The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-11-13 00:00:00

MANNING TO HIS WIFE

"I address you as a fellow-sinner and a fellow-sufferer, and not
as my wife, since the contract must be considered as cancelled,
extending as it does only until death and not beyond it, and
both of us standing as we do on the brink of eternity. We may
already consider ourselves as cut off from the world. The con-
sciousness of this truth does not, however, prevent me from
expressing my earnest solicitude for the happiness of your soul
as well as my own. I do, therefore, beseech and implore you
to be truthful in all you utter, and that you may not be tempted
to yield to any evil suggestions of the enemy of our souls' wel-
fare to question for an instant the solemn truth that we shall
shortly appear before our God in judgment—that His eye is
upon us now. The time, though not, so far as I can learn, pre-
cisely fixed when we are to be launched into eternity, but we
may be quite sure and certain that it is close at hand. And
now, by all kindly feelings we have at any time entertained
towards each other, I earnestly pray that you will look to God
for the pardon you need, and of which I feel my own need also,
believe me, through the merits of a crucified Redeemer, being
satisfied that his all sufficient atonement and intercession can-
not benefit us unless we repent and give proofs of that repent-
ance. Believe me. I upbraid you not, but trust that you will
be assured that I forgive every one, as I pray and hope to be
forgiven by God; and now I close, as my feelings are too
acute to write more. May the Lord be merciful, and may He
be so consistent with His promises. Let us be truthful and
sincere in all we say and do. This is the last letter you will
ever receive from me. Now let me beg of you to grant me an
interview this day if possible. I have a great wish to have one
before 1 depart this world

"F. G. MANNING."

" Written on the 29th of October, IE4, in the condemned
cell, Horsemonger-lane GaoI.—FREDERICK G. NIANNINO."

MARIA MANNINO TO HER HUSBAND.
"I address you as my husband. I am far away from my
happy native land on account of this contract and this land
which you have made to me a captivity. The peace and well-
being of society, the laws of truth, which you have broken,
have alike demanded my banishment from the country which
gave me birth. But I am not going away from God; He is
everywhere alike present, and at all times gracious to those
that seek His mercy and His favour. What has brought me
into this eternal consequence ? If you live and die untorgiven
by God, though those sins will be punished by the laws of man,
they are still all registered by the only God. All that I have to
say is this—l never made any statement of any kind to injure
or condemn you in this matter, that you well know, from first
to last. I am here condemned only by your statement. If it
had proved beneficial to you, I should have been satisfied.
With all your doings and the great expense of your learned
counsellors, that did not benefit you, but plunged me unmerci-
fully with you to this horrid fate. All I have to beg of you
now is to state facts, as you know that I was not in the house
when O'Connor met with his death ; but I was gone to see for
him, and during that time he called in my absence, and was
shot by that young man from Guernsey who was with you in
the back parlour smoking; but that I did not know anything
about it until the Saturday, and that it was all settled in the
kitchen. I was in hopes that you would have brought that
young man forward at the trial, but that you did not do, but
only blame me, as you did, from the first day. But, my dear,
as you now know that you cannot save yourselt, I implore of
you to state the facts which are truth, and endeavour to save
your wife. By so doing it would be satisfaction to your own
heart and soul to know that you are doing right and good
towards me before von depart from this world. The Lord God
will forgive you and comfort you. Believe me, I upbraid you
not, but trust you will he assured that I forgive you, and every
one, as I pray and hope I may be forgiven ty God. If you
comply with this true statement, I shall be happy to see you
until the last day. My hope and life is in your hands. You
can, if you will, saveme. Remember you cannot answer for
our sins or transgressions when all our secret sins shall be set
in the light of His countenance, and when the wicked who
carelessly lived and miserably died without the fear or favour
of God shall doubtless perish everlastingly. In that day a
craven conscience shall proclaim a tailing heart, and an angry
judge shall point to the wicked.
411.1nizahly look to thee, 0 Lord. Thou halt met forth as a

propitiation for the remission of sins that are past through
Thy forbearance, I cannot write any longer. God bless you,
and have mercy on us both. M. MANNING."
" Received by G. F. Manning on the 30th of October, 1849."

The following statement we have received is in sub-
stance the confession made by M.nning at the interviews
which he has had with his relatives since sentence of death
was pronounced upon him :—He declared most solemnly
that a month before the actual commission of the crime
his wife spoke to him of her intention to murder O'Con-
nor, in order that she might become possessed of the large
amount of money which she knew he had. He endea-
voured to turn her thoughts away from the commission of
such a deed, saying that she would be hung for it. She,
however, said that she was determined to shoot him, and
that he must help her to bury him in the kitchen. About
this period she purchased a dozen bottles of brandy, and
though at other times, and in the circumstances they were
then living, she would have been chary of making such a
purchase, she kept him fully supplied with the liquor, so
that, to use his own words, " during the whole of this
time I was not in my right senses." He first thought of
giving information of his wife's intention to the police,
but fear for his wife, who, he said, had great mastery over
him, or a belief that she would not carry out her inten-
tions, restrained him from saying anything about the
matter : but he declares he repeatedly told her that he
would have nothing to do with it. Nearly about this pe-
riod O'Connor was invited to stay a short time with some
friends at Boulogne, and she was to meet him there. She
said if the opportunity did not present itself of doing away
with him at Minver-place, that she would do so when
they were together at Boulogne, adding that it would
never be found out. With the view of accomplishing her
purpose, she purchased a small pair of pistols at the shop
of Mr. Blanch, a gunmaker, in Gracechurch-street, who.
at her request instructed her how to load them. In order
to be the better prepared for the dispasal of the body, and
to destroy any traces of guilt, she directed him to purchase
the crowbar to raise the stones in the back kitchen, and
the lime to burn the body. Manning declares also that
the hole in which the body was found was dug by Mrs.
Manning with the dust shovel produced at the trial, a fort-
night before the murder, and that she carried the earth
out by pailfuls, and mixed it with tle ashes in the dust-
bin. It was in June, he says, that the conversation took
place with respect to what would make a person put his
name to a check for £5OO. O'Connor at the time was
supposed to be a teetotaller, and Massey, Manning says,
suggested that morphia, which he described as a white
powder, if put into his tea, would so stupify him as to ren-
der him a ready instrument in their hands. It was, how-
ever, never given to him. It may be remarked that Man-
ning was then in needy circumstances. Manning's atten-
tion was called to the state of O'Connor on the night when
Mrs. Manning bathed his temples with eau de Cologne, in
order to ascertain if he had been drugged ; but he declared
that nothing was given to him, and that he was under the
influence of brandy, which he had taken from fear of the
cholera.

On the night of the murder, he says O'Connor called at
Miever-place, and after exchanging a few words with Mrs.
Manning went away. In half an hour he came back, his
demeanor evincing irresolution whether to stop or not,
thus accounting for his being seen on London-bridge
about five o'clock going towards the city. He must,
therefore, immediately have changed his mind and gone
to Minver-place. Mrs. Manning pressed him to stay, and
he walked into the parlour and sat down. Immediately
afterwards, she said to him, " Come down stairs and wash
your hands before dinner ;" to which O'Connor replied,
" No, I don't care about it to-night." " Oh," she said,
" you had better do so, as Miss Massey (who Manning
says she knew was not in town at the time) is coming, and
you know she is a very particular lady, and you should
show yourself off to the best advantage." He says this
was a mere trick to get him to go down stairs. He further
says he did not think so at the time, as he had no idea
that in the evening she was about to perpetrate the crime
of murder. He asseverates this most solemnly. O'Connor
did go down stairs into the back kitchen, Mrs. Manning
following closely after him. At this time, Manning was
up-stairs, in the front room, dressing. In a few minutes
his wife came up-stairs and exclaimed, " I have done it—
he is dead enough." Manning says he was dreadfully
frightened, and told her " she was a dead woman, and
would be hung for the murder." She got into a passion
with him. and said he was " a d—d coward ;" and point-
ing a pistol at him, which he says was loaded, exclaimed
in a threatening manner, " If you don't come down and
see him, I will serve you the same." He asked her how
she did it, and what O'Connor said ? and, after drinking
a glass of neat brandy, she explained that when her victim
got to the bottom of the stairs, he said, " What ! hav'nt
you got this drain finished yet ?" The next moment she
said she pressed the muzzle of the pistol close to the back
of his head, and shot him dead. We may remark that
this will account in some measure for the report of the
pistol not being heard by Manning himself, nor by the
neighbours. After some hesitation, and overpowered by
her menaces, he did go down, and he says, he was .eorri-
fied to find O'Connor lying on his face, partially in a
stooping posture, his head hanging into the grave which
had been prepared for him, and his hands up to the sides
of his head. Manning, when explaining this to his
brother and sister, to the governor of the prison, and the
chaplain, went down on his knees in the cell, in order the
better to illustrate the position of the unhappy man. This
was ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the com-
mission of the murder. Mrs. Manning turned over the
body, and struck him on the head three or four times
with the crowbar, exclaiming, " You d—d old villain,
you will never deceive me or any one else any more."
Manning then says he ran up-stairs; he was followed
shortly afterwards by his wife, who showed him the keys
she had taken from the body. She then took off her
gown,—the one produced at the trial,—and which was
proved to have been stained with blood, and washed her-
self, her hands being smeared with blood. She then went
out, saying that she would be back directly. Not liking
to remain in the house he went into the yard, and sat on
the wall and smoked a pipe, and had a chat with the
neighbours. He had told her that he would not stay in
the house, but she persuaded him to do so. When she
came back, having been at O'Connor's lodgings, she had
some scrip, some of which she burnt, finding it useless ;
the rest she kept. Manning's brother asked him at one
of the interviews what had been done with the clothes
and the crowbar; and he said that the clothes were burnt,
and that she must have taken the crowbar with her, and,
he supposed, dropped it at one of the railway stations.
The next day she pledged two gold watches belonging to
O'Connor, but he could not tell where. On the Monday
after the murder, when he came home, she told him that
two persons, whom she believed to be officers in private
clothes, had called and inquired for O'Connor. These
persons, it will be recollected, were Mr. Welch and Mr.
Flynn, who stated in their evidence, that she trembled
and looked so pale that they asked her if she was ill.
Manning told his wife, who was extremely frightened at
these inquiries, that she had evidently been found out,
and that she would be hung. She then fainted, but
Manning gave her some brandy, which soon restored her.
Afterwards she said she would not stop any longer, that
she would go to America, and if she was discovered she
would stick out till the eleventh hour. After some delay
she said, " Now, Freddy, you go to Bainbridge's, and
endeavour to sell the furniture. See what arrangements
you can make. Don't be in a hurry, but stop and smoke
your pipe. I'll be there in a couple of hours." He did so,
bat as she did not come he went to the house and found
her gone. Being almost penniless, he pawned the pistols
at a pawnbroker's in Bermondsey-street. and afterwards
sold the furniture and went away to Jersey. She got all
the money from him which he obtained at the bank. He
declared he knew nothing about the Great Western Rail-
way robberies, but implicated Poole and others. He said,
Mrs. Manning, who no doubt was in Poole's confidence,
knew something about them.

At the conclusion of his last interview with his brother
and sister, he said when they were leaving, " Mr. Keene,
I have to ask you one great favour—that you will not, for
the sake of my family, allow any one to take a cast of my
head, to be exhibited at Madame Tussaud's.
Mr. Keene assured the unfortunate prisoner, and also
his brother and sister, that if he could prevent this being
done he would do so.

Manning reiterated the assertion that, so help him God,
he had never injured a hair of O'Connor's head, adding,
that the statement as given above, was true in every
respect; and that if he were executed the life of an in-
nocent man would be taken. All the persons present. at
the request of Manning, knelt down and engaged in
prayer. _ _ .

At four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the convict's
brother, Edmund Manning, had an interview to take his
final leave of the wretched man. He was introduced to
the condemned cell by the chaplain and Mr. Keene, the
governor. On observing his brother enter, the convict
rose, and advancing towards him, said, " How do you
do, Edmund ? I am glad to see you." In reply to his
brother's inquiries he said that he felt perfectly happy
and resigned to his fate. He added that he slept well,
and was not at all disturbed during the night, in proof of
which he appealed to the turnkeys in attendance upon
him. He asked his brother if he had seen Mr. Binns,
and whether be was aware of the unfavourable result
which had attended the applications made in his favour to
the Home Secretary. He then told his brother that he
had written another letter to his wife, soliciting an inter-
view •, but he feared she was as hardened as ever, and
would not grant it.
Referring to the subject of the murder, he produced a
pencil sketch of the back kitchen, showing the position of
O'Connor's body when, as he alleges, he first saw it.
He took especial care to explain this sketch to his brother,
and evinced great anxiety to satisfy him that he was not a
participator in the actual murder. After some other con-
versation on general matters, he requested his brother to
give his love and last blessing to his relatives, especially
the sister who visited him on Tuesday, after whom he in-
quired most particularly. He also desired his respects to
his former master, Mr. Reeves, a coach-builder, of Taun-
ton, and requested that his best thanks should be given
to that gentleman for all his kindness to him when a boy.
His brother being about to leave, Manning requested Mr.
Row to offer up a prayer before they parted, which the
reverend chaplain did in a very impressive manner; all
present kneeling and joining in this act of devotion.
After the chaplain had concluded the prayer, his brother
asked him if he should come and see him again. Man-
ning replied that he thought it would be no use for him
to do so ; in fact, he would rather that he did not. The
final separation then took place ; the convict remarking to
his brother that he was only going a short time before
him, and hoped he should meet him in another and a
better world.
In the course of the afternoon the visiting justices con-
nected with the gaol applied to the Commissioners of

Police for four or five lniiidred constables to assist in pre-

venting an unnecessary crowd round the gaol on the
morning of execution. Strong barricades have been
erected by the authorities; the visiting justices being
afraid that unless such precautions are used, the loss of
life may be great, as many thousands are likely to be pre.
sent to witness the execution of the Mannings. During
Saturday, Mr. Keene received direct orders from the
Secretary of State that no person be admitted within the
walls of the prison on Sunday, and the morning of execu.

Nov. 13, 1841•

the
tion, excepting ministers of the Established Church 'sob
visiting justices, the authorities of the gaol, and sad
police constables as may be required to assist the MI
rities.
Taunton had interviews with both prisoners. 111 of
On Friday afternoon a Roman Catholic priest frond
known them whilst living at that place, and
Mrs. Manning's stubborn conduct, he felt an wallop
see her, and endeavour to soften her heart. She P 0 her
attention to his remarks, and was rather roughe_,ds
manner towards him. The rev. gentleman aft r7llii,
visited the male convict, who seemed pleased to see"
but refused any religious consolation at his hands. ri4
On Monday last the female conduct drew up a me the
to the Queen imploring her Majesty to save her from ./5
scaffold, and reiterated her innocence of O'Coml°:ed
death. This memorial she enclosed in a letter, addre;os
to the Duchess of Sutherland, in which her hearing to
asked to lay it before the Queen. The letter was
posted it it appears, but being unpaid, was rejected on P_,
sentation at Stafford-house, and was opened in due col;
at the Dead Letter-office, in St. Martin's-le-Grand° 00
wretched woman, impatient of a reply, had written.
0.
Friday last to Sir George Grey requesting his intercess,Vol
The whole space in front of Horsemonger-lane u 0
has for the last two days been crowded with people driecrel
thither to view the scene of the approaching 8 idol
execution, and probably that each persln might decjid
beforehand upon the position which he or she st°olse
occupy (this) Tuesday morning. Nor are the lalrnithe
numbers of persons thus collected the only proofs °`
extraordinary curiosity which the fate of the eond.„ewnrral
murderers, and the desire to witness their last '',-,00(1
agony, excite. All the windows in the neighbourcett
whence a view of the execution can be obtained hale,"eo.
grace dull

let at prices of one guinea to two guineas for eau' --ing
The house tops will also be occupied by spectators, Ilheir
exorbitantly for the unenviable privilege of taking, roe.
stand there ; and every patch of enclosed groUnd w r
glimpse of the drop can be had will realise to its own_eof
good round sum. The demand for accommodation isthe
significantly illustrated by an application made bYTbs
Rev. Mr. Rowe, the chaplain, to the magistrates. the
rev. gentleman said that nearly all the inhabitants in to
neighbourhood were erecting scaffoldings to accomm°,, of
persons anxious to witness the executions. Ilan pots
them were so flimsy that he was ire serious aeel ;ere
would occur. The magistrates said that as they
erected on private property they could not interfere.of
On Saturday afternoon Mr. Adams, the pawnbroker'de,
Bermondsey, attended at Soutawark Police-court,-Otng
mand the pistols used by Mrs. Manning, in sb°°,.io. of
O'Connor. He contended that there had been noyite
that they were theinstruments used on theoccasion, an" plep
they were not stolen, and were received by him in B„;.iat
ful manner. The magistrates said that the male T-80
had confessed that the pistol was that actually used,
jt
as it was the instrument used in committing a er'sl;"; te
belonged to the crown, but the applicant could aPP"

the treasury, which he said he wo'uld do. the
On Sunday morning the Rev. W. S. Rowe, .A."—" top
chaplain of Horsemonger-lane gaol, preached the Ger-sop,
to the condemned convicts in the chapel of the Pri,,o.
Shortly before ten o'clock the whole of the prisoners'''o,
fined in the gaol, accompanied by the officials, were as?ed
bled at the chapel. The prisoner Manning ocelTle he
seat in the enclosed gallery on the left of the PulPln.it
wore the same dress as he appeared in at the Old
on the day of his conviction. The female culprit info
pied a pew in the centre aisle, immediately faeing.bied
pulpit. The positions the prisoners: occupied ell' ale
them to see each other, but, notwithstanding the nilet
prisoner kept intently turning towards his wife, sheLneref,
returned his gaze, but kept her eyes fixed upon tue,,a
gentleman during the discourse. Both the prisonersriii,
the most marked attention to the sermon, and were 'jibe
bly affected, the female prisoner frequently sobbing• ing
usual prayers, and the prayer for the condemned, littrtbp
been read, the rev. gentleman selected for his Woo' $•
second verse of the 65th Psalm, " 0 Thou that be
prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come."