The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-10-19 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SOD, LOCIA BORVIER.  A correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazatr, a workman employed in a factory in London, sends the following, apropos of the tool above executions : There are a large number of men employed in OW shop, amongst the majority of whom the pending execution of Wiggins and Bordier for none days previous had created a good deal of I i iSVIIPIll01). opinion was pretty much divided as to whether the wretched men would suffer capital punishment or not, and in one or two iintioices opinion was hacked by nioney taking the sh.ine or lairs on the event. Of course the excitement grew stronger on the day approached, and at the first quarter on Voeaday mon,ing_jr,,m SIX ceded, to h.eak fast time— Ole subject absorbed all others. One of our boys, Shout thirteen years old, wog especially anxious, sod declareA that lie would get the bullet" rather than not see the men "topped" at liorsemonger lane and Newgate ton. He hal " tuppemic on p," end going to see it off. And so be did. By utnh.lty this pron,Ning youth was capering about the shop in Immense delight. The men were "topped," he had won his " tuppence," and with the stakes he had jest reeeived he announced his intention of going to see "Alone in the Pint Lair" at the Victoria Theatre.  Tie Daily Nel,S, in a leader on Wedneaday, makes the foliewiog rentark, upin theao eNecutions : Yesterday was a great day for the patrons of the gallows  and the amateur, of death In London. Mr. Calcraft, like some versatile actors, had two engagements, following close upon each other, in different parts of the town. Ile was at Newgate at eight o'clock and in Horsemonger-lane at ten. The English murderer Wiggins and the French murderer hurdler were despatched with short Interval between. The superior attraction of the entertainment in the Borough appears to hav ~ drawn away the populace from the spectacle pros clod for them In the City English ancliencea have generally a preference for foreign over native ',lent, anti they seem to carry the habit Into their appreciation of murderers. The sentimental and egotistic Fiends criminal, with his crude philosophy if fatalism and unbelief, and his perverted rather than blunted natural feeling, appears to have ph steal the curlcatty of a London crowd more strongly than the commonplace brutality of the burly English ruffian. The courtesies of the situation were observed on both sides The murderer, like an actor playing a conspicuous part, bowed, from the top of the scaffold, twice Co the crowd, "and a good many of the people assLmbled cheered and clapped their hands." The exhibition was thoroughly theatrical anti thoroughly French. It is setts( aetory M learn that the unhaP,-.• man appear. !,. f his death to have lmen brought 1,3 ,he situation itself, or by the ministrations of those who attended on him, to a sounder state if moral and r.•ligious feeling than that in which he had lived. But who can hope that the awakening of this better mind was helped by the parade and notoriety of a public death The flattered vv.:l4y of drawing a larger er...1! than WAS ever assembled on a similar occasion too probably ft kr the moment absorbed any more healthy feeling. A very different and even nmre repulaive scene was enacted at the Old Bailey. A physioal struggle, the fictitious representation of which the fretfuentem of the lowest theatre would not tolerate on the stage, thrust the doomed man out of this world Screaming nut protestations of his innocence with his last breath, fighting with the warders, and clinging with his tied hands to the rope, the Limehmiae murderer was at the last simply the English animal at bay. The spectators, at first paralysed by the scene, soon took their side, and anaid groans and hisses from some, anti cries of "Shame"—" Innocent"—, Murdered," from others, the drop fell.