The Sun. — 1849-10-27 (London, England)

CRESSWELL—WhO have urged every topic which their ingenuity and experience taught , them would be available for your defence. You have been convicted by a jury, upon evidence which I will venture to say could leave no rational doubt upon the mind of any human being who heard it that the verdict was the only one which they could conscientiouAly return. Had they failed to return that verdict, it would have been very difficult to convince me that they had not shrunk from the due discharge of their duty, so completely was I satisfied, by the evidence which I heard detailed by the different witnesses, of the guilt of both of you. Maria Manning—The witnesses in my favour were not called. Mr. Justice CRESSWELL continued :—The crime of which you have been found guilty is the highest crime of which one individual can be guilty against another, and is at all times a most horrible offence. But this murder is as cold-blooded, as deliberate, and as calculated as I ever remember to have heard or read of. Under the pretence and guise of friendship—nay more, of affection, for that was the subscription to the letter inviting the deceased to dinner on the Bth—under that pretence, this unhappy man was allured to the place where his grave had probably then been prepared for him, and where too the deed was to be consummated which, no doubt, you had been for days and for weeks concocting. It is one of the most appalling instances of human wickedness certainly which the annals of even this court can disclose. He went to your house ; probably he bad been leading a vicious course of life—bow that may be I do not profess to know ; but whatever his course of life might have been—without a moment's warning or a moment's preparation—without the slightest opportunity of thinking of his past life, whether guilty or innocent—without any opportunity for endeavouring to ask pardon for any offence which he might have committed, this unhappy man was hurried into eternity. The law, more merciful than you, allows you a space of time for preparation for death. It appears that one of you, upon a former occasion, asked the question of a young men where he thought murderers went. The time has now arrived when it will behove both of you to ask yourselves that question, and to ask it of the man appointed to teach you what you have to hope and what you have to fear. As I can hold out not the slightest prospect of any mitigation of the sentence I am about to pronounce, I am bound to tell you that, so far as human judgment goes, your doom is irretrievably fixed when your sentence is passed ; and I advise you, therefore, to resort with all humility and with all candour to the advice and counsel of the minister of the Gospel appointed to attend you. From him you will receive all the consolation which in your unhappy condition he can, consistently with the discharge of his duty, afford to you. From him you will learn what you have to fear. No doubt he will point out to you in strong terms the full extent of your guilt; and I am sure he will rejoice to give you, if in his conscience he thinks he can, hopes of pardon hereafter, which in this world you cannot expect. To his care I consign you—to his advice I exhort you to resort. Whatever assertions you may make whatever indignation you may express, and really or affectedly feel, and manifest with respect to the course of proceedings this day—depend upon it that others will judge very differently ; and I doubt if there is one who has heard this trial who is not as well satisfied as I am that the result of it is the only one which is consistent with justice. (His Lordship having put on the black cap, then said)—Having given you this warning and advice, which I pray you once more to receive in all humility, it remains for me but to pronounce the dread sentence of the law, Which is, that you be taken hence to her Majesty's gaol for the county of Surrey, and thence to the place of execution, and that you there be severally hanged by the neck until you are dead, and after death that your bodies be buried within the precincts of that gaol in which you shall be confined after the passing of this sentence ; and may the Lord have mercy upon your souls! Mr. Streight—Amen. Mr. Justice