Dublin.
[R. G., MACKENZIE WALCOTT, P. S. Q., ROVERT, H. T. E., A. H. B.,
J. A. PICTON, and other friends, have kindly forwarded similar
replies.]
_The Winchester Execution_ (Vol. iv., pp. 191. 243.).--The story, of
which a summary appears under this title in a recent Number, resembles
one I have repeatedly heard told in the city of Durham by those who had
personal recollection of the facts and persons; it occurred about
thirty years ago. A servant girl was capitally convicted of
administering poison to the household of a farmer, in a fit of passion
at some petty injury: a legal doubt raised in her behalf was submitted
for consideration in London, and some months elapsed in determining it.
During the interval, her character and conduct being good, she came to
be employed as a servant in the household of the governor of the gaol,
then situated in an old gatehouse at the entrance of the Bailey; and one
of my informants has seen her drawing water at the _pant_ in the market
place, two or three hundred yards from the gaol, in the heart of the
town. One morning the governor and all Durham were struck with horror at
the receipt of an order for her execution, within three days; the city
being then two days by coach from London, and an appeal for compassion
impossible. The execution, singularly, was attended with distressing
circumstances. The rope employed broke, another was not at hand: and the
wretched girl sat crying under the beam, until a man sent into the town
(in a field outside of which, on the Newcastle road, this scene
occurred) could return with another cord, with which he was seen
flogging his horse up to the gallows. So I have been told by grave and
trustworthy witnesses.