Glasgow Courier. — 1853-08-27 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

CONFESSION OF FLACK, THE MURDERER. The Essex papers inform us that this wretched cri' minal, who was executed at Ipswich lately, made a ' full confession of his guilt. It would appear that on the night previous to his execution be expressed a wish to make a statement, when he said to the chaplain and to the governor, 'lt was me that did the murder. There Wan nobody else with me. All I said about Moore was false. When I got to the rectory the door was fastened. I knocked. Mrs. Steggles came to the door. I knocked her down when she reached the kitchen. I struek her with my fist: She fell. When dews she cried out iolently. I then took a small case-knife belonging to my folks. My little brother called it his. I cut her throat with it, I think in two places, at least I cut tn ice. I then knocked her on the head with my boots or High-low., the same that were produced at the assizes. I kicked her seven or eight times. I knew she was not quite dead when I left her and went up stairs. I took the pistol out of the rector's bed-room, and hid it in the Mill Mount; and the coin taken from the same box as the purse I hid in the lane leading from the road going to Mr. Pulham'a House. I went up stairs witli the intention of plundering the house. I took the purse and its contents, three sovereigns, and a sixpence found in a box—the same boa that held the purse. The pin produced at the trial 'I know nothing of. The knife I took from the same box as the purse. I took a little gold brooch, I believe, from the same box, but I will not be sure. I left it on the outside of the n indow, at the back part of my father's house. When I ran down stairs, after being up about ten minutes, I went to the kitchen and looked at the deceased. She was lying on her back. I did sot see her move, but found she was breathing. I then kicked her two or three times more on the bead. Immediately after I left the house. Returning by Mrs. Ford's fields, in the second field I washed my shoes, which were a little bloody, in the ditch. I kept the footpath, except going on to the Mount, all the way until I got to Mr. Salmon's meadow, which I crossed, and I left the coin by the brow of the ditch in the lane, as stated before, under a tuft of grass. From thence I went home. I went and got my mother a pail of water. My brother John and mother asked me to go up to Mrs. Vrancis's. I went. I returned and stopped at home until I got my dinner. I say most positively noose had any hand in it but myself. I had thought of doing the deed some days, even a fortnight before. I several times dreamed about doing it, and once that I had done it, and that I was not found out. I went to the house with the full intention of murdering Mrs. Steggles, and to get what money I could find. I had been to the house before on a Sunday—either a fortnight or three weeks before, intending to do it, hut could not. I did not see any person about to prevent my doing it. Ido not know that I had any spite against Mrs. Steggles, but there always appeared something on my mind until I had done it. None of my family ',new of niv having committed themurder. They did nctknow thaahad any more money than usual.' As another proof of the awful state of ignorance of the faintly of Flack, it is stated that soon after the extreme sentence of the law had been inflicted, the father, who was at work at Bury St. Edmund's, purchased of a hawker in the streets what purported to be the ' last dying speech and confession' of his son, observing that he would keep it as a niernento for the rest of his life. This shows a want of feeling as deplorable as that exhibited some years ago at Bury St. Edmund's, when the mother of a youth who had been sentenced to death saw him on his return to jail from the assize court, and addressing him said, 'Be a good boy, and mind and don't be hung in your new red waistcoat.'