The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-30 00:00:00

EXECUTION OP A WOMAN AT

DUMFRIES.

(From • Supplement to the Carlisle Examiner.)
This (Tuaday) morning, at twenty minutes pant
8 o'clock, Mary rummy was executed in front of Dumfries
Gaol, for the murder of Ann Hannah, at Carpshed, in
Kirkcudbright, on the 13th of January lad.
A lovelier spring morning never broke on Carlisle : the
sun shone brilliantly, the bright blue of the sky was un-
clouded in its serenity, and the air had all the cleaner of
• keen frost, without being in the least cold ; and so the
prospect continued for many a mile. But so soon as
the train had crossed the border, the horizon be-
came overcast by • sombre curtain ; a mist seemed
Ito fall, and its density appeared to increase every
minute, until, on arriving at Dumfries, the very
chimneys and housetops were shrouded in an impenetrable
fog. Proceeding through the streets, all was deserted;
no signs of life or activity; no noise, no motion. But as we
gain the heart of the town, • perpetual throng from many
parts keeps pouring in one unvarying direction, and
mingling itself with at least half • dozen great crowds
posted in as many places which command • view of the
scaffold. The black machine has been borrowed from
Edinburgh, and is raised up high behind a low wall oa
that side of the gaol which fronts both into Buccleuch.
I street and David-street. The crowds are separated ono
from another by stout barricades, to prevent, we sup.
posq, too great an influx in one place. Burt the authorities
were somewhat disappointed in their expatations, for the
crowd was not so great as they had looked for—indeed, we
question whether it at any time exceeded 5,000 or 6,600
persons. Mingling in its midst, we find that all its varied
tanks, ages, and sexes are possessed by • common feeling of
awe and silent sorrow, lying too deep for verbal expression.
These are not the callous "canny Scotchmen," abase
stolidity has beoome • proverb, but men moved by an
emotion lie acute that it constrains them to be
"dent. They seem to converse with each other in
audible sighs, the loudest sound to be heard being
a not unfrequent woman's sob. Though this is by no
means the largest crowd we have seen, it certainly is the
quietest, and if the people on different sides of the same
barricade did not know the fact before, they assuredly
cannot hear anything to acquaint them with each other's
near vicinity. To perform the easy labour of keeping the
assemblage in order, 200 special constables were sworn in ;
large numbers of policemen were brought from the neigh-
bouring stewartry, and the staff of the Dumfriesshire police
were present, under the command of Captain Noel. The
roll was called over in the Court-house, prayers were
offered up by the Rev. A. Grey, and the specials dismissed
to their duty, after • few words from Provost Gordon. It
is now eight o'clock ; the crowd is increasing in bulk and in
anxiety ; and while it is watching for the appearance of the
victim and her executioners let us enter the prison, for at
Dumfries the gaol doors fly open to reporters.
From what we learned in the gaol, the last days of the
miserable woman were distressing in the extreme. Oo
Saturday and Sunday night. she took little or no sleep.
She kept buoying herself up with the hope that the means
being used to procure a reprieveipt of the message would be
from the
successful ; but
on Saturday, after the rece
Under-Sr cretary of State, the Rev. Mr. Cowan', the chap-
lain of the prisoo, visited her, and told her that she meat
trust no longer to illusive hopes, but prepare, to meet her
appointed doom. On hearing this dread intelligence, she be
came fearfully, agitated ; her whole form was convulsed
with terror, she sobbed frantically, and gave herself up to the
utmost grief. Br and by she became more calm ; but her phy-
sical strength was ever after almost entirely prostrated. She
has had three interviews with her husband—the last yester-
day, when she took • farewell embrace of all her family.
The parting of mother and children was extremely heart-
rending ; but she showed little emotion towards her has-
band,—thus going to countenance the report that they lived
together on anything but good terms ; in fact, be was her
senior by 15 years. On Monday, at dinner time, she rid,
" This will be ray last food ;" and true to her words, she
took no more. At night, about seven o'clock, she fell into
KO hysterical fit, in which she remained for some time
while in this condition the name of "Jesus" was frequently
heard to escape her lips. About nine o'clock she took
another fit of the same kind, lasting for about an hour ; and
on recovering consciousness, she lay down on her pallet, and
slept soundly during the rest of the night.
Over night, while the poor woman slumbered, the scaffold,
' the dread machioery of which bad been previously fixed,
was hoisted above the wall of the gaol courtyard, and no
effort seemed to have been made to screen the apparatus
from the public view. By half-put 6 o'clock all within the
'prison was active. The chaplain was early with the culprit,
but she seemed to be incapable of listening to his appeals or
profiting by his instructions, for her mind was continually
wandenog, and she gave frequent expression to incoherent
ejaculations. By eight o'clock Giusti, with two ass=
enters the cell, and the body of the culprit is demanded
in doe form by the provost. Then she is pinioned,
at the same time sobbing and mousing, without
pause. Then the sad procession begin", the culprit being
borne along by the hangman's assistants, and yielding
herself to them like a child. There is no solemn prison
bell, no burial service read. Turning en angle of the prison,
she catches • first glance of the scaffold, and • shiver shoots
through her entire frame ; he gazes wildly at the TOM
chine, exclaiming, " Oh, let me rest • minute !" This
rogust was of course granted. Then the ascent of the
scaffold begins, the unhappy woman being lifted up step by
step by her assistance, and calling out in frantic mote,
over and over again, " Oh, my pair wean'!"
Let us return now to the crowd outside, which waits es
patiently the appearance of the procession above the wall.
The execution has to take place some time between 8 and
10 o'clock, so they set themselves to watch in quiet expects.
lion. But at a quarter past 8, two shining silkhats are
seen over the parapet, then two shoulders. They are
coming! What a horror-laden. bum! Between her
two assistants the miserable woman is borne. She wears a
white mip, with capacious frill, • small green tartan shawl,
and a drab gown. She is so emaciated, so pale, so worn
with her sufferings, that instead of looking like a Irwin
of twenty-seven years, she looks far more like an old woman
of seventy. Her cheeks are sunk in ; her head is beet
down, though occasionally she rears it suddenly up to take
• wild survey of the crowd below. Behind her, with a coil
of new rope in his hand, comes that burly form, those re•
pulsive feature', that bushy white beard, and that black
velvet skull cap, which the people of Carlisle might have
seen a few weeks since operating in a similar crisis on their
own gaol walls. Calcraft takes her cap off, and substitutes
one that he carries in his pocket, which he draws over her
face, she sobbing and talking wildly all the time. The rope
is then fixed round her neck ; but instead of having •
crook at the other end of it so as to link to the bum above,
the hangmen has to call for • pair of steps, shish he
ascends, and thus ties the rope to the beam,—see
operation which takes up fully two minutes, the doomed
woman standing shivering between her two supporters. But
when this is done the rest is soon told. The culprit with
her latest breath adheres to her previous confemion. Calereft
and his men lift her upon the narrow trap-door, the bolt is
drawn, and—all is over! With an almost imperceptible
twitch of her body, and • slight elevation of her hand', Maly
Timney—woman, wife, and mother, expiates her crime with
an awful penalty, and has done with human laws and
human vengeance! At three minutes to 9 her body was
cut down, and in the afternoon it was buried within the
gaol precincts.
1 Calcraft was hooted and jostled at the stational he left
at 11.15 a.m. The old gentleman had a 11100ining Win.
flower in his black cwt breast, and took all the hissing is
of good Part.