Part 32

He was placed upon his trial at the Old Bailey sessions, in the month of October 1829, when he pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with having personated William Green, of Crucifix-lane, brazier, and thereby having obtained 125_l._, being the value of stock standing in his name in the Bank-books. On the 6th of March the prisoner applied to Mr. Linton, a stock-broker, in Shorter's-court, requesting him to sell out the stock standing in the name of William Green. The broker declined selling the stock, on the ground that he did not know the prisoner; upon which he replied, "Your father knows me well, and has frequently seen me at the National Debt Office." The broker's father was sent for, and on seeing the prisoner, said that he recollected him somewhere, but could not tell where. The broker was satisfied with this partial recognition, and made out the necessary documents for the transfer. The receipt for the transfer was signed by the prisoner in the name of Green, and on comparing it with one which had been previously given on the receipt of the dividend upon the same stock, the hand-writing was found to correspond.

He also pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with having personated Richard Mann, and thereby obtained 27_l._, being the dividend due on 300_l._ Consolidated Bank Annuities, of which Mann was the proprietor. A few days after the fraud on Mr. Green, the prisoner went to the Rotunda, in the Bank, and introducing himself to a broker as Mr. Mann, requested him to witness his receipt of the dividend. The broker asked for a reference, and the prisoner named Mr. Linton, who happening to be close by, was instantly appealed to, and at once recognised the prisoner as being the person who had imposed upon him in the name of Green. The prisoner refused to withdraw his plea of guilty, although advised by the judge to do so.

Upon this sentence of death was at once passed; and upon the recorder's report being made to his Majesty, the unhappy prisoner was ordered for execution.

Monday the 19th of October, was the day upon which the sentence was directed to be executed, and the convict upon being led out from his cell was totally unnerved, and glanced about him with a fearful and hurried look. He appeared deeply and bitterly to repent his crimes; and the wretched course of life he had adopted, in spite of the anxious solicitude of his parents.

He was executed with two other men, who had been convicted of house-breaking, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, on the 19th of October, 1829.

JAMES BELL.

TRANSPORTED FOR BURGLARY.

The great singularity of the offence, as well as of the apprehension of this fellow, induces us to lay their short particulars before our readers. The prisoner was of that class called "Resurrection men," and the crime of which he was convicted was committed by him and three of his associates in this horrible traffic.

Bell on the 17th December, 1829, was placed at the bar at the Maidstone Assizes before Mr. Baron Garrow, under a charge of burglariously breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Daniel Redday, at Deptford, and stealing therein a shirt, a worsted comforter, and the body of a black man whose name was unknown.--It appeared that Daniel Redday was a lodging-house keeper at Deptford; an unfortunate black man had come to lodge in his house shortly before the 20th of November, and on the 19th died suddenly. His body was laid out in a back room with the shirt on, and the comforter round his head, until a coroner's jury could sit on him. In the course of the night of the 20th the prosecutor was alarmed by a noise in the room of the dead man. Not choosing to examine into the cause from within, he went out of the house, and soon perceived a ladder placed up against the window of the room in which the corpse was deposited, and four men, of whom the prisoner was one, on the ladder. In his hurry to apprehend them he ran against the ladder, and the whole four, with the corpse, the comforter, and the shirt, came to the ground. Three of the four men made a successful retreat, but the prisoner was taken into custody.--The jury found him Guilty, and Mr. Baron Garrow, after having commented upon the heinous nature of his crime, aimed as it was at the best interests of society, sentenced him to be transported for life.

WILLIAM BANKS.

EXECUTED FOR BURGLARY.

We do not recollect that we have ever met with an instance of a burglary having been committed attended with greater violence or atrocity, than that for which this man underwent the punishment of death.

The Reverend William Warrington, it appears, was a gentleman of large property, residing at Grove Cottage, West Moulsey, in the vicinity of that well-known spot, Moulsey Hurst, Surrey; and on the night of Wednesday, 19th of November, 1828, his house was entered by four burglars, and a great quantity of valuable property carried off. Mr. Warrington's house adjoined that of Mr. Jeffs, a magistrate of the county, and a ladder, which had been accidentally left in the garden of the latter gentleman, was employed by the thieves in effecting an entrance to the house, which they had determined to rob. The circumstances attending the burglary are as follows:--

Between one and two o'clock on Wednesday morning, Mrs. Warrington was in her bed-chamber engaged in writing, and Mr. Warrington was in the same room in bed, asleep, when the former was terrified by hearing some persons at the back part of the house attempting to force a window on the first floor, which opened to a staircase and to a passage leading to the bed-room. Before she had time to alarm her husband, the fastenings of the window were wrenched off, without breaking the glass, and as she opened her bed-room door, she beheld four men, who had entered at the window by means of the ladder before-mentioned, in the act of ascending the stairs and approaching her chamber. Her fears were so excessive, that she was struck speechless for a few seconds. When she recovered, she shrieked, and exclaimed, "Good God, we shall be murdered; there are thieves in the house." Her husband was awoke instantly by her cries, and he had just time to leap from his bed and proceed in his shirt to the mantelpiece, on which he constantly kept a loaded pistol, before the four villains entered the chamber. He seized the pistol, levelled it at one of the thieves, and fired, but without effect. The first man who entered the room, a dark, ferocious-looking fellow, however, in turn drew from under his coat a pistol, and presented it at Mr. Warrington. The villain pulled the trigger, but the powder did not ignite. He recocked it, and pulled it a second time, and it flashed in the pan. Mrs. Warrington fell upon her knees, and in the most earnest and affecting manner implored the villains not to murder her husband, but to take all the property without interruption. The thieves then produced some cords (which they had stolen from Mr. Jeffs' garden), and tied Mr. and Mrs. Warrington's hands and feet. Their hands they tied fast behind their backs, and cautioned them to be silent as they valued their lives. They left Mr. and Mrs. Warrington in their bed-room for a few minutes, and proceeded up stairs to the servants' sleeping apartments, and there they bound two female servants (the only persons in the house beside Mr. and Mrs. W.) with cords, in the same manner in which they had previously bound the others. After they had bound them, the four robbers carried them down stairs to a vault which was under the house, and fastened them in that cold place, with scarcely any covering. The villains then returned to Mr. Warrington's bed-room, searched his clothes, and broke open his desks and drawers, and, in truth, ransacked the house completely. They took cash to the amount of about 30_l._, and jewels and plate of considerable value, with which they decamped. The servants had been confined for several hours in the vault, when one of them, after much exertion, released one of her hands from the cord, and forced her way through the door of the vault. After ascending the steps, she found another door fastened, and she had to break through that before she could assist her master and mistress, who were in the most deplorable state of agitation. She unloosed the cords which secured them, and having released her fellow-servant also, they alarmed Mr. Jeffs' family and the other neighbours. Mr. Warrington found that not only all his portable property of value was carried off, but that the villains had actually stolen a horse, value 80 guineas, from the stable, and had taken his phaeton from his chaise-house, and by these means had carried off their booty. Mr. Warrington sent information of the robbery to Mr. Cooke, constable of Kingston, who set off in pursuit of the robbers. He was able to trace the phaeton and horse and two of the robbers from the house of Mr. Warrington, by a very circuitous route, to Walton-bridge, and from thence through several by-roads to Knightsbridge.

On the same day Mr. Warrington also gave information of the robbery at Bow-street, and Ellis, Ruthven, and Bishop, were directed to institute an investigation with a view to the apprehension of the thieves.

Upon the arrival of the officers at the house of Mr. Warrington various minute circumstances transpired, which induced a strong belief in their minds that the robbery had not been committed by experienced thieves; and that it had been "put up," or sanctioned by some person in the house. The clumsy manner in which the boxes and drawers had been opened seemed to point to the first impression, and the undoubted circumstance of six buck-shot having been withdrawn from Mr. Warrington's pistol which had been lying on the mantelpiece during several days, led to the latter conclusion. Suspicion seemed to attach to one of the female servants, who had been familiarly accosted by her name, "Fanny," by one of the robbers, and who had been the first to secure her escape from the cords by which she had been confined, and she was taken into custody. After a few days' imprisonment, however, the officers declared themselves unable to produce any positive evidence against her, and she was discharged.

From this time the most anxious exertions were made by the police-officers to secure the robbers. Every means in their power was tried; but although they succeeded in tracing them by witnesses to London, where Mr. Warrington's carriage and horse were found, they were unable to discover who were the persons by whom the burglary had been perpetrated.

In the month of July 1829, however, the long-pending mystery was solved. A man named Barnett, a Jew, had been convicted of a burglary in the house of Mr. Colebatch, in Thames-street, for which he had been sentenced to transportation for life; but anxious to save himself from the infliction of this punishment, he tendered information as to the parties who had composed "The Moulsey Gang," as they were now called, upon condition of his liberty being restored to him. The proposition was at once accepted, and he immediately impeached Banks, and four other men named John Smith, William Johnson, James Taylor, and William Potts, _alias_ Emery. The officers instantly set about endeavouring to procure the apprehension of these persons, and Cragg, a resolute officer of Bow-street, was directed to proceed in search of Banks. This fellow was a notorious thief, and was suspected to have been concerned in many robberies which had recently been committed; but Cragg had heard that he had frequently declared his resolution not to be taken alive. The officer, however, was determined in his object, and attiring himself in the garb of a butcher, he proceeded in search of him. Many days elapsed before he could find him, but at length meeting with him, he rushed at him, and presenting a pistol at his head, called upon him to surrender himself a prisoner. Banks appeared astounded at this salutation and made no resistance, but exclaimed, "I am a dead man." On his person being searched, a loaded pistol was found in his pocket, and on his back was a coat, which was a part of the produce of a robbery in which he had been recently before concerned, in the house of Mr. Campion, at Waltham Cross.

The other prisoners were apprehended nearly at the same time; and Potts was proved to have pawned a pair of shoes which had also been stolen from Mr. Campion's. Upon their examination before the magistrates at Bow-street, Banks' participation in both burglaries was clearly proved, and he was committed for trial. Both Mr. and Mrs. Warrington identified him as one of the persons who had entered their house, but pointed him out as having acted with some degree of humanity, strongly protesting against the exercise of any cruelty by his companions.

Banks alone was committed for trial upon the charge of burglary at Mr. Warrington's, the evidence against the other prisoners not being sufficiently conclusive to warrant their being indicted, and was found guilty, and sentenced to death at the succeeding Surrey assizes.

After his conviction, he professed himself to be perfectly willing to meet his fate, as he knew nothing of a state hereafter, declaring that all he cared about being hanged was for the pain it would cause him. He refused to receive any consolation from the chaplain, and was perfectly unmoved up to the time of his being pinioned.

He was hanged at Horsemonger-lane jail on the 11th of January, 1830.

ROBERT EMOND.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

The crime which subjected this criminal to condign punishment was that of the murder of an aged widow and her daughter, to whom he was related by the ties of marriage.

Mr. Franks, at the time of the murders lately deceased, was gamekeeper to the late Lord Elcho; and when age, and consequently frailty, rendered him incompetent to the prompt discharge of his duties, his lordship made such arrangements as enabled his old and respected servant to subsist in an humble but comfortable independence. On the 26th of July, 1829, Mr. Franks was consigned to the grave, and he left the hapless subjects of this notice--a widow, nearly fifty, and a daughter of fifteen years of age--to lament his death.

On Sunday, the 25th of October, according to custom, they attended the Rev. Mr. Hogg's chapel, and, no doubt, they had very little suspicion that it was for the last time. The house in which they resided near Haddington was about one hundred yards from the village of Abbey, in East Lothian, and with the garden was enclosed by a wall above six feet in height. The village youth never once thought of stealing fruit from people so warmly beloved, and consequently the garden-door stood always open. On that night they were brutally murdered. His plans carefully matured, the murderer deliberately fastened the garden-door, so that the escape of the intended victims, and any attempts at resistance, were rendered exceedingly difficult. He then scaled the wall, and proceeded to the awful work of homicide. His first attempt to gain admittance was at a window in front of the house. He broke two panes of glass; but the inside shutters were too securely fastened to yield to his efforts. Baffled and disappointed, he had recourse to another window in the same room; and after breaking two panes of glass, and using great exertion, the keeper gave way, and the monster obtained admission. He passed deliberately through the room, through a sinuous passage, through the kitchen, and then burst into the bedroom of Mrs. Franks and her daughter. The unfortunate ladies had been alarmed by the noise the villain made in breaking into their sanctuary. The mother had time to throw her gown over a petticoat; but the daughter, a stranger to the crimes of the world, and naturally possessing a more tranquil mind, and being more soundly asleep, had barely time to clothe herself with the gown she had on at church, ere she was in the grasp of her ruthless murderer. Dread, desperation, and the potent instinct of self-preservation naturally incited a resolute resistance; but the well-prepared and determined murderer prevailed. In the vain and delusive hope of escape the wretched mother fled from the appalling scene of death, and ran to the garden-door, expecting to reach the village; but there she was stopped by the cool and fiendish deliberation of her destroyer. Having despatched the daughter, he followed the mother, seized her at the garden-door, and with one of her own table-knives, ended her life, by nearly severing the head from her body. He then threw the bleeding corpse into a hogsty, which was only ten yards distant; and the marks of the ruffian's gory hands were observable on the entry-door. The bloody tragedy being finished, the scarcely less important consideration next came--that of plunder. He coolly locked the kitchen-door inside, turned out the contents of the drawers, and ransacked all the repositories; indeed, so minute and persevering was the search, that a considerable breadth of plaster was torn from the roof of a room in the attic story, where there had previously been a small aperture, in expectation, no doubt, that money was concealed in that unusual place. The rings were torn from the ears of Mrs. Franks; three gold rings, it is said, were taken from her finger, which were carried off, along with a silver watch. Having completed his unhallowed undertaking, and secured all the plunder that suited his purpose, the ruffian retired, as he had entered, by the window.

Neither on the Monday nor Tuesday following was Mrs. Franks or her daughter observed; but this excited no surprise, as it was concluded by those by whom they were missed, that they were absent on a friendly visit to the sister of the former at North Berwick. On Wednesday morning, a woman requested a young man to make his way over the garden-wall, and ascertain if a pig that belonged to Mrs. Franks had any provision. He promptly obeyed; and on looking into the hogsty, was horrified by the sight of the widow's mangled remains. He gave an involuntary but vehement scream, and his employer, Mr. Dudgeon, a miller, and a number more, promptly repaired to the spot. The body was taken out, and, to their inexpressible horror, they discovered that the throat was cut from ear to ear. Alarming suspicions flashed across their minds; they instantly ran to the house, and having obtained an entrance, they discovered the daughter--pale, dead, lying amidst a quantity of blood, and the brain protruding from her skull.

Suspicions of the guilt of Emond from circumstances which became known to the authorities were at once excited; and efforts were made to secure his apprehension. He had resided for some time at North Berwick, and was married to that very sister of Mrs. Franks, whom it was supposed she had gone to visit; and repeated expressions of dislike on his part towards his sister-in-law, and of threatened revenge for her interference in his family quarrels, were deemed sufficient to justify the course which was taken. In the course of a few days he was apprehended; but it was not until the 8th of February 1830 that he was brought to trial. The investigation took place before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, and the wretched criminal was pronounced guilty amidst a tumultuous burst of execration, and was ordered for execution on the 17th of March.

Immediately after his trial the convict confessed that he had committed the dreadful crimes imputed to him, under the circumstances which we have narrated. He appeared, however, to view his murder of Mrs. Franks as an act which her previous conduct towards him justified; but when he alluded to the death of her daughter, he appeared struck with remorse and despair, exclaiming wildly, "Innocent blood calls for vengeance."

On the appointed day the prisoner underwent the punishment due to his crimes, at the end of Libberton's Wynd. On the Friday before his death he was visited by his wife, for the first time during his imprisonment. On being informed she was come, he exclaimed, "Oh, God, how can I meet her--how can I see her!" She refused to proceed farther than the cell door, and on seeing her husband, said, "Oh, Robert, Robert, you see what you have brought yourself to!" He used some soothing expressions, and going as far as his chains would permit, said, "Mary, will you not shake hands with me?" but she shrunk back, saying, "Oh, no, no; how can I touch you?" However, by the persuasion of the clergyman, she did shake hands with him. He then wished to impress on her, that he always loved her affectionately; but she replied, "Oh, Robert, ye ken your conduct didna look like that." They were beginning to recriminate, when it was thought best to finish the interview. She was again asked to shake hands at parting, but at first refused, exclaiming, "Oh, no, no--I cannot touch him;" but being advised to extend her hand, which he held firmly, she shuddered and shrieked out, "Oh that hand, that hand!" On being told that a Mrs. Cron was with his wife, he said, "I would to God that infernal woman had been in place of the girl (meaning Magdalene Franks). Were I as free as ever, I would be hanged this night, this instant, if I had her here, and had my revenge." The criminal accused this woman of fomenting differences between him and his wife.

At six o'clock in the morning of the day fixed for the execution, the Rev. Mr. Porteous, who had been unwearied in his attentions to the unhappy man, arrived and performed the religious exercises. About seven o'clock, he was pinioned in the usual form.

The morning was cloudy and drizzling; but at an early hour the crowd began to collect from all quarters, and a perfect stream of people passed up the High-street for nearly two hours. The street, windows, terraces, and chimney-tops, were densely peopled. Some hundreds of persons from Haddington, North Berwick, and the adjacent villages attended.

A few minutes past eight the culprit ascended the scaffold. His appearance elicited a huzza from the boys among the crowd, but no grown-up person joined in the unseemly and appalling shout. He was attended by his brother, who joined him with the reverend gentleman, in psalm-singing and prayer. The unhappy man remained firm and composed throughout, but changed colour frequently when the executioner proceeded to do his duty. He then shook hands with his brother, and the official attendants said he was now ready, and bade them all farewell. After a few moments in private prayer, the signal was dropped, and the platform instantly fell. His struggles were unusually long and violent, and it was apparently four or five minutes before the vital spark had fled. Emond was a man of short stature, with ill-proportioned features, and had, on the whole, a very unprepossessing look. After hanging the usual time, the body was lowered down into the shell, and conveyed to the Lock-up House, whence it was afterwards taken to the College for public dissection.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM MOIR.

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.