University of Virginia Library

I have hitherto spoken of the Last Sorrowful
Lamentation sheets. The next broad-sheet is
the "Life, Trial, Confession, and Execution."
This presents the same matter as the "Lamen-
tation," except that a part — perhaps the judge's
charge at the trial, or perhaps the biography —
is removed to make room for the "Execu-
tion," and occasionally for a portion of the
"Condemned Sermon." To judge by the
productions I treat of, both subjects are marvel-
ously similar on all occasions. I cite a speci-
men of the Condemned Sermon, as preached,
according to the broad-sheet, before Hewson,
condemned for the murder of a turnkey It will
be seen that it is of a character to fit any con-
demned sermon whatever:

The "Execution" is detailed generally in
this manner. I cite the "Life, Trial, Confes-
sion, and Execution of Mary May, for the
Murder of W. Constable, her Half-brother, by
Poison, at Wix, near Manningtree:"

I cannot refrain from calling the reader's
attention to the "copy of verses" touching
Mary May. I give them entire, for they seem
to me to contain all the elements which made
the old ballads popular — the rushing at once
into the subject—and the homely reflections,
though crude to all educated persons, are, never-
theless, well adapted to enlist the sympathy and
appreciation of the class of hearers to whom
they are addressed:

COPY OF VERSES.

"The solemn bell for me doth toll,
And I am doom'd to die
(For murdering by brother dear,)
Upon a tree so high.
For gain I did premeditate
My brother for to slay, —
Oh, think upon the dreadful fate
Of wretched Mary May.

CHORUS.

Behold the fate of Mary May,
Who did for gain her brother slay.
In Essex boundry I did dwell,
My brother lived with me,
In a little village called Wix,
Not far from Manningtree.
In a burial club I entered him,
On purpose him to slay;
And to obtain the burial fees
I took his life away.
One eve he to his home return'd,
Not thinking he was doom'd,
To be sent by a sister's hand
Unto the silent tomb.
His tea for him I did prepare,
And in it poison placed,
To which I did administer, —
How dreadful was his case.
Before he long the poison took
In agony he cried;
Upon him I in scorn did look, —
At length my brother died.
Then to the grave I hurried him,
And got him out of sight,
But God ordain'd this cruel deed
Should soon be brought to light.
I strove the money to obtain,
For which I did him slay,
By which, also, suspicion fell
On guilty Mary May.
The poison was discovered,
Which caused me to bewail,
And I my trial to await
Was sent to Chelmsford jail.

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And for this most atrocious deed
I at the bar was placed,
The Jury found me guilty, —
How dreadful was my case.
The Judge the dreadful sentence pass'd,
And solemn said to me,
`You must return from whence you came,
And thence unto the tree.'
On earth I can no longer dwell,
There's nothing can me save;
Hark! I hear the mournful knell
Which calls me to the grave.
Death appears in ghostly forms,
To summon me below;
See, the fatal bolt is drawn,
And Mary May must go.
Good people all, of each degree,
Before it is too late,
See me on the fatal tree,
And pity my sad fate.
My guilty heart stung with grief,
With agony and pain, —
My tender brother I did slay
That fatal day for gain."

This mode of procedure in "gallows" litera-
ture, and this style of composition, have prevailed
for from twenty to thirty years. I find my usual
impossibility to fix a date among these street-
folk; but the Sorrowful Lamentation sheet was
unknown until the law for prolonging the term
of existence between the trial and death of the
capitally-convicted, was passed. "Before that,
sir," I was told, "there wasn't no time for a
Lamentation; sentence o' Friday, and scragging
o' Monday. So we had only the Life, Trial, and
Execution." Before the year 1820, the Execu-
tion broad-sheets, &c., were "got up" in about
the same, though certainly in an inferior and
more slovenly manner than at present; and one copy of verses often did service for the canticles
of all criminals condemned to be hung. These
verses were to sacred or psalm tunes, such as
Job, or the Old Hundredth. I was told by
an aged gentleman that he remembered, about
the year 1812, hearing a song, or, as he called it,
"stave," of this description, not only given in
the street with fiddle and nasal twang, to the
tune of the Old Hundredth, but commencing in
the very words of Sternhold and Hopkins —

An intelligent man, now himself a street-
trader, told me that one of the latest "execu-
tion songs" (as he called them) which he re-
membered to have heard in the old style — but
"no doubt there were plenty after that, as like
one another as peas in a boiling" — was on the
murder of Weare, at Elstree, in Hertfordshire.
He took great interest in such things when a
boy, and had the song in question by heart, but
could only depend upon his memory for the
first and second verses:

Another street paper-worker whom I spoke
to on the subject, and to whom I read these two
verses, said: "That's just the old thing, sir;
and it's quite in old Jemmy Catnach's style, for
he used to write werses — anyhow, he said he did,
for I've heard him say so, and I've no doubt he
did in reality — it was just his favourite style, I
know, but the march of intellect put it out. It
did so."

In the most "popular" murders, the street
"papers" are a mere recital from the news-
papers, but somewhat more brief, when the
suspected murderer is in custody; but when the
murderer has not been apprehended, or is un-
known, "then," said one Death-hunter, "we
has our fling, and I've hit the mark a few
chances that way. We had, at the werry least,
half-a-dozen coves pulled up in the slums that
we printed for the murder of `The Beautiful
Eliza Grimwood, in the Waterloo-road.' I did
best on Thomas Hopkins, being the guilty man
— I think he was Thomas Hopkins — 'cause a
strong case was made out again him."

I received similar accounts of the street-
doings in the case of "mysterious murders,"
as those perpetrations are called by the paper
workers, when the criminal has escaped, or
was unknown. Among those leaving consi-
derable scope to the patterer's powers of in-
vention were the murders of Mr. Westwood, a
watchmaker in Prince's-street, Leicester-square;
of Eliza Davis, a bar-maid, in Frederick-street,
Hampstead-road; and of the policeman in Da-
genham, Essex. One of the most successful
"cocks," relating to murders which actually
occurred, was the "Confession to the Rev. Mr.
Cox, Chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol, of John
Tawell the Quaker." I had some conversation
with one of the authors of this "Confession,"
— for it was got up by three patterers; and he
assured me that "it did well, and the facts was
soon in some of the newspapers — as what we
'riginates often is." This sham confession was
as follows:

"The Rev. Mr. Cox, the chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol,
having been taken ill, and finding his end approaching,
sent for his son, and said, `Take this confession; now
I am as good as my word; I promised that unhappy
man, John Tawell, that while I lived his confession
should not be made public, owing to the excited state
of the public mind. Tawell confessed to me, that
besides the murde of Sarah Hart, at Salt-hill, for
while he suffered the last penalty of the law at Ayles-
bury, he was guilty of two other barbarous murders
which abroad as a transport in Van Dieman's Land.
One of these barbarous and horrid murders was on the

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body of one of the keepers. He knocked him down
with the keys, which he wrenched from him, and then
cut his throat with his own knife, leaving the body
locked up in his cell; and before that, to have the
better opportunity of having the turnkey single-
handed, John Tawell feigned illness. He then locked
the keeper, in the cell, and went to a young woman in
the town, a beautiful innkeeper's daughter, whom he
had seduced as he worked for her father, as he had the
privilege of doing in the day-times. He went to her,
and she, seeing him in a flurried state, with blood
upon his hand, questioned him. He told the unhappy
young woman how he had killed the keeper for the
love of her, and the best thing to be done was for her
to get possession of all the money she could, and
escape with him to this country, where he would
marry her, and support her like a lady. The unhappy
young woman felt so terrified, that at the moment she
was unable to say yes or no. He became alarmed for
his safety, and with the identical knife that he killed
the keeper with, he left his unhappy victim a welter-
ing in her gore. He then fled from the house unob-
served, and went into the bush, where he met three
men, who had escaped through his killing the keeper.
He advised them to go down with him to an English
vessel lying off the coast. When they reached the
shore, they met a crew in search of fresh water; to
them they made out a pitiful story, and were taken on
board the ship. All being young men, and the captain
being short of hands, and one of them having been
really a seaman transported for mutiny, the captain,
after putting questions which the seaman answered,
engaged them to work their passage home. Tawell
was the captain of the gang, and was most looked up
to. They worked their passage home, behaving well
during the voyage, so that the captain said he would
make each of them a present, and never divulge.
When they reached Liverpool, Tawell robbed the cap-
tain's cabin of all the money contained in it, which
was a very considerable sum. After that he left Liver-
pool, and adopted the garb of a Quaker, in which he
could not easily be recognized, and then pursued the
course of wickedness and crime which led him to a
shameful death."

The "confession" of Rush to the chaplain of
Norwich Castle, was another production which
was remunerative to the patterers. "There was
soon a bit of it in the newspapers," said one
man, "for us and them treads close on one
another's heels. The newspapers `screeved'
about Rush, and his mother, and his wife;
but we, in our patter, made him confess to
having murdered his old grandmother fourteen
years back, and how he buried her under the
apple-tree in the garden, and how he murdered
his wife as well."

These ulterior Confessions are very rarely in-
troduced, in lieu of some matter displaced, into
the broad-sheet, but form separate bills. It was
necessary to mention them here, however, and
so preserve the sequence of the whole of the
traffic consequent upon a conviction for murder,
in this curious trade.

Sometimes the trial, &c., form also separate
bills, as well as being embodied afterwards in
the Sorrowful Lamentation. This is only, how-
ever, in cases which are deemed important.
One of the papers I obtained, for instance, is
the "Trial of Mr. and Mrs. Manning for the
Murder of Mr. Patrick O'Connor." The trial
alone occupies a broad-sheet; it is fairly "got
up." A portrait of Mr. Patrick O'Connor
heads the middle column. From the presence
of a fur collar to the coat or cloak, and of what
is evidently an order with its insignia, round
the neck, I have little doubt that the portrait
of Mr. O'Connor was originally that of the
sovereign in whose service O'Connor was once
an excise-officer — King William IV.

The last publication to which the trade has
recourse is "the book." This is usually eight
pages, but sometimes only four of a larger size.
In authorship, matter, or compilation, it differs
little from the narratives I have described. The
majority of these books are prepared by one
man. They are in a better form for being pre-
served as a record than is a broad-sheet, and
are frequently sold, and almost always offered
by the patterers when they cry a new case on a
sheet, as "people that loves such reading likes
to keep a good account of the best by them;
and so, when I've sold Manning's bills, I've
often shoved off Rush's books." The books,
like the bills, have generally the letters and the
copy of verses.

Some of these books have the title-page set
forth in full display, — for example: "Horrible
Murder and Mutilation of Lucy Game, aged 15,
by her Cruel Brother, William Game, aged 9,
at Westmill, Hertfordshire. His Committal and
Confession. With a Copy of Letter. Also, Full
Particulars of the Poisonings in Essex." Here,
as there was no execution, the matter was
extended, to include the poisonings in Essex.
The title I have quoted is expanded into thir-
teen lines. Sometimes the title-page is adorned
with a portrait. One, I was told, which was last
employed as a portrait of Calcraft, had done
severe service since Courvoisier's time, — for
my informant thought that Courvoisier was the
original. It is the bust of an ill-looking man,
with coat and waistcoat fitting with that un-
wrinkled closeness which characterises the figures
in tailors' "fashions."

The above style of work is known in the trade
as "the book;" but other publications, in the
book or pamphlet form, are common enough. In
some I have seen, the title-page is a history in
little. I cite one of these: — "Founded on Facts.
The Whitby Tragedy; or, the Gambler's Fate.
Containing the Lives of Joseph Carr, aged 21, and
his sweetheart, Maria Leslie, aged 19, who were
found Dead, lying by each other, on the morning
of the 23rd of May. Maria was on her road to
Town to buy some Ribbon, &c., for her Wedding
Day, when her lover in a state of intoxication fired
at her, and then run to rob his prey, but finding it
to be his Sweetheart, reloaded his Gun, placed the
Muzzle to his Mouth, and blew out his Brains, all
through cursed Cards, Drink, &c. Also, an affec-
tionate Copy of Verses."

To show the extent of the trade in execution
broad-sheets, I obtained returns of the number
of copies relating to the principal executions of
late, that had been sold.

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Of Thurtell I could obtain no accounts — "it
was so long ago;" but the sale, I was told, was
enormous. Reckoning that each copy was sold
for 1d. (the regular price in the country, where
the great sale is,) the money expended for such
things amounts to upwards of 48,500l. in the
case of the six murderers above given. All
this number was printed and got up in Lon-
don; a few "broad-sheets" concerning Rush
were printed also in Norwich.

Touching the issue of "cocks," a person con-
nected with the trade calculated for me, from
data at his command, that 3,456 copies were
struck off weekly, and sold in the streets, in the
metropolis; and reckoning them at only a ½d. each, we have the sum of 7l. 4s. spent every
week in this manner. At this rate, there must
be 179,712 copies of "cocks" printed in a year,
on which the public expend no less than 374l. 8s.

Of the style of illustrations usually accom-
panying this class of street literature the two
large engravings here given are fac similes — while the smaller ones are faithful copies of the
average embellishments to the halfpenny ballads.
On another occasion I shall speak at length on
"Street-Art."