deceased. The brooch
produced is the one she wore.
The counsel for the prisoner then proceeded to address the Jury for the
defence, and the counsel for the prosecution having replied,
The Judge then summed up, and the Jury without retiring from the box
returned a verdict of Guilty. The usual Sentence of Death was then
pronounced upon the prisoner.
John Mapp, in Shrewsbury, does now bewail,
Doomed to die for murder in a dreary gaol;
Such a dreadful murder, as you may see,
Which we may compare to the Alton tragedy.
In Shrewsbury Gaol, now in grief do lie,
John Mapp, the murderer, condemned to die.
The cruel monster was not afraid,
To kill a youthful and innocent maid.
Little Catherine Lewis on a Sunday night,
Mapp, without a reason, deprived of life.
Returning home from chapel, he embraced her fast,
’Twas the twenty-second of December last;
He cut and mangled her, took her from the road,
And her murdered body in the hovel throwed.
Oh! how could any one so vile engage,
To kill a child but nine years of age;
Her clothes he scattered over ditch and field,
For which he finds now his fate is sealed.
The child was missed--news spread far and wide,
John Mapp was questioned, he the deed denied,
He prevaricated--untruths did state,
And he must meet his untimely fate.
Little Kitty’s brooch that was found on Mapp,
And he took her ribbon from her Sunday hat;
He had a heart harder far than steel,
He was quite composed, working in the field.
Mapp was apprehended and sent to gaol,
And in a dungeon does now bewail;
On the tree a forfeit he must pay, his life,
His murdered victim haunts him day and night.
Now Mapp is cast and condemned to die,
Although the murder he does now deny;
The jury found him guilty, the case was clear,
And his last moments are drawing near.
How sad and dreadful it is to state,
The horrid murders that have been of late;
In every quarter both far and near,
Such atrocious deeds before this no one did hear.
Little Catherine Lewis, as I unfold,
Was but a little more than nine years old,
Innocent and charming, pious and kind,
Sweet disposition, and amiable mind.
What motive could the horrid murderer have,
To send the child to an early grave?
It was not for lucre, he could nothing gain,
To cause such horror, such grief and pain.
When he appears on the fatal tree,
Not a a spark of pity will there be for he;
He must die a murderer, nothing can him save,
Aged thirty-five, lie in a murderer’s grave.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION OF H. LINGLEY.
[Illustration]
Within a dungeon in Norwich gaol,
One Hubbard Lingley in grief bewails,
His own kind uncle he did kill and slay,
On a Friday morning in the month of May.
For that cruel murder he’s doomed to die
On Norwich fatal sad gallows high.
He is doomed to suffer as I relate
On the very tree where Rush met his fate
In health, in vigour, in youth and bloom,
The murderer Lingley must meet his doom.
In the morning early at four o’clock
He fired a sad and dreadful shot
Which caused his uncle’s fatal death wound
Where he fell bleeding upon the ground.
A kind good uncle as may be seen
To his wicked nephew he had been;
Reared him up tenderly and used him well,
And in his cottage with him to dwell.
But he resolved he his blood would spill
His uncle Benjamin he wished to kill;
On Friday morn, the seventeenth of May,
The nephew did his kind uncle slay.
Early in the morning, at four o’clock,
To attract his uncle he fired a shot
And by that spot received the fatal wound.
The murderer flew and left him on the ground
Some labouring men who were passers by,
Saw the murdered in his blood to lie;
Suspicion did on his nephew fall,
And innocent blood did for vengeance call.
Many excuses did Lingley make,
Not having courage to meet his fate;
He before a jury for the deed was tried,
And condemned to suffer on the gallows high.
Hubbard Lingley thought when his uncle died
His place to him would not be denied;
So he was determined to kill and slay,
His uncle dear the seventeenth day of May.
He is doomed to die, nothing can him save,
By the side of Rush in a murderer’s grave;
His bones will moulder till the Judgment day,
How could he take his uncle’s life away?
At Norwich castle he was tried and cast
And his last moments approaching fast;
The hangman anxious does now await
To terminate Hubbard Lingley’s fate.
Oh! all young men a warning take
Think and consider ere it is too late;
How could he dare lift his murderous hand.
Base, vile, ungrateful, and cruel man.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High-street, St. Giles.
TRIAL, CHARACTER, CONFESSION, BEHAVIOUR, & EXECUTION OF ALICE HOLT,
In front of Chester Gaol, this day, for the Wicked Murder of her own
Mother.
[Illustration]
This day the extreme sentence of the law was carried into effect on
Alice Holt, at Chester Gaol, for the murder of her mother by poison.
The evidence at the trial showed that prisoner, her mother, and a man
named Holt, with whom she cohabited, lived together at Stockport.
In February last the deceased, Mary Bailey, was taken ill, and the
prisoner insured her life for £26, at a premium of 6d. per week.
She induced a woman named Betty Wood to personate her mother before
the doctor, telling her that the agent said “Any one would do.” The
proposal was accepted by the Wesleyan Assurance Society, and from that
time the mother became worse. Prisoner called in the parish surgeon
and the infirmary visiting officer, both of whom were ignorant of the
other’s visits, and complained of their medicine not being given.
On the 25th and 26th the prisoner bought some arsenic--a quarter of
a pound each time--which she put in a jug with some boiling water,
and sprinkled about the room where her mother lay to kill vermin. The
night of the 26th deceased had some brandy-and-water, and complained
of “grounds” being at the bottom. Prisoner said, “You ought to have
drunk grounds and all.” Mary Bailey died in the morning with all the
symptoms of arsenical poison, and was buried. The personation came to
the ears of the office, and the body was disinterred, when it was found
perfectly fresh, but “saturated with arsenic,” of which no less than
160 grains were found in the stomach and adjacent parts.
The unfortunate woman was not tried at the Summer Assizes, in
consequence of her being in the family-way. The child has since been
adopted by Holt’s uncle, the only person who has visited her since
during her imprisonment. She has been sullen, and strongly protested
her innocence.
CONFESSION.
On Sunday, the prisoner made the following statement:--On the Monday
before mother died, I brought the insurance paper home, insuring my
mother’s life for £26, and mine for £28. He then proposed I should
get some charcoal and put it under mother’s bed alight, when she was
asleep, and she would never wake more. On Wednesday night Holt and I
never went to bed. He said it would be a great releasement if she was
in her grave, and he would buy some stretchnine (strychnine) if I would
give it her. I said, “Thou’lt be found out.” He said, “They cannot find
it out by that.” I said, “Thou hast brought me to destruction, and now
thou wants to bring me to the gallows.” He then beat me. In the beer
of which I spoke, I saw, after my mother had drank it, a quantity of
blue arsenic grounds. I said, “Thou hast given my mother arsenic.”
He said, “If thou tell aught, I will have thee up for defrauding the
insurance,” and said, “Nobody will believe but what thou hast done
it thyself.” This was the only arsenic my mother ever had.--Another
statement was afterwards made by the prisoner.
THE EXECUTION
Took place this morning. When near the drop her courage failed her, and
she was half dragged, half carried to the scaffold. On the platform she
fell on her knees, and moaned piteously, “The Lord have mercy upon me,”
which she continued to do whilst Calcraft pulled the bolt. The drop
fell, and the culprit was launched into eternity before a great many
people, particularly women-folks.
COPY OF VERSES.
A dreadful case of murder,
Such as we seldom hear,
Committed was at Stockport,
In the County of Cheshire.
Where a mother, named Mary Bailey,
They did so cruelly slaughter,
By poison administered all in her beer
By her own daughter.
The daughter insured the life of the mother,
For twenty-six pounds at her death,
Then she and the man that she lived with
Determined to take away her breath.
And when Betty Wood represented the mother,
She did’nt act with propriety,
For the poor mother lost her life,
And they all swindled the Society.
Now that the old gal’s life’s insured,
Holt to the daughter did say,
Better in the grave she were immured,
And the money will make us so gay.
Now that you have got me in the family way,
And from me my virtue you’ve wrung,
You’ll never be happy a day,
Till on the gallows I’m hung.
She laid a plan to murder her,
As we now see so clear,
To put a quantity of arsenic
Into her poor mother’s beer.
To see her lay in agony,
Upon that dreadful night,
With a dreadful dose of arsenic,
Oh, it was a dreadful sight.
She lived but just six hours,
Then the poor woman did die,
And this base murdering wretch,
The dreadful deed did deny.
On the man Holt she laid the blame,
Vowed he did her mother slay,
Holt on her did the same,
Saying she took the mother’s life away.
The father of her unborn infant,
Whom she vowed to love most dear,
And when confined in prison,
She was overcome with fear,
She made a rambling statement
’Bout the arsenic in the beer
Laid all the blame on Holt and Betty Wood
Expecting for to get clear.
But there’s no doubt the base wretch
Did her poor mother slay.
For which on Chester’s scaffold,
Her life did forfeit pay,
So all young women a warning take,
By this poor wretch you see,
A hanging for the mother’s sake
On Chester’s fatal tree,
W. Smith, Printer, Chester.
CRUEL AND INHUMAN MURDER _Of a little Boy, by his Father_.
COMMITTAL OF THE PRISONER.
On Monday morning a cruel and inhuman murder was committed by the
father on a child aged six years, in Neal’s passage, Seven Dials. The
father has been separated from his wife for some time, and the boy had
been brought up by its maternal grandmother, a poor old woman. The
child being an unusally intelligent and nice-looking boy was a great
favourite with the grandmother and an aunt who lived in the same room.
It appears the mother had been living with another man as his wife, and
the father also had formed an illicit connection with another woman.
The poor boy had consequently become a source of trouble to both of
them, although the merest trifle was required for its maintenance.
On Sunday evening the father (Jeffery) called at the grandmother’s for
the boy. She asked him what he wanted with the child, but he became
very violent, ordered the child to dress himself, and swore that “he
would do for her and the child too,” if she did not mind. Jeffrey
then went to his sister, in White Lion street, taking the child with
him, and asked for a bed. He was accommodated with one, and went to
bed with the boy; but at two o’clock in the morning he rose, and took
the child away. He could not have walked many yards away--for Neal’s
passage, where the body of the deceased was found, is close at hand.
The child was found suspended from a projecting beam or bracket in a
cellar to which all the residents had access for water, &c. Horrible
as it seems, it is apparent from the condition of the body, that the
cruel father tied its hands behind, and had literally enacted the part
of executioner of his own child, holding its legs, and forcing down its
body to complete the strangulation of the poor boy. The child remained
in this position till about half-past six o’clock, when it was seen by
a girl who had occasion to go to the cellar, and who gave the alarm.
Dr. Harvey, the parish surgeon, attended directly, and pronounced the
child to have been dead about three or four hours.
Dr. Lankester, the coroner, held an adjourned inquest on Wednesday,
and there being no further evidence the jury returned a verdict of
wilful murder by hanging and suffocation of Richard A. Jefferey, by
his father, John R. Jefferey. The prisoner was examined at Bow street
yesterday, and committed to Newgate.
You kindest fathers, tender mothers,
To this sad tale, oh! list awhile,
Hark you, sisters, too, and brothers,
To a murder on the Seven Dials;
Such a crime indeed,--no never!
Its baseness I can scarce reveal,
In Neal’s Passage, Earl Street, Seven Dials,
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
In all your troubles and your trials,
You never knew, as I reveal,
Such a murder, on the Seven Dials,
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
In Earl Street lived a wretch named Jefferys,
Who a tailor was by trade we find,
A sad, a base, and cruel villain,
Wickedness ran in his mind;
A child, the villain ought to cherish,
His offspring which he should adore,
Seventeen weeks ago he left him,
At his old Grandmother’s door.
His little boy named Richard Arthur,
By the wretched father, we are told,
Was cruelly and basely murdered,--
The child was only seven years old;
The villain took him to a cellar,
Resolved his offspring to destroy,
Tied his little hands behind him,
And hanged the pretty smiling boy.
Vengeance against the boy he threaten’d
Determin’d for to take his life,
And to commit the dreadful action,
He often did produce a knife;
’Twas his only child, he had no other,
A rogue in grain, devoid of fear,
He’d been separated from the mother
Of the little boy for three long years.
The grandmother, his mother’s mother,
Her little grandchild long did keep,
Receiving nothing from the father,
For the space of seventeen long weeks,
And then the villain did demand him,
He clandestinely took him away,
That fatal evening he determined
Was his little boy to slay.
Then he to the cellar took him,--
His heart was harder far than steel,
The wicked, base, inhuman monster,
His actions no one can reveal.
His only chlld, to hold beside him,
With rope he bound his little hands,
When behind his back he placed them,
He in the cellar did him hang.
He flew, but Justice close pursued him,
And taken he has been we see;
When tried, no doubt, they’ll find him guilty,
And he’ll be hanged on Newgate’s tree;
Hanging is too good for such a villain,
He who would his flesh and blood destroy,
The child, we are told, was six years old,
A pretty little prattling boy.
We all have got our cares and trials,
And unto fate compelled to yield,
This deed was done on the Seven Dials.
In St. Giles’s-in-the-fields.
H. DISLEY, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION & CONFESSION OF J. R. JEFFERY
Who now lies under sentence of death, for the wilful murder of his
little boy.
[Illustration]
Within a dreary cell I lie,
A wretched murderer, condemned to die
For the murder of my darling boy,
Whose precious life I did destroy.
I am doomed to die, my glass is run,
For the murder of my darling son.
John Richard Jeffery, it is my name,
Why did I do that deed of shame?
I confess my crime, but do declare,
No ill feeling to my child did bear.
From my wife I long had parted been,
Which disturbed my mind, as may be seen;
And Satan’s doubts they filled my mind,
Which led me to this dreadful crime.
I could not bear the child to see,
It seemed to increase my misery,
While thinking of my absent wife,
I form’d a plan to take his life.
At his grandmother’s he found a home,
And with fiendish thoughts I’m asham’d to own;
Quick dress that child, to her did say,
For I was determined the boy to slay.
Poor little boy, it seemed filled with fear,
And cried, don’t dress me granny dear;
Don’t let father take me away,
With you, dear granny, I’d rather stay.
But to his wishes I paid no heed
But left with the child, as you may read;
Then proceeded in the dead of night,
To a lonely spot to take his life.
To a dismal cellar I took the helpless child,
The thoughts of which now drives me wild;
Poor boy, he fainted with affright,
And in that state I took his life.
With a handkerchief I bound his hands,
And to the cistern I did him hang;
Poor innocent, unconscious quite,
Knew not his father had took his life.
When this fearful act the hand had done,
From the fearful scene away did run;
With stricken conscience, like the murderer Cain,
But peace of mind could not obtain.
I strove to forget it for a time,
But my murdered boy so haunted my mind,
I gave myself up, as you may read,
To make some atonement for the deed.
I soon upon the drop must stand,
A guilty and heart-broken man;
My darling boy I shall no more behold,
Have mercy, God, on my guilty soul!
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
MURDER OF A WIFE AT ASHBURNHAM, NEAR HASTINGS.
A shocking murder of a wife was committed on Sunday, at Ashburnham, a
village near Hastings. Near the village is a quantity of land called
Gardener’s Farm, which is farmed by an old man named Stubberfield and
his son Jeremiah. The son, who is married, has a separate residence
about sixty yards from that of his parent. There were living in the
same house with the son, his wife Matilda, their son, Mary Deeprose
(a companion to Mrs Stubberfield), and several farm labourers and
servants. The boy, eight years old, who occupied the same room with
his parents, states that early on Sunday morning he saw his father
kneeling upon his mother, and squeezing her throat. Hearing his mother
say, “Oh!” feebly, as is in pain, he said to his father, “Your hurting
mother.” “You hold your tongue,” replied the father, “I’m only tickling
her.” The boy again made a similar remark, upon which the father said
that if he didn’t hold his tongue he would “see to him.” Stubberfield
then dressed himself, and having kissed his wife and child, went down
stairs. The boy immediately aroused the other inmates of the house,
who were soon in the bedroom of the murdered woman. The police were
sent for, and in a short time, some two hundred persons were scouring
the neighbourhood in search of Stubberfield, and it was not till the
afternoon he was discovered, and then he was making his way towards
home. He had secreted himself in a pit, and tried to drown himself, but
could not do so, for he always floated on the top of the water.
A dreadful deed, as you may read,
I am going to unfold,
A base and cruel murder,
That will make your blood run cold;
At a village called Ashburnham,
A few miles from Hastings town,
Where the family of the Stubberfields
Was known for miles round.
Jeremiah Stubberfield killed his wife,
At Ashburnham, we see,
Which caused many a tear both far and near,
The Sussex tragedy.
There lived old Farmer Stubberfield,
An aged, wealthy sire,
At Gardner’s Farm, and near him lived,
His son, named Jeremiah;
Who had a wife, Matilda,
Virtuous, good, and kind,
Who had a son, and her companion,
Labourers and servants, too, we find.
On Sunday morn, the twenty-third of May,
The little boy, but eight years old,
Saw his father squeeze his mother’s throat,
Most awful to unfold;
He called unto his father,
While trembling with fear,
Saying, oh, cruel father,
You are killing mother dear.
The murderer kissed his wife and child,
After that he did slay,
Then placed his coat upon his arm,
And from the farm did stray;
The servants and the labourers,
Went to the fatal bed,
And there beheld Matilda
Quite cold, and lying dead.
They did pursue the murderer,
They in numbers went along,
Searched the hedges and the ditches,
Dragged the rivers and the ponds;
But late on Sunday afternoon,
As they in numbers on did stray,
They saw him wandering to his home,
Where his murdered wife did lay.
He says he dearly loved her,
A kind, good, and tender wife,
Oh, whatever could possess him,
To take away her life;
It has caused great excitement,
Far round the country,
A farmer’s son the murder done,--
The Sussex tragedy.
To end this dreadful tale of woe,
Confined within a gaol,
Lies Jeremiah Stubberfield,
In anguish to bewail;
He loved his wife, far more than life,
He her corpse sweet kisses gave,
He has brought his aged parents,
In sorrow to the grave.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.
LAMENTATION & FAREWELL TO THE WORLD OF JOHN FLETCHER AND ANN LAWRENCE
_Who now lies under Sentence of Death at Maidstone Gaol_.
A poor unhappy man and woman,
Does in agony bewail,
Sentenced to die, alas for murder!
In separate cells, in Maidstone gaol.
Ann Lawrence aged eight-and-twenty,
For the wilful murder of her child,
And John Fletcher, only twenty,
For the dreadful murder of James Boyle.
In agony, now lies lamenting,
John Fletcher, who is frenzy wild,
In Chatham prison killed the warder,
And Ann Lawrence her own darling child.
Ann Lawrence is a married woman,
Who with a man named Highams did dwell;
He also had a wife still living,
Highams and Lawrence lived at Tunbridge Wells,
They lived unhappy, often quarrelled,
Faults on both sides we may see,
Ann Lawrence in a fit of frenzy,
Overpowered with jealousy.
Determined was to kill her offspring,
Revengeful, shocking to unfold,
To aggravate her own paramour,
Her little boy but four years old;
At Tunbridge Wells she basely murder’d.
Wickedness ran in her mind,
When her child she’d slain, said with disdain,
The innocent child was killed by Highams.
The little boy named Jeremiah,
Looked in his mother’s face with tears
When her little boy she did destroy,
Aged only four years;
Her counsel for her pleaded clever
To free her every way he tried,
When the Judge the sentence passed upon her,
The dreadful murder she denied.
John Fletcher who must die beside her,
A convict was for seven years,
He in Chatham prison killed the warder,
To give the blow he was prepared,
He says the warder did illuse him,
And tantalized him day by day,
And in a fit of desperation,
He with a hammer did him slay.
At Maidstone they were tried and sentenc’d
To die a murderer’s death of scorn,
In youth and health they are lamenting,
In grief and agony forlorn;
The awful moments are approaching,
And there is nothing can them save,
They soon must leave this world of sorrow,
And sleep within a murderer’s grave.
Oh male and female curb your passions,
Think and consider ere too late,
Passion, jealousy, and vengence,
Has caused those wretched person’s fate;
Let their fate be an example,
Oh! pray be guided one and all,
Think of John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence,
Remember what caused their downfall.
Passion, jealousy, and vengeance,
Was the cause, we plainly see,
Of bringing John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence
To die on Maidstone’s dismal tree.
Disley, Printer, High street, St. Giles, London.
EXECUTION OF MICHAEL BARRETT,
Who was executed this morning at the Old Bailey, for the wilful murder
of Sarah Ann Hodgkinson, one of the sufferers at the Clerkenwell
Explosion.
[Illustration]
This morning the unfortunate Fenian convict, Michael Barrett, suffered
the extreme penalty of the law at the Old Bailey. The prisoner has
been attended by the Rev. Mr. Hussey, a Roman Catholic priest, who has
remained with him a considerable time every day. He was very taciturn,
and although he was no doubt aware of the efforts that were being made
to obtain a reprieve, it was a noticeable fact that he never attempted
to declare his innocence. Down to recently he used to attend the
service in the prison regularly, but after Mr. Hussey had been with
him he entirely refrained from doing so. He has not been visited by
any one since his conviction. All his relations appear to reside in
Ireland, and he does not seem to have had any connexions or friends in
this country.
The sheriffs of the prison arrived at an early hour, and immediately
proceeded to the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner in
devotional exercises with the Rev. Mr. Hussey. He declared himself
ready to die, and seemed to consider himself a martyr. The time having
arrived, Calcraft, the executioner, was introduced to the prisoner,
who immediately commenced pinioning him, which operation having been
gone through, the prisoner thanked the governor and other officials
of the prison for their kindness towards him. The procession was then
formed, and slowly took its way towards the scene of execution. The
prisoner ascended the scaffold with a firm step. Everything having been
prepared, the cap was drawn over his eyes and the rope adjusted, the
bolt was drawn, and he appeared to struggle but slightly before life
was extinct.
COPY OF VERSES.
Adieu, vain world, I now must leave you,
Here I cannot longer dwell,
I have been tried, and I am sentenced
To die for the deed in Clerkenwell;
Oh! that dreadful sad explosion,
Which did so much destruction cause,
Brought me to the tree at Newgate,
My sufferings sure no one knows.
I must leave this world of sorrow,
On earth I must no longer dwell,
Sentenced to be hanged for murder,
For the sad affair in Clerkenwell.
Alas! my name is Michael Barrett,
Born and brought up in Erin’s isle,
I did adore my native country,
Wheron I oft did sweetly smile;
Oh yes, my own dear native Erin,
Behold me on the fatal tree,
A miserable malefactor,
In a murderer’s grave I soon shall be.
A traitor did swear hard against me,
A wretch, Mullany known by name,
Worse by far than any other,
And many persons know the same;
Only one amongst the prisoners,
And that poor one, alas! was me,
Poor unhappy Michael Barrett,
Condemned to die upon a tree.
I twice have been respited,
I did not expect to die,
But I must go in grief and woe,
On Newgate’s tree so high;
That I should gain my liberty,
Some thousands did believe,
But, oh, alas! all hope is passed.
And I have been deceived.
Farewell, my friends, I’m doomed to leave you,
With you I can no longer stay,
Let not my departure grieve you,
I die upon the twenty-sixth of May,
On the fatal tree at Newgate,
For the affair at Clerkenwell,
Called a Fenian, Michael Barrett,
Friends and kindred, farewell!
I see the hangman now before me,
Standing on the fatal drop,
In the prime of life and vigour,
Hard is Michael Barrett’s lot:
Only one of all the number,
All the rest, alas! but me,
Acquitted was, but Michael Barrett
Dies on Newgate’s fatal tree.
A last adieu, vain world, I leave you,
I am going to the silent bourne,
Lovely Erin, I grieve for you
But I never shall return;
Approaching is the Tuesday morning,
I am summonsed far away,
Erin, remember Michael Barrett,
Who died upon the twenty-sixth of May.
EXECUTION OF ALLEN, GOULD, & LARKIN,
At the New Bailey Prison, Manchester, on Saturday, November 23rd,
charged with the Wilful Murder of Sergeant Brett, at Manchester, on
September 18th, 1867.
[Illustration]
This morning, Saturday, November 23rd, the three unfortunate convicts,
Gould, Allen, and Larkin, suffered the extreme penalty of the law
at the New Bailey prison, Manchester. Since their condemnation the
culprits have behaved in a most exemplary manner, and have paid great
attention to the Rev. gentlemen who attended them. They continued to
declare their innocence to the last, and appeared to think themselves
martyrs to a grand cause, and appeared quite ready for the event. The
mob was very great, but not so large as it might have been, but for the
precautions taken by the authorities, who had erected barricades about
every thirty yards, and so prevented the great pressure that would have
been. The prisoners were astir at an early hour, and partook of the
holy communion, and at the appointed time. Calcraft, the executioner,
was introduced, when the operation of pinioning was gone through. The
prisoners the meanwhile showed wonderful confidence, and appeared to be
the least concerned. They all shook hands together and affectionately
embraced one another, and declared themselves ready. The mournful
procession was then formed, and at once proceeded towards the scaffold,
where on their appearance there was a slight manifestation of applause.
Everything having been prepared, the ropes adjusted, the signal was
given, and the unhappy men were launched into eternity. The prisoners
appeared to die very easy.
You true friends of liberty, and sons of the Emerald Isle,
Attend with an ear of sympathy to what I now relate,
And to my sad story, I’d have you to list awhile,
Its of those poor unhappy men who now have met their fate;
Its Allen, Larkin, and Gould I mean, who of treason have convicted been,
Coupled with the crime of murder, for which we all deplore,
To the scaffold were condemned we see through struggling for liberty,
Of that poor unhappy country, the poor old shamrock shore.
Now its well known that Irishmen have oft upon the battle field,
Nobly fought our battles, against old England’s foes.
And with the hearts of lions have forced her enemies to yield;
But to friends they are warm-hearted, as all the world well knows.
Its but for their rights they crave, old Ireland’s honour for to save,
That has led to this calamity, for which we all deplore,
But by treachery they were betrayed, and these poor men have the forfeit
paid,
And Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
It was at Manchester, as I now state, they sought their comrades to
liberate,
And where is the man in such a state, would not have done the same?
Those poor men they were taken, for whom many hearts are aching,
For there is no one in reason their conduct can well blame.
It was in the midst of that strife, that poor Brett he lost his life,
That has caused the sons of Ireland most deeply to deplore,
And through that sad unhappy day, there’s many a pitying heart will say,
Poor Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
These men they were convicted, and by the judge was sentenced,
And for murder and treason they were condemned to die,
And left to meet their fate to the gaze of all spectators,
Tho’ that their lives would be spared it was the country’s cry.
To God I recommend them, in his mercy to defend them,
May their souls shine in glory upon that blessed shore,
Safe within his keeping where there will be no weeping,
Now Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas! are now no more.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles, London.
The Last Moments and Confession OF WM. SHEWARD.
[Illustration]
On Tuesday, April 20, the last dread sentence of the law was carried
out in the case of Wm. Sheward convicted at the last Norwich Assizes
for the murder of his wife. The culprit died without any very painful
struggles. He showed a considerable amount ef nerve, although he
trembled a good deal at the drop, to which he had to be carried on
account of his rheumatism. In the prisoner’s confession he stated that
he killed his wife in June, 1851, and that he afterwards mutilated the
body. He placed the head in a saucepan, and put it on the fire to keep
the stench away. He then broke it up, and distributed it about Thorpe.
He then put the hands and feet in the same saucepan, in hopes they
might boil away. Carried portions of the body away in a pail and threw
them in different parts of the city. The long hair on my return from
Thorpe, he cut with a pair of scissors in small pieces and they blew
away as he walked. The blankets, where there was any blood he cut in
small pieces, and distributed them about the city, and made off with
anything that had the appearance of blood about them. The prisoner also
stated that he never saw or knew his present wife until June 21, 1852,
twelve months after the occurrence.--The confession was taken in the
presence of a magistrate, and the governor and chaplain.
I am a sad and wretched man,
Borne down in care and woe,
I am doomed to die for a murder done
Near eighteen years ago;
A dreadful deed, as you may read,
I long kept in my breast,
I’had no comfort day or night,
Until I did confess.
With the dreadful knife I slew my wife,
And her body round did throw,
Now I must die for a murder done,
Near eighteen years ago.
I her body into pieces cut,
And scattered it around,
Here and there, I scarce knew where,
I placed it on the ground.
I now must die for that foul deed,
And in a murderer’s grave lie low,
I did her kill, her blood I spilled,
Near eighteen years ago.
I boiled her head, how sad to tell,
I was mad without a doubt,
I threw it in the different parts,
I placed it round about;
Kept the secret eighteen years,
Within my guilty breast,
And till the same I did divulge,
I day nor night could rest.
For eighteen years, in grief and tears,
I passed many a dreary night,
I had not one moment’s happiness,
Since I killed my own dear wife;
At length I did confess the deed,
For which I now must die,
For a murder eighteen years ago--
The which I don’t deny.
There was letters sent from different parts,
To say my wife did live,
To save me from the gallows,
But none would they believe;
I could not from Justice flee,
I do deserve my fate,
No pen can write, or tongue can tell,
My sad and wretched fate.
My moments they do swiftly pass,
I soon shall sleep below,
I done that dreadful awful deed,
Near eighteen years ago;
I cut and mangled that poor soul,
My heart was flinty steel,
Her limbs and body strewed about,
In hedges, lanes, and fields.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High street, St. Giles, London.--W.C.
THE EXECUTION OF JOHN DEVINE,
In front of Newgate, for the Murder of JOSEPH DUCK, at Marylebone.
THE EXECUTION.
[Illustration]
On Monday morning, at Eight o’clock, John Devine suffered the extreme
penalty of the law, in front of Newgate. Not so much excitement was
created as we have noticed on similar occasions, although a very large
concourse of persons had assembled to witness the shocking spectacle.
In fact, we might say every available spot was occupied by both male
and female, all of whom were anxious to get a “good place,” to see
the wretched culprit on the drop. Precisely at the appointed time the
sheriffs, with their usual attendants, arrived at the prison, and,
after the necessary ceremonies had been observed, of demanding the body
of the prisoner to be delivered into their custody, they were conducted
to the waiting room. The executioner then commenced pinioning the arms,
which operation he quickly dispatched. During the awful preparations
the unhappy prisoner appeared to feel his sad position deeply.
At length the arrangements having been completed, the bell of the
prison commenced tolling and the chaplain read in a distinct tone
the burial service for the dead. When the bell commenced tolling,
a movement was heard from without, and the words “Hats off” and
“Silence” were distinctly heard, from which time no sound, excepting
the sighs of the unhappy prisoner, interrupted the chaplain as the
procession moved along the subterranean passage. The prisoner, on
arriving at the scaffold, hastily glanced around at the immense
concourse of persons assembled. After which he was placed in the proper
position for Calcraft to adjust the ropes. The executioner having
drawn the cap over his face retired from the scaffold, and the signal
having been given the bolt was withdrawn, and the unhappy criminal was
launched into eternity.
CONFESSION OF THE CULPRIT.
On Thursday the unhappy criminal was visited by the worthy chaplain,
to whom he made a confession, and fully admitted the justice of his
sentence.
COPY OF VERSES.
Young Devine was a graceless youth,
And bold in every sin,
In early years with petty thefts,
His life he did begin.
But God whose vengeance never sleeps,
Though he delays the blow,
Can in a single moment lay
The prosperous villain low.
One night was in the King’s Head,
Joseph Duck he did meet,
Whom he then robbed of all he had,
And cruelly did him beat.
Suspicion fell on young Devine,
So well they knew his face,
Imprisoned, tried, condemned to die,
So he now has run his race.
Of gambling and theft pray beware,
Let me beseech you in time,
Lest you like me should be cut off,
Whilst you are in your prime.
It was these that caused me to run,
From virtuous paths astray,
Deaf to advice and every good,
I sought destruction’s way.
The 10th day of March last,
I went to the King’s Head,
And there I met an aged man,
Joseph Duck he was named.
I cruelly did him use,
And on the ground him cast,
He cried for help, but no one came,
So now he has breathed his last.
Those deeds I mournfully repent,
But now it is too late,
The day is past, the die is cast,
And fixed is my fate.
Young men be taught by this dreadful fate,
Avoid the paths I have trod,
And teach yourselves in early years,
To love and fear your God.
LIFE, TRIAL, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF MARTIN BROWN, FOR THE
DIABOLICAL MURDER ON NEWMARKET HILL NEAR, LEWES.
The facts of this deliberate and cruel murder must be fresh in the
minds of all persons. The deceased was a labourer (in the employ of
Mr Hodson, farmer, at Kingston, near Lewes), and lived in a cottage
on Newmarket Hill, about a mile and a half from the village. Martin
Brown worked for the same employer, and lodged with the deceased and
his family, and left about six weeks before the murder, but continued
in the same service, lodging with the farm bailiff, named Wickham.
The deceased was paid fortnightly, and on the 9th of October he left
home for Kingston, to receive the wages of himself and two sons,
boys; and he was paid £2 11s. He was also paid 24s. by another son at
Kingston, and he had 5s. 3d. in his tobacco-box when he left home, at
half-past six o’clock in the evening. He never returned; and early
the next morning he was found dead on the hill, about a quarter of a
mile from his home. His pockets were then empty. It was discovered
that he had been shot through the back--three small bullets were
taken from the body--and that he had been severely beaten about the
head with some heavy instrument, but after death had taken place. The
trigger of a gun and a small piece of gun-stock were found close to
the body, and in a copse not far from the spot there was subsequently
found a broken gun-stock, to which the pieces found close to the body
accurately fitted. This gun-stock belonged to a gun which the prisoner
had purchased three weeks before the murder; and which he took out
on the night of the murder, stating that he was going to take it to
his brother at Brighton, and should not be back till the next day.
He returned, however, the same evening, and in less time than it was
possible for him to go to Brighton and get back again; and on the
following evening,--the murder was freely talked of, and prisoner was
even suspected,--he absconded.
He was apprehended by Mr Superintendent Crowhurst, at Maidstone, where
he had enlisted under the name of Reuben Harvey.
He was tried at the Sussex Winter Assizes, found guilty, and sentenced
to death.
THE EXECUTION.
The execution took place this morning, at eight o’clock, It was
the first execution at Lewes since the passing of the recent act
of Parliament; which is carried out in private, within the prison
walls. Shortly before eight o’clock, the black flag was hoisted, and
the prison-bell began to toll. All the arrangements being completed,
Calcraft began the process of pinioning the condemned man, who appeared
to be quite calm. At eight o’clock, the mournful and melancholy
procession began to move towards the gallows; the culprit walked
slowly, but firm, and having arrived at the foot of the gallows, he
mounted the steps on to the top of the platform, and placed himself on
the trap-door, under the fatal beam; Calcraft then put over his head
the cap, and placing the rope round his neck, he then shook hands with
him, and instantly the bolt was withdrawn, and the unhappy man was
launched into eternity. After a few short struggles, life was extinct.
After hanging an hour, the body was cut down, and buried within the
precincts of the prison.
COPY OF VERSES ON THE CONFESSION OF MARTIN BROWN.
I am a wild and wicked youth,
And my name is Martin Brown,
I was brought up by honest parents,
I once did dwell in Brighton town;
And for a horrid and cruel murder,
I am condemned, as you may see,
It’s for the murder of poor old Baldey,
I shall be hanged upon a tree.
Poor and honest David Baldey,
In a lonely spot his cottage stands,
For many years did happy dwell there,
Has fallen by a murderous hand:
Poor Baldey, he was much respected,
In Kingston and for miles around,
They little thought on Hodson’s farm,
Of such a villain as Martin Brown.
’Twas a fatal day I did waylay,
Poor Old Baldey on Newmarket Hill,
I with my gun did shoot him through,
His harmless blood I did there spill.
And then his pockets soon I rifled,
And took from him all his gold,
I left him dead where he was found,
A sight most shocking to behold.
My victim then, I from him fled,
But the eye of God did on me frown,
Oh, what a wretch I must have been,
To strike the poor old shepherd down;
I for a soldier soon enlisted,
When I arrived in Maidstone town,
But justice soon did overtake me,
In Maidstone barracks I was found.
My wicked career now is run,
I’m taken, and in irons bound,
In a dismal cell in Lewes gaol
To wait my trial, young Martin Brown.
My guilt I strongly did deny,
Until my strength it did give way,
My guilty conscience, I must confess
I took poor Baldey’s life away.
’Twas at the Assizes I took my trial,
For two long days at the bar did stand.
The jury they did find me Guilty,
For murdering of this poor old man.
So sad a crime, and so revolting,
The judge did say there could not be,
The sentence is, that you be hanged,
Young Martin Brown, upon a tree.
My parents, when they heard my doom,
Their eyes with tears did fall like rain,
When death was passed on Martin Brown,
It filled their hearts with grief and pain.
In my dismal cell I am now lamenting,
Strange visions they do appear to me,
My troubled mind, both night and day,
My victim’s blood I often see.
Now to this world I bid adieu,
For on the gallows I must die,
To meet my God I must prepare,
My sentence just I can’t deny;
And when my history you do read,
It will make your very blood to chill,
And for ages will not be forgotten,
The Murder on Newmarket Hill.
C. Phillips, cheap and expeditioius Printing Office, Market Street,
Brighton.
EXECUTION OF ALEXANDER MACKAY
For the Wilful Murder of Mrs. Grossmith.
[Illustration]
This morning the unfortunate convict, Alexander Mackay, suffered
the extreme penalty of the law at Newgate, for the murder of Mrs.
Grossmith, at Norton Folgate.
This is the second execution that has been carried out in private,
under the provisions of the recent statute, and it, of course,
necessitated the making of a great many alterations with regard to
the details. It was at first proposed that the scaffold should be
erected in one of the yards adjoining the scaffold, upon the level;
but, although the original plan was adhered to, it was decided that the
scaffold should not be on a level, and the culprit, as was the case
before, had to reach the drop by ascending a ladder.
It is due to the prisoner to state that he seems to have conducted
himself very well since his condemnation, and as far as outward
appearance can be relied upon, he seems to have felt severe remorse for
his crime. He was visited last week by his father, his brother-in-law,
and two sisters, and these interviews, as may be readily imagined, were
of a most painful character.
The sheriffs of the prison having arrived, immediately proceeded to the
condemned cell. The executioner was shortly afterwards introduced to
the prisoner, who immediately commenced pinioning him. During this very
trying operation, the wretched criminal only once he exclaimed, “May
the Lord have mercy on my soul!” Everything having been completed,
the prisoner thanked the chaplain and officers of the prison for their
kindness towards him. The procession was formed, and slowly took its
way towards the scaffold, which the prisoner ascended with a firm
step; the rope was then speedily adjusted, the bolt was drawn, and the
wretched man after a few struggles ceased to exist.
The bell of St. Sepulchre tolled as the prisoner left his cell; and
immediately on the drop falling a black flag was raised, announcing
that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried into effect.
COPY OF VERSES.
My dying moments are approaching,
Inside of Newgate’s gaol I die,
Nothing now, alas! can save me,
I see the hangman standing by;
A dreadful murder I committed,
Upon the fatal eighth of May;
At No. 11, Artillery Passage,
My own kind mistress I did slay.
Barbarously I did her murder,
I cruelly her blood did spill,
With a rolling pin and bar of iron,
I did Mrs. Grossmith kill.
Farewell my parents, friends and kindred,
Adieu! a last and fond adieu!
Your unhappy son, that deed has done,
Don’t let it bring disgrace on you;
The day I killed my dearest mistress,
Sudden, in anger, spleen, and rage,
Upon the floor, I shed her gore,
I die now eighteen years of age.
My master was away on business,
My mistress offended me,
I seized the rollig pin and iron,
Killed Mrs. Grossmith, then did flee,
I knew, alas! that I was undone,
I knew not where to hide my face,
I went away some miles from London,
Covered with shame and great disgrace.
Justice closely did pursue me,
In agony I did bewail,
In Woolwich I was apprehended.
And sent from thence to Maidstone Gaol;
Although I was an unknown murderer,
I did not feel the least surprised,
When by a photograph description,
I in the gaol was recognised.
Then, oh dear, sad was my feelings,
What pain and anguish filled my breast,
I found that Justice overtook me,
And I did the deed confess;
The dreadful sufferings I endured,
I sufficient cannot unto you state,
From Maidstone Gaol I was conveyed,
To a prison cell in Newgate.
I was tried for the dreadful murder,
The Jury they convicted me,
The Judge he passed the dreadful sentence,
Which was to die on the gallows tree;
I left the Bar in grief and sorrow,
Went to my cell for to deplore,
Inside the Gaol I die to-morrow,
Where no one ever died before.
My dying moments are approaching,
The authorities me do surround,
The hangman by me is preparing,
My limbs by him will soon be bound;
No one but those inside a prison,
A poor unhappy youth can see,
Young and old pray take a warning,
And while you live remember me.
Printed by Talyor, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London.
SHOCKING MURDER OF A WIFE AND SIX CHILDREN.
On Monday morning last, a terrible tragedy took place in Hosier-lane,
City, in which a man named Duggin, his wife, and six children were
found poisoned. On Saturday evening Duggin returned from his work,
and he then looked rather sad, and his wife told a female neighbour
that her husband had been dismissed his employment, and they had also
received notice to leave their lodgings at 12 o’clock on Monday. On
Sunday evening Duggin took his wife and children out for a walk, and
on his return went to the Wheatsheaf-tavern, Hosier-lane, and asked
the landlord for a quart of ale. He then left, and was not seen again
until half-past 4. o’clock on Monday morning, when a man saw him drop a
letter in the Hospital pillar letter-box, and then walked towards his
home. Two hours afterwards the police received a letter signed James
Duggin, stating that he had murdered seven persons, and that he was
about to destroy his own life. In it he said the police would be able
to obtain further particulars of his brother at Sheffield. Constables
were immediately despatched to 15, Hosier-lane, where they found the
writer of the letter lying dead upon a bed in a room by himself. In
another room they found lying on a bed, a boy aged 4, and a girl aged
3, lying upon the arms of the dead body of the mother. At the foot of
the bed was the dead body of a girl aged 12, and on another bed lay the
dead body of another child.
Attend you feeling parents dear,
While I relate a sad affair;
Which has fill’d all around with grief and pain
It did occur in Hosier Lane.
On Monday, June the 28th,
These crimes was done as I now state,
How horrible it is to tell,
Eight human persons by poison fell.
In London city it does appear,
Walter James Duggin lived we hear,
And seemed to live most happily,
With his dear wife and family.
They happy lived, until of late,
He appear’d in a sad desponding state,
At something he seem’d much annoy’d
At his master’s, where he is employed.
He was discharged, and that we find,
It preyed upon his anxious mind,
Lest they should want, that fatal day,
His wife and children he did slay.
Last Sunday evening, as we hear,
To the Wheatsheaf he did repair,
Then homewards went, as we may read,
For to commit this horrid deed.
To the police he did a letter send,
That he was about this life to end,
And that he had poisoned, he did declare
His wife, and his six children dear.
To Hosier Lane in haste they flew,
And found it was alas, too true,
They found him stretched upon the bed,
His troubles o’er--was cold and dead.
They searched the premises around,
And they the deadly poison found;
And the shocking sight, as you may hear,
Caused in many an eye a tear.
They found upon another bed,
The ill-fated mother, she was dead,
While two pretty children we are told,
In her outstretched arms she did enfold,
It is supposed this wretched pair,
First poisoned their six children dear,
Then took the fatal draught themselves,
Their state of mind no tongue can tell.
Of such an heartrending affair,
I trust we never more may hear,
Such deeds they make the blood run cold,
May God forgive their sinful souls.
This wholesale poisoning has caused much pain
It did take place in Hosier Lane.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St. Giles.
EXECUTION F. HINSON,
Who suffered the extreme penalty of the law, at the Old Bailey, this
morning, Monday, December, 13th, 1869, for the Wilful Murder of Maria
Death.
[Illustration]
This morning Frederick Hinson suffered the extreme penalty of the law
at the Old Bailey, for the murder of Maria Death.
The prisoner previous to his trial behaved in a most sullen manner,
scarcely heeding anything that was said to him. It is satisfactory
to state that since his condemnation the conduct of the unhappy man
underwent a total change for the better, and he began to realize the
awful condition in which he was placed, and his callous demeanour was
changed into one of deep dejection. The prisoner has been assiduously
attended by the chaplain of the prison, and to such a state of
religious feeling had he been brought, that he fully acknowledged
the justice of his sentence. He has frequently alluded to his great
affection for the unfortunate woman, and his regret at having sent
her before her maker totally unprepared. Since his condemnation, the
prisoner has been visited by his children, and also his father, the
final parting from whom was of the most affecting character, and will
not be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
The sheriffs arrived at an early hour, and immediately proceeded to
the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner earnestly engaged in
his religious duties with the chaplain of the prison. The time had now
arrived for the prisoner to be pinioned, the operation of which was
quickly performed, and the wretched man having thanked the chaplain,
the governor, and other officials for their kindness towards him,
the procession was then formed, and slowly took its way to the scene
of execution. The cap and rope having been adjusted, the bolt was
drawn, and the wretched man ceased to exist. Simultaneously with the
drop falling, a black flag was hoisted at one corner of the prison,
announcing that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried
into effect.
Young men and maidens pay attention,
You married and you single all,
List to my sad lamentation,
And pity, pity my downfall;
For those double Wood Green murders,
I alas am doom’d to die,
How can I meet my heavenly father,
Or dare to him for mercy cry.
So all young men I pray take warning,
Your passions curb, ’ere ’tis too late,
My dying prayer do not be scorning,
Think of Frederick Hinson’s wretched fate.
At Wood Green I was respected,
With all around in peace did dwell,
Now broken-hearted and dejected,
I pine within a gloomy cell.
With Maria Death I lived contented,
’Till Boyd he caused her for to stray,
And by the tales that he invented,
He affection stole from me away.
When I found she was false-hearted,
Jealousy fill’d my mind, ’tis true,
I grieved from her for to be parted,
For I loved her, and our offspring too;
Poor darling orphans, let none upbraid them,
When my soul is gone, I know not where,
That God above from harm may save them.
Shall be my last, my earnest prayer.
When at the station on her did gaze there,
In company with that treacherous man,
One kindly word from her would saved her
And stay’d alas my murderous hand;
But she braved my anger, and in madness,
Recall the dead I never can,
I saw her fall, and gazed in sadness,
A guilty and heartbroken man.
Now for my crimes I was convicted,
And the dreadful sentence on me pass’d,
Condemn’d by some, by many pity’d,
And in a dreary cell was cast;
The Judge said on passing sentence,
Frederick Hinson you must prepare,
Ask God to grant you true repentance,
And bend to him in heartfelt prayer.
My days are spent in lamentation,
My sleepless nights were spent in prayer,
My mind was filled with agitation,
For Maria’s shade was always there.
But I trust her soul is now in heaven,
But a little time she’s gone before,
This sinful world I must be leaving,
And so my sad end will deplore.
A last farewell, I must be going,
To meet with my offended God,
My state of mind there is no knowing,
My soul’s bow’d down with deeds of blood.
Now once again I pray take warning;
For me the fatal bell does toll,
My dying prayer do not be scorning,
May the Lord have mercy on my soul.
H. Disley, Printer, 57, High-street, St. Giles.
Execution of J. Rutterford, At Bury St. Edmunds, for the MURDER of J.
HIGHT.
[Illustration]
This morning, at the county prison, Bury St. Edmunds, James Rutterford
underwent the last dread sentence of the law, for the wilful and
deliberate murder of John Hight, a gamekeeper, in the employ of
Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, at Eriswell, Suffolk, on the 31st of December
last. The prisoner, since his condemnation, has displayed a perfect
indifference as to his awful situation, and when spoken to about the
murder, always tried to avoid it. He has been constantly attended by
the worthy chaplain, and has paid particular attention to what he
said, but in a quiet surly mood. The prisoner was visited last week by
a government inspector, for the purpose of examining the neck of the
prisoner, the gaol surgeon having reported that he had a malformation,
which might cause an unusual degree of suffering on death being
inflicted by strangulation. The inspector came to the conclusion that
there was nothing in the neck of the convict to prevent his being
hanged in the usual manner.
The sheriffs arrived at an early hour, and immediately proceeded to
the condemned cell, where they found the prisoner earnestly engaged
in his religious duties, with the worthy chaplain of the prison. The
time had now arrived for the prisoner to be pinioned, the operation of
which was quickly performed, and the wretched man thanked the parson,
the governor, and other officials for their kindness towards him.
The procession was formed, and slowly took its way to the scene of
execution. The cap and rope having been adjusted, the bolt was drawn,
and the wretched man soon ceased to exist. Simultaneously with the
drop falling, a black flag was hoisted at one corner of the prison,
announcing that the last dread sentence of the law had been carried
into effect.
You Suffolk lads of each degree,
And all young men of each degree,
And when my mournful tale you hear,
For my sad end shed a silent tear.
Upon the dreadful scaffold high,
A murderer’s death I am doom’d to die.
James Rutterford it is my name,
I now must end my life in shame;
Repentance, alas! it is too late,
I must prepare to meet my fate.
My parents reared me tenderly,
And good advice they gave to me;
If to my dear mother I did attend,
I should not have met a murderer’s end.
On the 31st of December last,
Oh would I could recall the past,
With Heffer I went in search of game,
Which led to that deed I dread to name.
When poor John Hight, on that fatal day,
To the plantation came that way,
I owed him no spite, I tell you true,
It was but his duty he did do.
I know you Rutter, poor John Hight said,
Those words filled my mind with dread,
To secure my safety, I did him kill,
And his precious blood on the ground did spill.
As Heffer says, I then struck him down,
And covered him with deadly wounds,
I stopp’d his mouth I do declare,
For his dying groans I could not bear.
And then I dragg’d him in his gore,
His mangled body then covered o’er,
As my mate said, it was a sickening sight
But the eye of God brought my crime to light.
Of that deed alone I am to blame,
Heffer is innocent, I declare the same,
With my dying breath, I do him forgive,
And trust he a better life may live.
Since I have taken poor Hight’s life,
I cannot rest by day or night,
His form is ever before my eyes,
And for vengeance on his murderer cries.
That my sentence it is just, I own,
Farewell to friends, farewell to home,
How can I meet my offended God,
With my soul bow’d down with guilt and blood.
[Illustration] “This man was to have been hung, but they let him
off because they thought it would hurt him, good Christians.”--MSS.
NOTE _attached to our copy of the above by the intended Printer and
Publisher_.
THE HEROES OF THE GUILLOTINE AND GALLOWS,
OR, THE AWFUL ADVENTURES OF Askern, Smith and Calcraft, the Three Rival
Hangmen Of York Castle, Stafford Gaol and Newgate;
[Illustration]
And SANSON, the Executioner of Paris, _With his Cabinet of Murderer’s
Curiosities_.
FULL OF ASTONISHING DISCLOSURES
Concerning their Private and Public Lives, and Startling Incidents
before and after the performance of their dreadful office.
LONDON:--FREDERICK FARRAH, 282, STRAND, W.C. And all Booksellers.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
THE HEROES OF THE GALLOWS AND GUILLOTINE.
“One murder makes a villain, a million a hero.”
The above words of our illustrious bard may well be re-applied to
the professional manipulators of the gallows and the guillotine, in
England and France. In both countries, said to be the head of European
civilization, the executioner seems to be a beloved and venerated
object, and regarded as a hero worthy of the support of majesty and
power, while smaller and less pretending kingdoms around are, one by
one, abolishing his hideous and useless office.
It is a most striking and instructive anomaly, and worthy of the
statesman, the philanthropist, the Christian, and all who wish for
the moral progress of society, to consider and seriously examine the
seeds of evil it is sowing broadcast among the human family. France is
a huge nation of contradictions, never to be thoroughly understood, and
England is now, in a threefold sense, her sister! Every since their
first sanguinary revolution some classes of the French people have
_fondly hugged_ the guillotine as a national toy of great worth, and
petted three generations of SANSONS as their most excellent scientific
headsmen; they have also at every execution followed the criminal
sitting in a cart, bound and bare-necked, on his coffin, beside his
confessor, and gloated with open mouths and staring eyeballs upon the
descending blade and the head rolling into the basket of sawdust; and
have dipped their handkerchiefs in the bloodsplashes that appeared to
fall beyond the bounds of the gibbet. Other classes, of which judges
and juries are made, have tried murderers of the most demoniac nature,
and to the amazement of the whole woard, by the fiction of “extenuating
circumstances” appended to their verdicts, have saved them from capital
punishment and consigned them to the galleys; in violation of their own
consciences and oaths and the law, which sustains the guillotine as an
engine of terror and example!
In our own country within the last few months we have witnessed the
passing of a law abolishing public executions, on account of the
demoralization that always attended their exhibition in the public
highway, and which was complained of for many years by the virtuous and
good of every class, who could discern the evils they generated and
their inefficiency for either terror or example!
But oh! most singular inconsistency, with the passing of that law, and
the substitution of private strangling within the prison-yard, the
last tatters of the old worn-out argument in favour of executions as a
terror to evil-doers and an example to embryo-offenders, are completely
torn away, and yet England at this time nurses three rival hangmen in
her official lap for performing her secret hanging business! The three
worthies are ASKERN, of York Castle, SMITH, of Stafford-gaol, and
CALCRAFT, of Newgate, in London. Three heroes of the gallows--three
professional stranglers--yes, “three servants of the law,” England can
now boast of, against France’s single hero of the guillotine to hang up
their fellow sinners for a terror and an example! Let us now enquire of
the advocates of death punishments how secret executions can terrify or
afford an example in the eyes of those they are intended to influence,
when they are permitted no longer to witness them?
It needs not a waste of words to prove clearly, that what was
before a barbarous and demoralising exhibition, and an inefficient
preventative of crime, is now a useless operation and a ghastly tragedy
for sickening and torturing all those whom the law compels or the
authorities permit to be personal spectators. As the daily and weekly
papers published since Calcraft’s and Smith’s joint essays with the
first private strangling machine at Maidstone, have proved, murders
and other sanguinary offences tending to the same end, do not in the
least decrease; but on contrary, the graphic accounts of the first
private execution, and the form and action of the new method that were
afterwards given in every morning and evening journal, served only
to _entertain_ and amuse the lovers of horrors, and were followed
by a repetition of capital crimes in several places, as if no such
punishment awaited the perpetrators of them. And so will it be after
the second trial of the new system, on the boy MACKAY, at Newgate, for
the Norton Forgate murder, until society to its lowest depths is more
moralised and humanised; and a more exacting retribution is enforced
against the hardened classes, whom no law of capital punishment will
now terrify into submission.
As the Star’s special reporter’s description is worth preserving in
its entirety, both for what it says, and for _what it does not say_.
in favour of our argument, _at its conclusion_, we shall transcribe it
into this part of our book:
The first execution within the prison walls, and in presence
only of a limited number of spectators, in accordanoe with the
new Act of Parliament for the better regulation of capital
punishment, took place on Tuesday morning, August 13th, at
Maidstone Gaol. The culprit who suffered sentence was Thomas
Wells, late a porter in the employ of the London, Chatham,
and Dover Railway Company, who was left for death after the
last assizes for the murder of Mr. Walsh, the station-master
at Dover. In the course of his duties Mr. Walsh had occasion
to find fault with Wells, who took reproof in very ill part,
and revenged himself on the first available opportunity on
the unfortunate station-master by shooting him dead as he sat
alone at his work in his office. The alarm was raised, and
Wells was found hiding close at hand. The proofs of his crime
were so positive that he scarcely attempted to deny it, and
on his trial he was at once found guilty and condemned to
death. The reports which from time to time have appeared in
the public prints since his condemnation have described the
young man--he was little more than eighteen years of age--as
sincerely penitent, and these reports are borne out by the
prison officers, who seemed to have been much impressed by his
quiet and decorous conduct.
The curious in such matters will note as an odd coincidence the
fact that Maidstone--a town so notorious for its anti-capital
punishment feeling, that lawyers will tell you it is most
difficult to get a jury to return an adverse verdict against
a prisoner on trial for his life--should have been the first
place in which the arrangements of the death sentence under
the new law should have been carried out. Whether in pursuance
of this feeling the inhabitants wilfully ignored the tragedy
which was about to be enacted in the immediate outskirts of
their town, or whether they were indifferent to it, or whether
the exact period of the execution has been hidden from them,
it is impossible to say; but it is certain that, amongst
the people freely scattered about the broad and handsome
streets on Wednesday evening, there was not the slightest
indication that anything unusual was to take place among them
the following day. A travelling menagerie, which had pitched
its tent close by the borders of the canal, was thronged with
delighted gazers, among whom the private-soldier element was
strongly represented. The local volunteers, headed by their
band, were attended in their march by many of the youthful
population, and a still larger gathering followed the band of
the militia regiment, and grouped round them as they played
in front of their headquarters, the Mitre Hotel. But in none
of the crowds, composed as they were of townspeople--old and
young, male and female--did one hear the best allusion, either
in earnestness or ribaldry, to the criminal who was spending
his last hours within a few hundred yards of the place where
this gaity was beingcarried on, and to whose ears, deafen them
how he might, abstract his senses how he would, the clangour
of the drums must have been painfully audible. Nor was there
any remarkable difference yesterday morning. It had been
expected that a large majority of the shops would remain closed
until after the execution, which was fixed to take place at
half-past ten, but the shutters were taken down at the usual
hour, men proceeded to their usual avocations, and there was
not the smallest sign--not even that most ordinary sign of
men and women conversing in knots and groups--of anything
unusual being about to happen, until one reached the immediate
neighbourhood of the gaol, and there, on the far side of
the broad road running round by the court-house, was a thin
fringe of humanity, some fifty persons in all, in one long
line, looking towards the great gate of the gaol, and talking
among themselves. Emphatically a “bad lot” this, tramps out on
hopping excursions, beggars, a female gipsy or two--men and
women, too, the lowest scum of the population, and a dozen
eager-eyed, wolfish, cunning-looking blackguard boys. They gape
and stare, though there is nothing for them to look at as yet;
the gaol-gate is closed, and there is no one in the immediate
neighbourhood, so they take stock of the flagstaff, on which,
in accordance with official injunctions, the “black flag” is to
be run up at the moment of the execution, and find matter for
comment in the exit from the gaol of certain stonemasons who
have been at work inside the prison walls.
At half-past nine exactly a four-wheeled cab drives rapidly
up the street, and pulls up at the door of the New Inn,
immediately opposite the Court house. The cab door and the inn
door open simultaneously; from the former descends a man, who
inters the inn, the door of which is again immediately closed
upon him, while the cab drives off. In two minutes this man
emerges from the inn and makes for the gaol. He is an elderly
man, with white hair and white beard, broad and thick-set,
and dressed in black, with a peculiar tall hat, and carries a
small carpet bag in his hand. This is Calcraft, the hangman. As
it were intuitively the little crowd becomes aware of this, a
whisper runs round among it that the bag contains his “tackle”
of pinioning straps, &c., and the blackguard boys, excited
beyond bearing, spring to their feet and start in pursuit. The
man, taking no notice and looking doggedly before him, crosses
the road, and getting close to the gaol railings, half slinks,
half shambles along till he reaches the gate which opens at his
approach and closes behind him. Five minutes afterwards another
man issues from the inn and makes for the gaol--a tall, thin,
wiry man, with a keen eye, with his cheeks and part of his
forehead closely shaved, dressed in a velveteen shooting coat,
loose trousers, and billycock hat, and looking like an acrobat
who had donned his private clothes over his professional
costume. The little crowd does not know this man, though he is
almost as notorious as the other. He is Smith, of Dudley, the
hangman of the Birmingham district, who hanged Palmer, and who
occasionally assists Calcraft on great occasions.
At ten o’clock the representatives of the press, who have
been provided by the authorities with proper credentials,
are admitted into the prison, and are first ushered into the
round-house, a building in the debtors’ division, where the
turnkeys on duty pass the night. It is fitted with a desk and
benches, is glazed on all sides, and overlooks the front court
and several of the exercise yards. Several of the warders are
here, and from them one learns that the prisoner passed a
quiet night, sleeping from half-past ten till half-past four,
but that the extraordinary equanimity which he had hitherto
displayed is failing him now, and that he is beginning to
“break down.” This conversation is carried on in a low whisper;
the silence of the place is singularly oppressive; and this,
combined with the knowledge of what one is about immediately to
witness, renders this period one of the most painful suspense.
There are five hundred prisoners within the gaol, but one might
as well be in the City of the Dead for all one hears of them,
the only sound, the jingling of the warders’ keys, grating on
the ear. A little excitement is caused by the hurried entrance
of a warder from the direction in which the prisoner is known
to be, and his equally hurried disappearance bearing some
brandy in a tumbler, but the silence sets in afresh, and one is
reduced to watching two little knots in the fore court. One of
these consists of the under-sheriff (who is deeply affected),
the medical officer, and a _nonchalant_ person in a wideawake
hat, who is said to be the governor, but who takes no part
in the proceedings, and who is poking up the ground with his
walking-stick in a very _degagé_ manner. The other knot is
formed of Calcraft, his assistant, and two of the warders who
are chatting together. At twenty-five minutes past ten the
party--consisting of four reporters of the London journals, six
from various local papers, a carpenter who is in attendance
lest his service should be required in connection with the
arrangements of the drop, and a warder in plain clothes who has
been sitting up all night with the prisoner--is summoned from
the round-house and ushered into a narrow vaulted ante-room,
whence, after five minutes’ delay, they are led through a
narrow passage into the presence of the gallows.
There it stands, erected under a shed at the further end of
a small yard some thirty feet square, the old square gallows
formed of two uprights and one crosebeam, and whose form has
been familiar to us from woodcuts and description for years,
only in this instance it is painted buff instead of the
ordinary dead black. The uprights across have iron supports
fixed into the wall, and in the crossbeam there is a hook,
immediate under which stands Thomas Wells, with the rope round
his neck. There is no built scaffold; the drop on which the
prisoner stands is flush with the ground, and the public (if
the little representative party can be so called) is placed
behind a barrier breast-high, yet so close to the prisoner that
they can see every movement of his face, and hear every word
he utters. He looks a mere youth, short, yet strongly built.
He is dressed in his railway porter’s uniform of velveteen,
with the company’s initials in red on the collar, and in his
waistcoat, just above his pinioned hand, wears a small flower.
He evidently knows little of anything of what is going on
around him. He is absorbed in prayer--his face, of a livid
hue, is upturned, and his eyes are looking upwards. Standing
by him, the chaplain, the Rev. W. C. F. Sugden Frazer, reads,
in a voice broken with emotion, the burial service. Suddenly
the prisoner begins, in a low, thick, trembling voice, to
sing a hymn--one, as we afterwards learn, which he has been
recently repeating in his cell--and continues to sing it after
Calcraft has pulled the cap over his face, and the chaplain
has shaken hands with him--is singing it when, at a signal
from his superior, Smith pulls the bolt, and then, with a
sickening rattle, the drop falls, Calcraft standing behind,
and, as it were, guiding the falling figure. In our belief,
life was not wholly extinct for three or four minutes after the
falling of the drop. It is usual on these occasions to speak
of the movements of the limbs as being “merely muscular,” in
this instance there was scarcely any muscular contortion, but
there were undoubtedly deep respirations and other undeniable
evidence that asphyxia did not immediately happen.
Such is the history of the first private execution in England.
Anticipated with just horror by those who were compelled to be
present, it was carried out with every decency and all decorum,
in a manner calculated to give the least pain to those whose
duty it was to witness it. The presence of the representatives
of the press at a private execution is a guarantee to the
public, whose delegates they are, that the sentence of the law
which has been passed upon a certain criminal is duly carried
out. But there is no occasion to inflict upon them, as was the
case at Newgate, the horror of witnessing the pinioning, the
procession, and all the awful details of the scaffold. These,
thanks to the visiting justices and to the under-sheriff of
Kent, Mr. Furley, of Ashford, were spared at Maidstone, and
will, it is to be hoped, be spared in future. Meanwhile, so
far as this one instance affords means of judging, IS THE
EXECUTION UNDER THE NEW LAW MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN UNDER THE
OLD? We answer, decidedly, in the affirmative. The applause
or censure of the mob, the desire to “die game” before his
friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst influence on the
prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard, with its
handful of spectators, _must have been_ IMPRESSIVE _in the most
awful degree_, while a peaceful provincial town is left to its
usual avocations, entirely free from the influx of pestilent
blackguardism, drunkenness, and obscenity which always attended
a public hanging.
For the moral purpose of our theme, there are but _three items_ worth
noticing in the above account; they are 1st.--The _black flag_,
hoisted as a terror and example to the “bad lot” of “tramps out on
hopping excursion, beggars, a female gipsy or two, men and women,
the lowest scum of the population, and a dozen eager-eyed, wolfish,
cunning-looking boys!” 2nd.--The officials and representatives of the
press who “_anticipated with just_ HORROR” the coming scene at which
they “_were compelled to be present_, and then when it is enacted as
the primary NATIONAL PLAY for the time being, _staring_ at the prisoner
in his “railway porter’s uniform of velveteen,” roped to the fatal
beam, with a faded flower “in his waistcoat, just above his pinioned
hands,” absorbed in prayer--his face of a livid hue, upturned, and his
eyes looking upwards; at the same time singing a hymn “in a low, thick,
trembling voice,” “after Calcraft has pulled the cap over his face,”
and the Chaplain, who had been reading “in a voice broken with emotion,
the burial service,” “has shaken hands with him;” and then _listening_
to the “SICKENING RATTLE” in the criminal’s throat, mixed with the
whirring sound of the collapsing machinery, as “Smith pulls the bolt,”
and “the drop falls,” while “Calcraft is standing behind, and, as it
were, guiding the falling figure” into the newly-dug pit below; and
3rd--the summing-up question and answer of the reporter, after making
one of a group at this disgusting performance. “Is the execution under
the new law more _impressive_ than under the old?” “We answer decidedly
in the affirmative. The applause or censure of the mob, the desire
to ‘die game’ before his friends, had, it is acknowledged, the worst
influence on the prisoner, and the solemn stillness of the little yard,
with its handful of spectators, _must have been impressive_ in the most
awful degree.”
Impressive upon whom let us here ask? Not upon the “bad lot”
contemplating the black flag! The very class who needed some wholesome
impression of fear, and who never realised it at public hangings,
were shut out and left to indulge their idle fancies and curious
promptings--a kind of pleasure to them! If it were impressive upon the
“gentlemen of England,” and the representatives of the press, while
looking upon a drama so horrible, we should imagine that it was in a
sense different from that for which capital punishments were enacted;
unless we were to believe that, notwithstanding their high refinement,
they were susceptible of murderous emotions.
Then there remains only what the conclusion of the report seems to
point at, that it was impressive upon the dying criminal, thus leaving
only one poor miserable pretence for sustaining the existence of the
gallows as a moral preventative, and a wholesome example. Of what use
to society is the transitory impression of an agonised wretch about to
die unobserved by the world? None whatever, and therefore the advocates
of death punishments must soon give way to those of our opinion, that
the gallows is an effete institution, unfit for its purpose; and
that solitary confinement and hard labour for life would not only
be a greater and more deterring punishment, but a security against
prematurely hurrying into eternity, as in days of old, _innocent_
persons, wrongly convicted through some vile perjury of the wicked,
mistaken identity, or imperfectly unravelled circumstances.
Amongst the earliest converts, we expect soon to number the reporter
of the above quoted narrative, and most of his literary brethren. For
promoting the cause of abolition, we have issued this pamphlet, and
although we notice the awful adventures of the heroes of the gallows
and guillotine in our progress, we have no wish to pander to the taste
of the illiterate and depraved, but to point a moral that shall leave a
trace of some good impression behind.
As we have placed ASKERN foremost in our list of modern living British
hangmen, the most unknown and least experienced, we shall first give a
short biographical notice of his life and professional career.
Except in the performance of their dreadful office, and the
associations it brings them into, before and after every execution,
there is nothing in their private antecedents and habits above the
common run of men of their class. No extraordinary genius has ever been
manifested by either of our gallows-heroes, beyond the horrible calling
which fate has marked out for them. But under the irresistable spell
of an evil destiny, they are compelled by fate to perform deeds which
all other men shudder at, although they know their legal necessity; and
in their endeavours to become proficient in their strangling art, so
as to earn the praise of their official superiors, and the admiration
of the multitude, they stand out from the rest of society with more
than ordinary prominence, and in that respect are regarded as the chief
of remarkable public characters. From the most reliable information
current amongst the old friends and associates of Askern about York
and adjacent districts, also from officials of the castle, which is
now used as a gaol, a career of abject poverty, want of employment,
ill-luck in almost every one of his undertakings, and a too-fast life
whenever his chequered destiny placed money, in small sums at a time,
within his power, led him into _temptation_, and from that temptation
came the _commission_ of a deed which consigned him a prisoner to York
Castle, from the sombre scenes of which he never emerged, except as a
convict, whom evil fate had long marked for her own! In charity, we
throw a veil over his particular offence, as our object is only to here
show cause and effect, and warn the yet pure and innocent from evil
courses.
It was while a convicted prisoner and when an execution was pending
without any hangman to do the “job,” after an unsuccessful application
to Calcraft of London, who was then fully engaged, that an offer of
pardon was made to him on condition that he performed the office on the
doomed man.
Moved by the love of liberty, which like life is said to be sweet to
everyone, and promises of remuneration and perquisites, Askern accepted
without much hesitation the office of public executioner, and to
qualify himself in his new and ominous business, he diligently employed
his time (as all others in the same line have done before him) in tying
and knotting several lengths of rope after the hangman’s fashion, and
testing their tightening effects upon an effigy suspended to a rope
stretched across the private room where he lodged. To acquire speed and
precision in the tying of a hangman’s “noose,” also in the “turning
off and cutting down” without the least blundering and rousing the
execrations of the depraved mobs which generally assemble to view such
ghastly sights, many trials he had to make upon the suspended figure to
fit him for the work of the scaffold.
At length the fatal morning came for his first practical essay on
the neck of a human being over the top of the castle wall, and in the
presence of a vast hideous-looking concourse of people, who hissed at
the culprit when he appeared; and strange inconsistency, also hooted
the man who was employed to execute the bidding of justice on the
object of their detestation!
ASKERN, at a scene so horribie and new to him, trembled, and would have
rushed at once from the scaffold the very moment he had stepped upon
it, if he had possessed the power and freedom to do so; but alas! for
him there was no chance, his apprenticeship to the strangling trade
must be fulfilled according to the prescribed conditions previously
mentioned.
Therefore, _nerveless_ as he felt, and ready to sink into the
death-trap beneath, amongst the machinery of the drop, he had to summon
up all the courage and fortitude which draughts of intoxicating liquor
then plentifully supplied to him, could instil into his drooping frame.
At one bound he approached the pinioned wretch, roughly seized him,
placed him under the cross-beam of the gallows quickly, with blanched
features and trembling hands, hurriedly pulled the white cap down over
his livid face, placed the rope over his neck, and drew the noose most
scientifically as he thought, in the true Calcraft style, and as his
preceding lessons had taught him; but, lo, and behold! a turnkey had no
sooner hastened down and drawn the bolt that lets fall the flooring on
which the murderer stands, and sets him swinging in the air, than the
culprit’s awful convulsions and desperate struggles to clutch the rope
and free himself from the tortures he was suffering, showed the ghastly
fact, that his first attempt did not succeed, and that the yelling
multitude around and below, all horror-stricken at the sickening
spectacle, were clamoring against the unfortunate servant of the law!
Speedily he had to release the quivering half-strangled wretch, and do
his work of hanging over again, ere death terminated the writhings of
the doomed man, and at the same time quieted the unearthly cries of the
heaving and seething crowds of men and women who had come from various
distances, near and far, to behold the great NATIONAL SHOW!
Subsequent experience “got his hand in” as the saying is, and made him
more adroit at strangling, but except among a very few relatives and
old acquaintances, he was a man shunned and despised, and often liable
to insults and desperate encounters in public company, when once the
whisper went round that he was the hangman of YORK CASTLE.
Another unhappy being, fated to follow the same horrible vocation, is
SMITH, of Dudley. On the outskirts of the town there used to be seen
the old half-tumbled down cottage, surrounded by a marshy piece of
ground, where “Dudley Smith,” as he is often called, resided at the
time he took it into his head to become a second rival to London’s
famous hangman. The news of ASKERN’S exploits gave SMITH courage, but
made CALCRAFT only laugh and wonder how many more fools, ambitious of a
black notoriety, were going to compete with him. Events soon followed
to settle the question, and afford SMITH the opportunity he sought.
“Red-handed guilt, the child of woe” then made rapid progress, and cast
a gloom over many a household in Staffordshire, and throughout the
adjacent “black country.” The difference of a few guineas settled the
matter in the minds of the authorities of Stafford gaol, and struck
the balance against the pecuniary demands of the skilful CALCRAFT,
and in favour of the lesser price of the inexperienced SMITH, who,
however, supplemented the want of experience with that species of
brazen impudence and animal confidence which men of his class possess.
Mentally and physically he was of rougher mould than either of the two
former gallows heroes. Nurtured from birth among miners, the companion
of the most illiterate pottery hands, and with bull-dog tastes and
habits, he was well fitted for the office of public executioner. A man
being wanted for the coming “job,” he applied, sent in the “lowest
tender,” and was accepted. Visions by day and night now haunted his
mind; asleep or awake the gallows and all its appurtenances dwelt
strongly upon his imagination, and flitted before his eyes in his
drunken moments. Coils of rope here, there, and everywhere rose up
before him, and sometimes twined about his own neck in his midnight
dreams, like fiery serpents. Time was getting brief, and he must
prepare to perform his task neatly and expeditiously, and in dexterity
equal the renowned William Calcraft. So, accordingly, after being
shown the sort of rope he must use, he set himself to the work of
experimenting and forming slip knots round logs of wood, knobs of
furniture and fixtures, the tops of his garden rails, and sometimes
round his own neck, close under the ear, and sufficiently tight to
satisfy himself that it would answer at the proper time. He practised
also the pinioning process on his “young woman” in secret; who, not at
all enamoured at his intended profession, at first stoutly resisted,
but his importunities and determination made her submit to his strange
proceedings.
Without overburdening our confined space with an enumeration of the
criminals he afterwards executed at Stafford and elsewhere, suffice it
to say, that after a few blunders and the usual violent outcries of the
brutal multitudes, he became tolerably expert, and was considered a fit
assistant to Calcraft, when a change of the law and private executions
were determined upon. As we have been informed in the before quoted
narrative of the first private execution, on account of Calcraft’s
great age, and in obedience to the overtures of the authorities, SMITH
performed the subordinate part of moving the bolt that supported the
platform on which the criminal stood; preliminary, it is supposed,
to taking Calcraft’s place, if death or inability should ere long
necessitate a change.
Such a change may be nearer than people suppose, for Calcraft is
expected to be a successful applicant for a retiring pension, on
account of his infirmities, now too plainly visible, in which event
Smith might have for a competitor the notorious “LONG TOM COFFIN,” a
costermonger of old Clare Market, lately pulled down, and a quaint
character about town, who addressed an epistle in the following form to
the authorities of Newgate, which we give in its original orthography,
and “with all its blushing honours” and beauties “thick upon it”:--
“Wild Street, March 1st, 1868.
“To the Gaol Committee of Newgate,”
“Gentilmen,--As Ive heerd Calcraft yure ould hangmon iz goin
to leeve iz plaise, Ive just takin the libertee too ask yu too
chuse me, as I am villin too do the jobs on murdrers for the
same pay, and vill ever bee punkshal hat it, ven ever yu vant
to hang em up at the gallerse. Ive no objecshun to exshecute
any vun yu pleese, without feer or favur too any relashun or
aquanetense, but vill do my dooty imparshul, for vich I can git
a goood karacter,”
I am Gentilmen,
Yure humbel sirvent,
THOMAS COFFIN.”
“P.S.--Nevyew by my granmuther’s side to the late Doctur
Coffin.”
The secret execution of Wells, the railway porter, at Maidstone, on
August 13th, 1868, marks in the criminal calendar William Calcraft’s
disappearance from public life. He will henceforth be surrounded by
the mystery becoming his terrible office, and the rising generation of
criminals who take an interest in the matter, will have to ask their
seniors what kind of man he was, and to trust to their imaginations
for the picture of him. To no man probably will this mystery be more
welcome than to Calcraft himself. He has shown, on more than one
occasion, that his dread of facing the crowd was equal to his victim’s
dread of facing the gallows.
At the execution of the Manchester Fenians, and of Barrett in London,
he was seen to manifest more fear and nervous weakness than any of
the men whom he was to put to death. On both occasions he received
violent threatening letters from the fenian friends of the culprits. He
therefore shuffled about the prison yard, and seemed afraid to mount
the gallows-steps, while the sweat fell from his face, and stood in
large drops upon his brow. It is a great relief to him for his few
remaining years, and a moral gain in every sense to society, to have
lost sight of him; for after all, he constituted perhaps the most
revolting part of a public execution. The strong prejudice, and the
intense savage hatred of the crowd against him was, no doubt, a most
unjustifiable feeling, seeing that as the mere instrument of justice
and of judgment, he was neither to be hated nor to be loved; but it
existed in such intensity that there was no prospect of its ever being
lessened. The effect was extremely injurious even to the poor kind of
morality that public executions were supposed to promote. The passive
feeling of awe with which men might be disposed to look on a criminal
going to a righteous doom, was changed into an active feeling of
disgust and horror, when they beheld the man by whom he was publicly
strangled; and there was too much reason to believe that they left the
precincts of the gibbet with more of this unjust feeling uppermost
in their minds, than that which open-air executions were meant to
inculcate.
All this is now changed by the private system of hanging, but it also
destroys every plea for retaining the use of the gallows, as we have
before argued in previous pages.
In sketching the career of Calcraft, much is necessary to be said
respecting his predecessor, TOM CHESHIRE, to whom he acted for some
years as an assistant hangman, and who gave him during that time
repeated instructions in the art of putting criminals to death.
The commencement of his professional life reaches back far into the
reign of George the Third, when Tom Cheshire first employed him, and
was in the height of his fame. A very remarkable character was old
Cheshire, who used to wear always a snuff-brown coat reaching down to
his heels, and on that account was often hooted at wherever he was
seen, as the “snuffy skull thatcher!” Many of the ancient customs of
Newgate he was an eye-witness of, and which will be interesting to
mention here.
When the last night of some poor condemned wretch had arrived, at
midnight, and from hour to hour, till the dawn of the execution
morning, a bell man used to parade outside the prison walls under the
grating of the condemned cell, and in loud solemn tones accompanied
the harsh sounds of his bell with his warning-cries, to “prepare for
death.” With a blush of shame for our forefathers, we are obliged
to confess that, MURDER BY LAW on the gallows was then so common
for burglary, highway robbery, forgery, horse and sheep stealing,
shop-lifting to the value of forty shillings, and other minor
offences, that “hanging Monday” was regularly looked for, after every
Old Bailey sessions, when a batch of males and females, sometimes
amounting to half a dozen, would be hung up like so many dogs and
cats on a Monday morning, although only found guilty and sentenced on
the preceding Friday. Simple stealing from a house or the person was
then oftener punished with death than were murderous offences. And so
awfully unscrupulous were the “Bow-street runners,” as the officers
of police were termed, that the innocent used to be “planted” with
stolen property, entrapped, sworn positively against, and put to
death for the sake of the £40 “blood money” then given for every one
capitally convicted. Then the horror of the “condemned cell, and pew,
and press yard” were kept continually going, and the blood-thirsty
monsters afterwards held their nightly saturnalias together, with
spies, informers, bawdy-house pimps of both sexes, and the master and
deputy-hangman amongst them; who revelled and toasted the success of
their trade of blood-spilling. Then also, the “press yard” witnessed
every sessions the torturing of its many youthful victims by the
lead-knotted lash; and the “press room” resounded with the piercing
shrieks of a prisoner undergoing the punishment awarded to those who
refused to plead. Whenever a prisoner at the bar declined to say
whether he was guilty or not guilty (a formality required by the law
before he could be tried), he was taken to the “press room,” laid on
the stone floor naked, and with arms and legs extended, chained fast by
the wrists and ancles; and a stout board was placed on the front of his
body, on which heavy iron weights, one by one, were gradually placed,
after every time he was asked if he would plead to the question first
put to him, “guilty or not guilty?” Some poor tortured wretches, after
a certain number of ponderous weights, never less than half-hundreds or
hundreds, had been heaped upon them, would be terrified into pleading
and standing the chance of their trial; but others would be obstinately
dumb till such a pile of weights was added, that they were, according
to the sentence of the law, crushed to death! The murderer’s pew in
the chapel, on the sabbath day, often presented a spectacle, that
once seen, never was forgotten. While the late Rev. Dr. Cotton, then
the prison chaplain, was preaching the “condemned sermon” one time
scowling assassins deep-dyed with the blood of many victims would be
seen grouped together; at another time youth and innocence, wrongfully
condemned to die a felon’s death on the gallows (as history has since
proved), through perjury, or misconstrued circumstances and uncertain
evidence. Amongst these we must not forget the fair and beautiful Eliza
Fenning, a virtuous maiden servant of a tradesman’s family in Fleet
Street, who suffered death on the public gibbet for an offence which
she called God to witness that she was totally innocent of! She was
convicted on doubtful circumstantial evidence of attempting to poison
the whole family, by putting arsenic into the flour of some dumplings
she made for their dinner. All her solemn asseverations of innocence
availed her not, and the best of characters was entirely useless:
sentenced to die she was, and she was ruthlessly hanged by her fair
neck, before a vast sympathising multitude of men, women, and children
in the Old Bailey, all melted to tears, and crying out “shame,” “shame!”
The beauteous innocent creature appeared on the gallows platform in a
new white dress from head to foot, as spotless as her own purity; and
we doubt not her soul, the moment it was released by the executioner’s
vile hands, was caught up by attending angels and carried to the haven
of eternal bliss.
Long after it was too late to wipe out the stain of her judicial
murder, her master’s son confessed on his death bed that he secretly
mixed the arsenic in the flour she used, during her brief absence
from the kitchen, as an act of revenge for refusing to submit to his
embraces.
Tom Cheshire and Newgate has witnessed other ghastly scenes, and
his predecessor has had adventures with “Sixteen-string-Jack, Jerry
Abershaw, Jonathan Wild, Jack Shepherd, Betsy the bank-note forger
and foot-pad, who was half executed and restored to life; when the
CONDEMNED used to go in an open cart, sitting on their coffins, from
Newgate all through Holborn to a public half-way house in St. Giles’s,
where they were allowed to stop and drink their “parting draught” with
their friends, and be presented with their “last nosegay,” and then
resume their procession through Oxford Road, and at the top of it, in
the open space facing the gates of Hyde Park, near the turnpike that
then existed, to be at once executed on Tyburn’s three-corner’d gibbet.
Passing to later times, CHESHIRE and his man Calcraft knew something
about the noted Dr. Brooks and the dreadful secrets of old surgeon’s
hall at the back of Newgate. Subjects for dissection being very scarce,
“BODY-SNATCHERS,” sometimes called “_resurrectionists_” used to watch
funerals during the day time in the church-yards of London, mark where
the youngest and plumpest subjects were interred, and at night, with
digging tools take them up and bag them in sacks, which they would
speedily convey to a hired hackney coach standing conveniently near,
and drive off with them to the said hall, or to St. Bartholomew’s,
according to orders. As body-snatching did not always supply enough
subjects for the numerous doctors and students who required them for
lectures and experiments, a viler class of offenders sprang to way-lay
the friendless and unfortunate, entice them into some lonely out of way
house surrounded by vacant ground walls, and there poison and smother
them. These horrible villains were called Burkers, who contrived for
a long time to sell the bodies of their victims undetected for large
sums, as persons who had died naturally and been buried. At last a poor
Italian boy who exhibited white mice in the streets, was burked by
Bishop, May, and Williams, in a lone house in Bethnal-green, and one
night was offered at Bartholomew’s hospital. The doctor to whom they
took it, feeling certain after a minute examination, that the corpse
had died a violent death, quietly sent for the officers of justice,
and gave them into custody. They were tried and found guilty on the
clearest evidence of Italians who identified the boy, and were hanged
by Calcraft and his master amidst the loudest execrations ever heard in
the precincts of Newgate.
During the earlier times of that awful looking gail, the classification
and administration were so loose as to render it a perfect HELL ON
EARTH. Depravity, ribaldry, drunkenness, gambling and debauchery
there reigned unchecked in its dark dungeon, between gaolers and
the lowest of their male and female prisoners. The latter sex often
times exchanged clothes with their keepers, when the govener was, at
night, fast asleep, and in their cells they carrried on whatever lewd
revels they had a fancy for, and made a pandemonium of the prison. At
the death of Cheshire, Calcraft became principal executioner. He was
previously a private watchman at Reid’s brewery, Liquorpond Street, and
by trade a lady’s shoemaker. He is also celebrated as a first-class
rabbit-fancier, whose breed has won prizes, and unknown, has graced
the festive board of many London families. At the Tiger public house,
corner of Devizes Street, near the Rosemary Branch, Hoxton, next door
to his old residence in his younger days, he used to meet great numbers
of his brother snobs, rabbit-breeders, and skittle players, and there
held jollifications and played skittles with them. On account of the
prejudice of the neighbours, and the too-great freedom of impudent boys
in calling out “Jack Ketch,” his habit was to go out very early in the
morning and after dark. He is married, and is the parent of a goodly
number of sons and daughters, morally brought up and schooled, who have
sometimes, been unjustly annoyed by ignorent people on account of
their unfortunate parentage. To show the full force of this prejudice
we will mention a curious circumstance that happened to one of his
daughters.
She was accustomed to meet and court a young mechanic at a friend’s
house. One night a supper was appointed to be held there, and the
sweetheart had promise of a good merry-making with mutual acquaintances
of both sexes, not one of whom knew Miss Calcraft by her paternal
name. Through some mysterous cause we have never had explained, just
as all were comfortably seated around the smoking viands on the table,
and were pledging the lovers and each other in preliminary bumpers of
beer and gin, strange footsteps were heard on the stairs, followed
by a knock at the door, and when it was opened, the whole company,
especially Miss Calcraft’s lover, were suddenly petrified with horror.
No sooner was the fatal name pronounced and a recognition passed
between father and daughter, than the young man at one bound cleared
the table, rushed down the stairs, ran fast away from the house and was
seen no more; thus proving again to the deserted hangman’s daughter,
that “the course of true love never runs smooth.”
A parallel to the iniquities of the old Bow Street runners are
to be found in the records of our modern police force of London.
“Jack Ketch’s warren” was well supplied by police scoundrels from
many quarters of the poverty stricken districts. One of the most
infamous was the “prig’s haunt” in Tyndal’s Buildings, Gray’s Inn
Lane, inhabited by low Irish, where KING, a policeman in disguise,
attended daily when off duty, to teach pocket-picking and all the arts
of burglary to poor outcast boys. Between experiments with various
instruments, and lessons on the way to use them, a coat was swung
across a line, and the young ones were shown how to pick the pocket
single-handed when a thief was by himself, and when they went together
in twos and threes. As fast as they became adepts in the art and went
into the streets to obtain their living by it, King, who always knew
their walks, watched them in his uniform, and the moment they committed
a robbery, pounced upon them and procured their conviction, for which
he obtained the praise of his superiors for extraordinary vigilance,
and rewards, besides court-fees at the sessions. At last this vile
thief-trainer became too clever; he was denounced by some boys sharper
than himself, and some of his honester brother-constables took the
clue up, unravelled it to the end, and on the clearest evidence got
him sentenced to penal servitude for life. A more recent proof, while
we are penning this, has come out, that perjury is still rife in
the Metropolitan police force. Three policemen have been wrongfully
procuring the conviction of a drover on the charge of stealing several
sheep from a field at Tottenham, and have received their “blood money”
from the County of Middlesex funds. Since their poor victim has been
suffering incarceration, the real thief, at the trial of one of his
confederates, has confessed to his own guilt, and declared the entire
innocence of the man formerly sworn to by the said policemen. May
justice soon overtake them.
Returning to Calcraft and his latter days, we have to congratulate our
readers upon his religious conversion, and regular Sunday attendance
with his wife, at a church near Poole-street, Islington. He has long
ceased to love his office and make money by sales of the clothes of the
numerous culprits, and bits of the ropes that hanged them. The ancient
ceremony of swearing in the executioner was an awful one. Amidst a
collection of ropes, fetters and handcuffs, with his hand upon the
bible, he was required to solemnly swear that he would execute every
criminal condemned to die, without favouring father or mother, or any
friend whatsoever; and when he had taken the horrible oath he was
dismissed with the ominous words--“GET THEE HENCE WRETCH!”
The latest performance of Calcraft is reported below, and shows that
the first private execution at Newgate was like the one at Maidstone,
privately barbarous and publicly useless.
At nine o’clock in the morning of September 8th, the first
private execution in London took place in the interior of
Newgate Prison. The culprit was Alexander Arthur Mackay, a
youth of only eighteen years of age, who, on the 8th of May
last murdered a woman Emma Grossmith in whose service he was,
at 11, Artillery-passage, Norton Folgate. It now only remains
to tell how he expiated his crime upon the scaffold in the
presence not of a roaring, surging mob, but in the solitude of
a prison, and before a few persons, whose number did not much
exceed a score.
Inside the gaol the scene was solemn to the last degree. The
representatives of the morning newspapers whose duty it was to
witness the execution were admitted to Newgate at half-past
eight, and after traversing several gloomy corridors found
themselves in an inclosed yard near the prison chapel, in front
of the scaffold. A few words will enable the reader to picture
for himself the scene.
The yard is a square one, entered by a wicket gate at the
south-east corner, and in the corner to the north-west stands
the scaffold. In the south-west corner, near the grating
through which prisoners undergoing punishment hold converse
with their friends at periods arranged for by the prison rules,
is a space railed off for the representatives of the press,
and standing at invervals of a few yards apart are men of the
City police, occupying the remainder of the yard. Behind the
scaffold the prison buildings rear their massive walls, and
from the roof peers down upon the solemn scene below a stolid
warder stationed there in order that, so soon as the ghastly
business is at an end, he may signal the man in whose hands are
the ropes to hoist the black flag, as a witness to the outside
world that justice is satisfied; on the opposite side of the
yard are other prison buildings with grated windows, but no
outward sign of the life within, while flanking the yard north
and south are walls--the one is topped by a terrible cheveaux
de frise, and over the other hangs suspended a large cloth,
the sound of whose rustling as shaken by the wind--it beat
against the prison wall,--was as the flapping wing of a huge
bird of prey. The silent expectation of the twenty minutes
spent in that dreadful yard was the most painful experience
of the present writer’s life. Absence of sound when a man is
alone in the heart of a trackless forest is said by travellers
to be fearfully oppressive, but the involuntary silence of
twenty men waiting the entrance of the messengers of death and
their victim becomes painful to the last degree. Sometimes
there is a slight murmur heard from the outside of the prison,
with now and again the clanking of a latch or the grating of
a bolt within the gaol itself, and occasionally a low hum of
conversation in the yard--these are the only sounds heard,
and they only serve to intensify the oppressiveness of the
silent intervals that intervene. What was going on within the
prison during this time was not known to the representatives of
the press. Under the new Act of Parliament they are excluded
from what was known as the pinioning room, and only see the
very last scene of all, an alteration very agreeable to the
feelings of gentlemen upon whom is imposed a most painful
duty. They learned after the execution that Mackay had since
his condemnation conducted himself with great decorum, had
frequently expressed his great sorrow for the crime he had
committed, and his perfect readiness to die. The poor youth,
we were told, lost his own mother when he was about the same
age as one of his victim’s children, and this deepened in his
own mind the intense feelings of piognant regret he seemed to
experience between his sentence being pronounced and carried
into effect. He was most attentive to the ministrations of the
Rev. Mr. Jones, ordinary of Newgate, and took the sacrament at
his hands on Sunday, The condemned youth slept soundly until
about six o’clock in the morning, when he rose and remained in
communion with his spiritual adviser until the last. So much
for the interior of the prison; outside the silence remained
unbroken, save by the sounds of which we have spoken, until
within a quarter of an hour of nine, when from the neighbouring
church of St. Sepulchre a passing bell began to toll, and a
slightly increased murmur from the outside world reached the
ears of those who waited within the prison. At about this time
Mr Sheriff M’Arthur, with his under sheriffs, Messrs Roche and
Davidson Mr. Jonas, the governor; and Mr. Gibson, the surgeon
of Newgate, entered the yard, and having satisfied themselves
that all the arrangements were complete, retired, leaving the
space again to the reporters and policemen, one of the latter
body having some few minutes earlier turned sick and left the
yard. This almost unbearable suspense lasted until the clocks
in the neighbourhood were heard to strike the hour, and then
the clanking of a latch behind the black screen surrounding
the scaffold was followed by the appearance of the Rev. Mr.
Jones, who supported the doomed man as he ascended the few
steps leading from the ground to the drop. The chaplain, whose
voice trembled with emotion, read the Litany from the Church
of England Prayer-book, and Mackay joined with a loud, clear
voiee in the responses, his voice being heard distinctly over
the yard, even after he was capped and noosed. Just at this
supreme moment the young man’s firmness seemed about to forsake
him, and he tottered as though to fall, but the hand of the
chaplain laid upon his arm sustained him, and in another second
the trap on which the unhappy man was standing fell, and he
hung suspended. The fall was a very short one, and signs of
life were visible for a longer time after the bolt was drawn
than we remember to have seen on any similar occasion. As soon
as possible every one concerned in the ghastly business was
glad to make his escape from this last act in a doleful drama.
To the spectators, judging from our own experience, and the
appearance of many persons present, nothing could have been
more terrible than this sight of a man, calmly, methodically
strangled under shadow of a prison wall, without any of the
frothy excitement that has up to within a very short time
formed part of an execution ceremony. Few things could be more
impressive, so far as the outside spectators were concerned (by
reason of its fearful suggestiveness) than the silent running
up of a black flag from the gaol wall just as the murderer
passed down into the valley of the shadow of death; and nothing
we should say could have been more awful than the sight of
those four high, hard, pitiless walls to the wretch brought
forth to die. Such is an account of the first execution of a
murderer in London that has taken place out of sight of such as
chose to brave the horrore of an execution crowd in order to
see a fellow-creature die a shameful death.
The body, after hanging an hour, was cut down, and a coroner’s
inquest, as prescribed by the Act of Parliament, was held in
the course of the afternoon, previous to burying it.
The last personage we shall record here as a fit companion to all the
before-mentioned, is SANSON, the renowned HERO OF THE GUILLOTINE. On
the outskirts of old Paris, in a small neat cottage overlooking the
banks of the Seine, surrounded by palings at the front, and thick
hawthorn hedges at the sides and back, lives secluded from vulgar gaze
a descendant of three generations of the Sansons, who from father
to son have inherited the office of public executioner. He is a
grim-looking old man of strong build; and is complacent to all visitors
whose curiosity leads them to see and converse with him, and view his
curious cabinet of murderers’ relics and criminals’ curiosities; and
who make their request with becoming civility. He is full of anecdotes
about the exploits of his ancestors at chopping off the heads of Louis
the XVI, Maria Antonette, Charlotte Corday, the authoress of the famous
saying “O! liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name,” as she was
about to put her neck under the guillotine knife. He will exhibit at
the same time, models of guillotines, instruments of torture, amongst
them spokes of the blood-stained breaking wheel of former days, locks
of the hair of various nobles and their ladies, rings, brooches, and
other trinkets of the victims of the bloody Robespierre, with pieces
of the robes and surplices of the bishops and priests who were then
brought out of dungeons and guillotined in multitudes early every
morning for weeks together, till the ground where the scaffold stood
ran with blood. A few skulls and finger-bones of remarkable persons he
will also show, and tell how he obtained them. We will now spare our
reader’s feelings, and conclude by hoping that the day is not far off,
when the awful adventures of the heroes of the gallows and guillotine
will be numbered among the things of the past.
THE END.
ELLIOT, Printer, “The West-End News” office, 475, Oxford Street, W.C.
End of Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Street Literature, by Various