Execution at Newgate of William Cogan, William Cogan, For the Barbarous and Cruel Murder of His Own Wife
The execution of William Cogan for the murder of his wife took place this (Monday) morning at Newgate. The circumstances under which the crime was committed will be fresh in the recollection of the public. The prisoner and his wife were in the habit of getting drunk, and while in that state quarrels took place between them. They had been to a funeral on the day the occurrence took place, and they both drank freely, and when they got home they quarrelled. About two o’clock in the morning he rushed into the street with his throat cut. The prisoner endeavoured to make it appear that his wife had first cut his throat and then destroyed herself. Ever since his condemnation the culprit has continued to assert his innocence, and on Friday last, when he parted for the last time with his father and his sisters, he again positively declared he was innocent. The condemned man slept soundly his last night. On the fatal morning the executioner, Calcraft, was admitted into the cell a few minutes before eight o’clock, and the culprit the moment he entered appeared to recognise him, and rose from his seat and submitted to the operation of being pinioned with the utmost composure; and just as the clock of St. Sepulchre’s church chimed the hour the mournful procession moved towards the scaffold. The culprit was then placed under the fatal beam and the rope was adjusted, and after the executioner had retired he prayed most earnestly with the Ordinary for a short time, and almost the last words he uttered were a prayer to God to forgive him. The drop fell almost at the same moment, and the wretched man, after one or two convulsive struggles, ceased to exist. After hanging an hour, according to the terms of the sentence, the body was cut down and placed in a shell and removed to the interior of the prison.
The crowd that was assembled to witness the execution, was very great. During the whole of Sunday afternoon the Old Bailey was thronged, and crowds of persons had assembled so late as twelve o’clock at night, some of whom remained until the period of the execution. The officials of the prison stated that it was one of the noisiest and most disorderly crowds they ever remember to have seen upon a similar occasion. The moment the wretched man made his appearance on the scaffold there was a general cry of “hats off,” and the upturned faces of the thousands of spectators presented a most extraordinary spectacle. The culprit was twenty-six years old, and he was apparently a strong muscular man.
A Copy of Verses
Come, all you feeling Christians,
Give ear, I pray, to me;
It’s of a dreadful tragedy—
Explained it shall be.
In London town it happened,
As I can truly say,
William Cogan, the barbarous murderer,
With a razor his wife did slay.
CHORUS.
Kind friends, now a warning take—
Poor William’s life is now at stake.
Oh! drink—thou cursed beverage—
What acts thou prompts us to do;
To make me kill my loved wife,
Just as a fiend would do!
I once had love, as other men,
But on my heart a brand;
Entangled with loose company,
Committed now I stand.
Heart-rending ’tis to know it,
My orphan’s left behind,
That had a fondling mother,
Who unto them was kind:
But now she’s dead and buried,
Gone to that rest above,
Where all is joy and happiness—
Blest with that sacred love.
Oh, cold and stormy was that night,
And fast the snow did drop,
When Mary Ann was forced to fly
All from her father’s cot.
Though thinly clad, with her chemise on,
Her shawl upon her swung,
“My God! my God!” she thus did cry,
As thus her hands she wrung.
Exposed to wind and weather,
In a passage there she stood;
Her limbs were shivering with the cold,
And freezing was her blood;
But then she dare not enter
Where her demon father lay,
Fearful lest, as her mother,
She might become his prey.
So now, kind friends, take warning,—
A lesson let this be
Unto those drunken fathers
Who think of nought but “spree;”
And pray may God have mercy,
And show it to him soon;
And prepare this wicked person
To meet his awful doom.
Taylor, Printer, London.