The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: 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 unfortunate Hunton, it appears, commenced business at Yarmouth, as a
slop-seller; and having been exceedingly prosperous, he opened a concern
of some magnitude at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: and also engaged in
business as a sugar-baker in the metropolis. He had previously married a
lady, a member of the society of Friends, to which sect it will be
perceived that he also belonged, and was supposed to be possessed of
property to the amount of 30,000_l._ Relinquishing these concerns he
entered into partnership with Messrs. Dickson and Company, of
Ironmonger-lane, who soon discovered that he was engaged to no small
extent in speculations on the Stock Exchange, in which, as it turned
out, he was particularly unsuccessful. A dissolution of partnership was
the consequence, and then the unhappy man, driven to want and despair,
committed those frauds which cost him his life. Up to the time of his
absenting himself from London, he had a large establishment at
Leytonstone, in Essex, where he was always looked upon as an eccentric,
but highly honourable and respectable person. The appearance and
demeanour of the unhappy man, at the time of his apprehension, were such
as to excite the greatest commiseration among those who saw him.
Although it would appear that the forgeries of which he had been guilty
were of no trifling extent, at that period one hundred sovereigns only
were found in his possession.
WILLIAM BURKE.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER
The unparalleled atrocities of which this diabolical murderer was
guilty, with his associates, can scarcely ever be obliterated from the
recollection of man. Devoid of all sense of humanity,--a butcher of the
human race, he was guilty of almost innumerable murders, for which his
only reward was to be the miserable amount to be paid him for the bodies
of his victims, in order that they might be submitted to the knife of
the anatomist.
The scene of these horrible occurrences was Edinburgh; but
notwithstanding the publication of the details of the circumstances
attending them which appeared at the investigations which took place
before the sheriff, few could be found who had formed such an idea of
the baseness of human nature, as to believe the possibility of the truth
of the dreadful disclosures which were made. The traffic in human blood,
with such an object as we have already pointed out, appeared too fearful
a crime to be contemplated; and all suspended their judgment until the
issue of the solemn inquiry of a jury should decide upon the allegations
which were made. Upon that inquisition, however, the most dreadful
apprehensions which were entertained as to the result were fully
realised, and the reports which had been circulated with reference to
the offences charged against the prisoners, were amply proved to be well
founded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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