The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841. — John Shaqi
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
The death of this person exhibits the singular fatality which attends
some men who have been guilty of crime. Cook was the son of a butcher,
who was considered a person of respectability, residing at Gloucester.
He was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon in London; but running away
before his time had expired, he entered the service of one of the pages
of honour to William III.; but he soon after quitted this situation to
set up at Gloucester as a butcher, upon the recommendation of his
mother.
Restless, however, in every station of life, he repaired to London,
where he commenced prize-fighter at May-fair; which, at this time, was a
place greatly frequented by prize-fighters, thieves, and women of bad
character. Here puppet-shows were exhibited, and it was the favourite
resort of all the profligate and abandoned, until at length the nuisance
increased to such a degree, that Queen Anne issued her Proclamation for
the Suppression of Vice and Immorality, with a particular view to this
fair; in consequence of which the justices of peace issued their warrant
to the high constable, who summoned all the inferior constables to his
assistance. When they came to suppress the fair, Cook, with a mob of
about thirty soldiers, and other persons, stood in defiance of the
peace-officers, and threw brickbats at them, by which some of them were
wounded. Cooper, a constable, being the most active, Cook drew his sword
and stabbed him in the belly, and he died of the wound at the expiration
of four days. Hereupon Cook fled to Ireland, and, as it was deposed upon
his trial, while he was in a public house, he swore in a profane manner,
for which the landlord censured him, and told him there were persons in
the house who would take him in custody for it; to which he answered,
"Are there any of the informing dogs in Ireland? we in London drive
them; for at a fair called May-fair, there was a noise which I went out
to see--six soldiers and myself--the constables played their parts with
their staves, and I played mine; and, when the man dropped, I wiped my
sword, put it up, and went away."
The fellow was, subsequently, taken into custody, and sent to Chester,
whence being removed to London, he was tried at the Old Bailey, was
convicted, and received sentence of death.
After conviction he solemnly denied the crime for which he had been
condemned, declaring that he had no sword in his hand on the day the
constable was killed, and was not in company with those who killed him.
Having received the sacrament on the 21st of July, 1703, he was taken
from Newgate to be carried to Tyburn; but, when he had got to High
Holborn, opposite Bloomsbury, a respite arrived for him till the
following Friday. On his return to Newgate he was visited by numbers of
his acquaintance, who rejoiced on his narrow escape. On Friday he
received another respite till the 11th of August, but on that day he was
executed.
JOHN PETER DRAMATTI.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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