The Sun. — 1835-08-24 (London, England)

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 ordinary 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 unlawful 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 (Billing's) husband by the same means. Frarey confessed that she attempted to poison her husband before she became acquainted with Billing—that it was a little before Mary Wright was taken up for a similar offence, and that the investigation 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 confessed 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 improperly 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' condemnation, the whole of their time was employed in confession, supplication, and prayer. It was impossible for any criminals to more fully acknowledge and bewail the enormity of their offences. Hannah Shorten, the witness who was examined on the late trial for- murder, is•the same fortuneteller whom Mary Wright applied to to know her fortune previous to her destruction of her husband.  A curious custom prevails at Amsterdam, of observing 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 occasion. Yet no twin of the working classes will attend to his calling on- that day, nor be satisfid unless he has reached the Haarlem-gate. The inducement to see the innumerable multitudes 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.