i8o THE EXETER ROAD 



numbering many thousands. As for the central 

 o1)jects in this show, ' they died penitent,' we are 

 told ; and indeed they could do nothing less, seeing 

 to what trouble they had thus put a goodly pro- 

 portion of the county. 



Executions for all manner of crimes were so many 

 that it would be idle to detail them ; but some stand 

 out prominently by reason of their circumstances. 

 For example, the hanging of Robert Turner AYatkins 

 in 1819, for a murder near Purton, presents a lurid 

 scene. His wife had died of a broken heart shortly 

 after his arrest, and his mother was among the 

 spectators of his end. The same kind of procession 

 accompanied him across Salisbury Plain to the place 

 of execution, and a similar mob made the occasion 

 a holiday. Mother and son were able to bid one 

 another farewell, owing to an unexpected halt on the 

 road ; and when they made a halt for the refresh- 

 ments wdiich the long journey demanded, the con- 

 demned man's children were brought to him. 

 ' ]\Iammy is dead,' said one. ' Ah ! ' replied the 

 man, ' and so will your daddy be, shortly." At the 

 fatal spot he prayed with the chaplain, and was 

 allowed to read to the people a psalm which he had 

 chosen. It was Psalm 108, which, on reference, 

 will not prove to be particularly appropriate to the 

 occasion. Then he blessed the fifteen thousand or so 

 present, felt the rope, and remarked that it could 

 only kill the body, and was turned off, amid the 

 sudden and unexpected breaking of one of the most 

 terrific thunderstorms ever experienced on the Plain. 

 They hanged a gipsy, one Joshua Shemp, in 1801, 



