Year: 1859

We give below the extradiornary sentence
pronounced by Judge Price upon Marion Crop,
the Baltimore Plug Ugly, convicted, recently,
of murder in the first degree. Its graphic re-
cital of the horrible nature of the crime, the
stern yet just severity which pervades it, COM
bines to form one of the most remarkable SEN
tences ever pronounced by Judge upon a
prisoner.


The prisoner having been placed in the dock,
Judge Price addressing him said:


Marion Crop, after patient trial you have
been found guilty, by the unanimous verdict
of jury of your country, of the highest crime
known to our laws-rauroler AT the first degree.


Have you anything to say why sentence shall
not be pronounced upon you


The prisoner replied-"Yes, sir: / desire to
say few words Some of the witnesses and
jurors purjured themselves in my case, and
that is all L have to say to your Honor"


Yours is ordinary case of murder.-On
the contrary it is a most extraordinary one
Extraordinary, because of the terrible wicked
ness of the motive that. prompted the atrocious
deed !; extraordinary, because of the cold blood
cd pertinacity with which you dogged your
inoffensive victim from place to place, from
street, to street, and from house to house ex-
traordinary because of the place where your
horrid deed was done. For at his own ireside
ON his own hearthstone-his wife by his
| side in the very line of your shot, and at her
feet, did Robert II. Rigdon, by your hands
fall, to rise in the majesty of his strength no
more Extraordinary, because of the over
whclming strength and mass Of evidence
against you. From the time you were foiled
in your attempt TO rescue Henry Gambrill from
| the officers of the law, every step you took
every action of your body-whether crouching
| at the lamp post, awning post, or peeping
into the window, the deadly and heavily char
ged weapon you carried in your bosom and
sometimes in your sleeve, and every word you
uttered, up to every place where this deed was
done-indicatcd the bloody purpose of the
soul and even there, at that little back win
dow, in that little alley, did you leave the damn
ing proofs of your guilt; and afterward, too,
your own lips, and your own letters, and your
! own witnesses ON the stand, spoke trumpet
tongued against you.


If the jury that tried you had found differ
ent verdict, it would have shocked the entire
State l believe it would have been felt from
the tops of the Allegheny Mountains, in West
ern MARYLAND, to- the'sea shore. l believe it
would have reverberated with deep if not ter
rible significance in the very valley, from every
hillside-in every city and town and hamlet
and fireside in the State. 1t would have gone
booming over the vast plains bordering on the
Chesapeake, away down to where the ocean
surf washes Worcester's shore. More than
this, / believe the great trial by jury itself
would have felt the shock and that with few
more such shocks it would have tottered on its
foundation, if not have fallen PROSTATE before
| them, and been trodden under foot unfit for
| the times, and as an unreliable, faithless and
worthless thing


Again of all the extraordinary things about
this case the most extraordinary of all, as itap
pears to me, is yourself. For eight long days
| YOU and sat here face to face. AS the case
progressed and was eveloped-testimony tc
testimony facts piled on facts proof or
proof could not help looking into youl
countenance to see if there was any emotion
there There. was none. The callousness, the
stoical Indifference, the fxedness, the hardness
the immutability of stone, and not of human
flesh and blood, was there-and there always
Your eye never quailed-your brow never
hushed-your cheek never blanched-youl
head never dropped throughout these eight
days of time, and not even at the rendition Of
the verdict. tits difficult to believe that hu
man heart throbs in your bosom. nat con
trast YOU were to the learned, able, and eio
quent counsel and accomplished gentleman BY
whom your defense was with so much zeal and
ability conducted / could see, in spite Of
himself, his varying couptenapee, and his heart
sunk within him. And your father, too, who
stood by your side, day after day, notwithstand
ing forced composure, could see that he
carried fathers heart in his bosom, and
thought 1 could almost see the iron as it enter
ed his soul, and hope departed.


But, as for you, throughout this entire case
up to this very hour-you seem to have been
and now to be, entirely unconscious OF the ma
ture of the horrible deed You have done, ast
of the terrible punishment that awaits you, no
! only in this world, but in the other world or
the threshold of which you now stand