The Execution of Fred. Geo. Manning, and Maria, His Wife. Maria, His Wife
This morning the last act in the tragedy of the Mannings’ was performed on the roof of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, in the presence of an immense assemblage.
The gardens in front of the houses opposite the prison, and from which the best view could be obtained, commanded high prices, and were occupied by persons of apparent respectability, and amongst them were many well-dressed females.
A few minutes before the clock struck nine, the bell of the prison chapel was heard to give forth the fatal toll, and those who had collected in the vicinity of the scaffold were observed to uncover, which was taken up by the populace below as a signal to do the same, and to call for silence. Immediately the roar of voices which had previously prevailed became hushed and still, and the mournful cavalcade ascended the steps of the scaffold,—Calcraft first, then the Chaplain, followed by the wretched man Manning, who ascended the stairs with a firm step, but appeared pale and emaciated. He was dressed in deep black, with a long frock-coat. The rope having been adjusted and the cap drawn over his face, Mrs. Manning, the female partner in his crime was brought up. She was dressed in black satin, tightly bound round the waist, with a long white collar fastened round her neck. On advancing up on the drop, and observing her husband at her side, as if acting upon the sudden impulse of the moment, she seized his right hand and shook it for several minutes. The hangman then hurriedly completed his deadly preparations, the next minute the slam of the drop was heard, and the dread sentence of the law had been accomplished. Manning gave a few convulsive jerks, and all was over, but his wife had a long struggle with death, and it was some moments before the immortal spirit had quitted her body for ever.
The Bermondsey Tragedy. By J. Clarke
Come all you good people of every degree,
I pray you give attention and listen to me,
’Twas in the county of Somersetshire where I was bred and born,
And my wife she is a foreigner,—with her must die in scorn.
For the murder of O’Connor we are condemned to die;
My wife she said I’m innocent of that sad tragedy,
But ’twas she who shot O’Connor and swore she would shoot me,
Unless I would assist her to bury his body.
Four months before his murder his doom was ready sealed,
His grave made ready under ground his body to receive,
He little thought his death so near when to the house he came,
But his death was plann’d all by our hands his money to obtain.
For murder and plunder they both were fully bent,
They shot him with a pistol, and to his lodgings went,
They got his cash and jewels and quickly did repair,
To hide the guilt for the blood they’d spilt—oh! what a wretched pair.
At the Old Bailey, London, the trial it came on,
They were arraigned before the judge and English jurymen,
The counsel for the prisoners they nobly did defend,
And tried to prove their innocence, this point they did contend.
After the trial, Mrs Manning said,
I do protest I’m innocent and been unfairly tried,
Though you’ve pronounced me guilty, and doom’d me to be hung,
More like a dog than Christian, to a being thus undone.
With rage and desperation the keepers by them stood,
And to their gloomy prison they quickly were removed,
The coolness and courage which they before displayed,
Had now forsook them for a time, and they look’d quite dismay’d.
This wicked woman taken was unto Horsemonger Gaol,
Her husband followed after, and very soon did feel
Contrition for his guilty deeds, and to his wife he wrote,
Begging of her to think how soon she was to meet her fate.
The end of poor O’Connor will long in memory reign,
And shew the vice and folly which followed in its train.
Oh! may it thus a warning prove to shun bad company,
Never like the Mannings commit such a tragedy.
Now in their gloomy prisons bound down in irons strong,
Awaiting for the fatal morn when they will meet their doom,
For the murder of O’Connor—oh! what a horrid crime,
Now they are both cut off in the height of their prime.
Stewart, Printer, Botchergate, Carlisle.