Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
Soon after the above execution, Phœbe Harris, convicted the session
before last of coining silver, was brought out at the debtor’s door,
from whence she walked to a stake fixed in the ground, about half way
between the scaffold and Newgate street. She was immediately tied by
the neck to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake, and after
praying very fervently for a few minutes, the steps on which she stood
were drawn away, and she immediately became suspended. The executioner,
with some assistants, put a chain round her body, which was fastened by
strong nails to the stake. Two cart-loads of faggots were then piled
round her, and after she had hung about half an hour, the fire was
kindled. The flames presently burning the halter, the convict fell a
few inches, and was then suspended by the iron chain passed over her
chest and affixed to the stakes. Some scattered remains of the body
were perceptible in the fire at half-past ten o’clock. The fire had not
quite burnt out even at twelve. The unhappy woman was so exceedingly
affected on Monday night, that it was generally supposed (and indeed
wished) that she could not have survived.
Phœbe Harris was a well made little woman, something more than thirty
years of age, of a pale complexion, and not of disagreeable features.
When she came out of prison she appeared languid and terrified, and
trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake, where the apparatus
for the punishment she was about to experience seemed to strike her
mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of
recollectedness in preparation for the approaching awful moment. A
great concourse of people attended on the melancholy occasion.
THE GAOL DELIVERY, AND THE TRIALS AND SENTENCES OF ALL THE PRISONERS AT
THE OLD BAILEY SESSIONS, TOGETHER WITH A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE EXECUTION
OF FIFTEEN UNFORTUNATE CONVICTS.
The April sessions ended at the Old Bailey, on the 25th, when
13 convicts received judgment of death; 60 were sentenced to be
transported, two of whom, for stripping children, are to be sent to
Africa, the other women to New South Wales; 8 to be imprisoned in
Newgate; 1 to hard labour in the house of correction; 5 to be whipped;
and 31 discharged by proclamation.
Elizabeth Kirvan, a convict for forgery, whose execution was respited
on her plea of pregnancy, is referred to her former judgment, she not
being pregnant.
The sessions of the peace is adjourned until Monday the 21st day of May
next at Guildhall; and the sessions of Goal-Delivery of Newgate, until
Wednesday, the 23rd day of the same month, at the old Bailey.
APRIL 26.
EXECUTIONS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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