The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-24 00:00:00

THE BURNHAM MURDERERS.

The following particulars of the last moments _of the
wretched women who were executed on Monday week are
derived from an authentic source. The culprits made a
full confession of their crimes, and requested that it might
be published to the world in such manner as might best
atone for the injuries they had done to society by operating.
as a weaning to others. Billing was a woman of no ordi-
nary endowments, and had formerly been a regular attend.
ant on her church, and a frequenter of the sacrament—but
in an evil hour she admitted into her bosom a guilty passion
for the profligate husband of a neighbour ; and to this un-
lawful attachment she expressly attributed all her crimes.
Her wicked paramour had enticed. her from her church,
and had even made a pretence of his religion as a means
of withdrawing her from the company of her husband. He
promised her marriage if,the sacred ties which bound them
both to others should be dissolved. It was this promise
that put her upon devising, with the assistance of Frarey,
the destruction of her rival. She confessed that she mixed
arsenic in the gravy, the flour, and the sugar, in Taylor's
house, and that Frarey finished the dreadful tragedy by
mixing still more in the gruel which she prepared. She
also confessed that they had agreed to remove her (Bil-
ling's) husband by the same means. Frarey confessed that
she attempted to poison her husband before she became ac-
quainted with Billing—that it was a little before Mary
Wright was taken up for a similar offence, and that the inves-
tigation of that transaction alarmed and deterred her from
repeating the attempt till last February. .On the 19th of
that month, Billing-. mixed arsenic with pills which Frarey's
husband had to take, and Frarey gave him two of them,
which made him very ill. They afterwards adrufigstered
to him four doses of the same poison in tea and porter.
Thee infatuated and abandoned women were in the habit
of consulting reputed witches, in the expectation that these
hags would, by their incantations, remove those whom they
afterwards took more effectual means to destroy. Two of
these mischievous pretenders to supernatural agency reside
at Wells, one at Burnham, and one at Sall. Frarey con-
fessed her profligacy, and even named some of the partners
of her guilt. A Mr. Gridley having been mentioned
in an examination of Billing, as having been impro-
perly acquainted with Frarey, it is right to state that the
latter solemnly declared that she never had any criminal
intercourse with Mr. Gridley, although she had boasted of
such intercourse to Billing. After the culprits' condemna-
tion, the whole of their time was employed in confession,
supplication, and prayer. It was impossible for any crimi-
nals to more fully acknowledge and bewail the enormity of
their offences. Hannah Shorten, the witness who was ex-
amined on the late trial for- murder, is•the same fortune-
teller whom Mary Wright applied to to know her fortune
previous to her destruction of her husband.

A curious custom prevails at Amsterdam, of ob-
serving what is called the Ilartjesdag (the day of love.) On
that day, after an ancient custom, the origin of which nobody
well knows, the whole population crowds in a mast to the
Haarlem-gate. Nothing extraordinary is done, nor to be seen
there, excepting the prodigious crowds filling and surrounding
the beer and gin-houses, or the booths erected for selling the
bad beer and still worse spirits, kept in reserve for the occa-
sion. Yet no twin of the working classes will attend to his cal-
ling on- that day, nor be satisfid unless he has reached the
Haarlem-gate. The inducement to see the innumerable mul-
titudes thus moving on attracts also the superior classes, and
you may see the windows of all the principal streets in the line
leading to the spot filled with ladies and gentlemen, visiting
for that very purpose some one of their friends or acquaintances
dwelling in that part of the town. This happened on the 17th
of the present month, exactly as it happens every year, and
without the least symptom of any disturbances, though it was
feared advantage would be taken of the occasion to excite
disorders.

THE WEATHER.—From the accounts obtained
from the guards of the mails who came up on Saturday and
yesterday morning, there appears good ground for hoping that
the desired change of weather has commenced, and that re-
freshing showers arc extending all over the country. The
change seems to have commenced on Friday afternoon. On
Friday night at Hinkley, the Leicester mail first came upon
the rain which was there and onward, pouring down copiously.
At Grantham, in Lincolnshire, heavy rain had commenced in
the afternoon. The Holyhead mail came up with the genial
shower at Bilston, again at Birmingham and at Wcedon, and
at the intermediate places found traces of a recent heavy rain.
The Dover mail first reached the rain near Canterbury. At
Manchester and around short but heavy successions of showers
had occurred. At Tamworth a great deal of rain had fallen.
The Edinburgh, the Exeter, the Stroud, the Ludlow, and
other of the mails, bore marks -on the splashing boards and
the wheels of the miry state of the roads they had in parts
•parsed along. The storm was felt refreshingly at Hastings,
at Brighton. Gloucester; Worcester, and Blenheim. Nearer
London the rain was quite general. The mail-guards who
came up yesterday morning speak of still further showers of a
most gladdening kind.