June 22. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



51 



friends, and their suspicions being excited by the 

 contradictory statements whieli Mrs. Hayes had 

 given to them, they went to look again at the head, 

 when a minute examination satisfied them that it 

 had belonged to Hayes. The apprehension of the 

 murderers was the result. On the day they were 

 brought up for examination, tlie trunk and limbs 

 of the murdered man were found. Wood and 

 Billings confessed and pleaded guilty. Katherine 

 Hayes put herself on her country, was tried and 

 convicted. Wood died in prison. Billings was 

 hanged in Marylebone fields, near the pond in 

 which Hayes's body had been concealed. Kathe- 

 rine Hayes was executed at Tyburn, under cir- 

 cumstances of great horror ; for, in consequence of 

 the fire reaching the executioner's hands, he left 

 his hold of the rope with which he ought to have 

 strangled the criminal, before he had executed 

 that pnrt of his duty, and the result was, tliat 

 Katherine Hayes was burnt alive. The wretched 

 woman was seen, in the midst of flames, pushing 

 the blazing faggots from her, whilst she yelled in 

 agony. Fresh fiiggots were piled around her, but 

 a considerable time elapsed before her torments 

 ended. She suffered on the 3rd of November, 

 1726. This tragedy forms the subject of a comic 

 ballad which is attributed to Swift. C. Eoss. 



The communication of E. S. S. W. (Vol. ii., 

 p. 6.), which is as interesting as it is shocking, in- 

 duces me to send you a short extract from Harri- 

 soiis Derby and Nuttingham Journal, or Midland 

 Advertiser. The number of this journal which is 

 dated Thursday, September 23, 1779, contains as 

 follows : — 



" On Saturday two prisoners were capitally con- 

 victed at the Old Bailey of high treason, viz. Isabella 

 Condon, for coining sliillings in Cold- Rath- Fields ; 

 and John Field, for coining shillings in Nag's Head 

 Yard, Bishopsg-ate Street. They will receive sentence 

 to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution ; the 

 woman to be burnt, and the man to be hanged." 



I presume that the sentence which the woman 

 underwent was not executed. The barbarous iul- 

 filment of such a law was, it may be hoped, already 

 obsolete. The motives, however, upon which this 

 law was grounded is worth noting: — 



" In treason of every kind," says Blackstone, " the 

 punisliment of women is tlie same, and different from 

 that of men. For, as the decency due to the sex forbids 

 the expiisiny and publicly manr/linp their bodies, their 

 sentence (which is to the full as terrible to sensation as 

 the other) is to be drawn to the gallows, and there to 

 be burned alive." " But," says the foot-note, " by the 

 statute fSO Geo. III. c. 48., women convicted in all cases 

 of treason, shall receive judgment to be drawn to the 

 place of execution, and there to be liauged by the neck 

 till dead." 



The law, therefore, under which a woman could 

 be put to death by burning, was repealed in 1790. 



Blackstone elsewhere says : — 



" The humanity of the English nation has authorized, 

 by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such 

 part of those judgments as savou rs of torture and cruelty : 

 a sledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such trai- 

 tors as are condemned to be drawn ; and there being 

 very few instances (and those accidental or by negli- 

 gence) of any persons being emhowelled or burned, till 

 previously deprived of sensation by strangling." 



This corroborates the conclusion of E. S. S. W., 

 that the woman he describes was strangled at the 

 stake to which her neck was bound. 



1 wish to suggest to any of your legal or other 

 well-informed correspondents, who will have the 

 kindness to fake a little trouble for the benefit of 

 your general readers, that an instructive and in- 

 teresting communication might be made by noting 

 down the periods at which the various more re- 

 volting punishments under the English law were 

 repealed, or fell into disuse. For instance, when 

 torture, such as the rack, was last applied ; when 

 embowelling alive and quartering ceased to be 

 practised; and whose was the last head that fell 

 under the axe's bloody stroke. A word also on 

 the use of the pillory, ducking-stool, stocks, &c. 

 would interest. Any illustrations of the modifi- 

 cation of our penal code would throw valuable 

 light on the philosophy and improvement of the 

 national character. And I believe it would appear 

 that the Reformation gradually swept away the 

 black horrors of the torture-room; that the butchery 

 of the headsman's block ceased at the close of the 

 civil contest which settled the line of regal suc- 

 cession ; and that hanging, which is the proper 

 death of the cur, is now reserved for those only 

 who place themselves out of the pale of humanity 

 by striking at human life. Alfred Gatty. 



Ecclesfield. 



E. S. S._ W. (Vol.ii., p. 6.) will find a case of 

 burning in Dodsleys Annual Register, 17G9, 

 p. 1 17. : a Susannah Lott was burned for the mur- 

 iler of her husband at Canterbury, Benjamin Buss, 

 her paramour, being hanged about fifteen minutes 

 before she was burned. T. S. N. 



FOLK LORE. 



Death-bed Mystery. — In conversation with an 

 aged widow,' — as devout and sensible as she is 

 unlettered, — I yesterday learned a death-bed 

 mystery which appeared new to me, and which 

 (if not more commonly known than I take it to 

 be) you may perhaps think worthy of a ])lace iu 

 " Notes and Queries," to serve as a minor satel- 

 lite to so7ne more luminous communication, in 

 reply to B. H. at Vol. i., p. 315. My inform- 

 ant's " religio " (as she appears to have derived it 

 by tradition from her mother, and as confirmed by 

 iier own e,\perience in the case of a father, a hus- 



