Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1879-08-16 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

EXECUTION AT EXETER.  Annie Tooke, middle-aged, widow, was executed within Exeter Gaol for the murder of a child named Redo. She first smothered the child, then chopped the body in pieces, and threw the remains into the millstream. The Prison Hospital was turned into a place of execution, and Marwooti was the executioner, and gave a drop of eight feet. The prisoner's four children visited her on Saturday. She acknowledged the justice of the sentence. Newspaper representatives were not admitted. A considerable number of persons assembled outside the gaol. The inquest on the body was held at noon. It will be remembered that when apprehended she made a statement to the chief constable, as follows: "Annie Tooke saith : Monday, about three in the afterncon, baby Percival, alias Reginal Rode, was asleep in the cradle, and I put a Liege pillow on his face, and kept it on him for about an hour. I then found he was dead. I then put him into the old trunk in my bedroom, used as a dressing table, and two other boxes. On Friday forenoon I cut up the body with an old black-handled knife and a chopper, which the inspector carried away. About nine p.m. I wrapped the body, limbs, and head 1,, an old apron in strips. I went down Holloway. street, past the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, down by the water's edge, then walked down Commercial-road, across to the Bonhay. When I got to the last mill on the left-hand side I threw in the bundle, and nearly fainted. I returned up St. David's-hill, and got home about ten." Subsequently, while in prison awaiting her trial, she wrote a letter withdrawing that statement, and when Captain Bent repeated it on giving evidence at her trial she said that she had sworn falsely. Two days prior to her execution Mrs. Tooke made a confession to the matron of the prison, but the authorities refused to make the terms of it known, although applied to by the representatives of the press. At the inquest the governor of the prison, Major Kirkpatrick, produced the follow ing : "I hereby acknowledge that the confession which I first made to Captain Bent is true in the main particulars; that I am justly to suffer for my dreadful crime, for which, as for all my many sins, I do most truly repent, and heartily pray God's mercy, for the sake of His dear Son, my only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.—Signed by me, Annie Tooke, this 9th day of August, 1879. Witness, L. A. Hughes. matron. Signed. Sutton Kirkpatrick, Governor of H.M. Prison, Exeter." A formal verdict was returned at the inquest, and th'e jurymen gave their fees to Mrs. Tooke's orphans.  CAUTION t/0 aBLICANS. Frederick John Simpkins, the landlord et a public-house in the Hempstead-road, was summoned at the Marylehone Policecourt, and fined .f 5 for unlawfully giving a glass of ale to each of two pOlice.constables who had been called by him to eject a woman and disperse a crowd. Mr. De Ruben observed that the free agency of a constable was affected by his receiving a favour front a' publican. „ "Jr is a shame, John, that I have to sit here mending your old clothes!" exclaimed a wife. "Don't say a word about it, my dear," rejoined the husband— "the least said the soonest mended."