Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1849-04-18 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

THE BRISTOL MURDERESS.NOXI Friday is the day appointed for the execution of the unhappy woman, Sarah Thomas, and it almost amounts to a certainty that the sentence of the law will be mulled into effect. The Rev. H. Riclitods, incumbent of Iloifidd, last week waited on the Secretary of State with a pcition on her behalf, but was informed by Sir George Grey that he could see no reason for remitting the last penalty of the law. The prisoner does not display a due sense of her awful situation. It is evident she has some latent hope of the sentence not being 'carried into effect. For the purpose of dispelliog this illosion, Mr. Garth.. ner, the governor, has warned her not to entertain any false hopes, and p ,iated out to her the awful conse• gUences of passieg unprepared into eternity. Slue wig affected for the moment, but the impression soon passed away Her sleep does not continue so undisturbed as at the commencement, though she enjoys her meals pretty well. She is constantly watched, but is by no means commUnicative to the turnkeys who are in the cell with her. There has beer a rumour abroad that the prisoner has made a formal confession of her crime but there is no truth whatever in it. Should no reprieve yet arrive, and the barbarous ceremony really take place, the executioner will begin his work at ten o'clock ; that hour having been fixed upon to suit Mr. Calcraft, the executioner of Newgate, whose services have been engaged, and who, as coolly as though it was an ordinary business transaction, informed the autborittes that lie had "an engagement" at Norwich on Saturday, which would corn. pel him to leave Hi islot at an earlier hour on Friday than would be otherwise necessary. The " engagement' at Norwich is to hang the murderer Rush, and there being not many persons easily found to erform such an odious and revolting office, Mr. Ctelcraft's hands about this time are rather full. Weregret (says the Brisioi Times) that the Secretaiy of State has not thought proper to give such an answer to the memorials as would render unnecessary the presence of the" head hangman." Independently of the revolting character of public executions in general—t...king in cold blood a human being, and strangling him or her before a crowd of gaping idiots, Who look on as at an exhibition, and occasionally indulge in hisses or applause as the case may be: mileprudently of this, there are circumstances of extenuation in Cie crime of which this woman has been guilty, which render it right that the last punishment of the law should he remitted—we allude to the extreme youth of the pris ner, and the irritating character of the deceased, the I utter affording the possiluilitr of the winder being done in a moment of excitement, an I not pr. meditatedly. We trust that the days of public executions lure numbered— that before a very long time they will be abolished; and when they are one, men will wonder that so enlightened an age as this ever tolerated skein. Murder is no doubt a teurible thin, and the punishment for it should be terti'o'e; but public y strangling a person is not the way to teachlhe lower ordeis of this country a respect far huintn life. -