Page:A century of Birmingham life- or, A chronicle of local events, from 1741 to 1841 (IA centuryofbirming02lang).pdf/256

 Warwick with the criminal, accompanied by the Under Sheriff, and escorted by the proper officers and the javelin men. At Knowle they halted, and Matsell took something to eat and a few glasses of wine. When the malefactor and the cavalcade arrived within two miles of this town, they were met by the Constables, Headborough, and Police Officers of this town, accompanied by a troop of dragoons from the Barracks. Here Matsell again partook of refreshment, was pinioned, and removed from a roach into a cart covered with black cloth, wherein was his coffin, and he was fixed upon a board across the carriage. Soon after eleven o'clock the solemn procession, accompanied by a great number of spectators, moved slowly on towards the town, and afterwards passed through Deritend, Digbeth, High Street, Bull Street, and arrived in Snow Hill, the place of execution, about half-past twelve. An elevated scaffold had been erected in the morning, in that part of Snow Hill where the road is joined by the ends of Great Charles Street and Bath Street, which Matsell ascended, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Langhame, of Warwick, who prayed by him, and took every pains to impress upon the mind of the convict the necessity of repentance. bout twenty minutes after one the executioner proceeded to perform his office, by fastening the fatal cord around his neck, and binding a handkerchief over his eyes; and then being asked to give the signal when he was ready, the criminal immediately exclaimed, "Here goes" at the same time endeavoured to throw up a pocket handkerchief he held in his hand into the air, and was immediately launched into eternity, amidst the lamentation and in the sight of forty thousand spectators. After hanging the usual time the body was cut down, put into the coffin, and conveyed to the dungeon, and, in the course of the night, was conveyed to St. Philip's Churchyard. Matsell was only thirty years of age, was born at Yarmouth, and apprenticed to a surgeon in London, from whom, it is said, he ran away and went to sea when only fifteen.

It afforded us the greatest satisfaction to notice the behaviour of the immense concourse of spectators on this awful occasion; it was in every respect such as could be wished, and reflects the highest credit upon the disposition of the inhabitants of this large and populous town. The most profound silence prevailed, and every person seemed to retire under an impression which, we trust, will long be remembered. Indeed we cannot but hope that the object of the Judge, in directing the sentence of the law to be executed here, will be fully answered. Happy should we have been could we have informed our readers that the malefactor discovered signs of deep repentance and contrition for his various and flagrant offences—but here truth compels us to be silent; we were unable to procure any satisfactory information on this subject, from the quarter where alone it could have been obtained. He stands now before a more awful tribunal, and it becomes us rather to draw a veil over the scene than assume an office which belongs only to that Judge at whose bar we must all, sooner or later, appear. Yet, whilst we would abstain from reflection upon the dead, we cannot withhold from the rising generation the cautions which necessarily present themselves on this solemn event. We feel it a duty to warn then against the smallest deviations from the path of honesty and duty; to remind them how one sin leads on to another, till the mind, which was before shocked at the very name, becomes so hardened and insensible as to be capable of committing the most horrid and unnatural crimes, without remorse or compunction, and till it becomes necessary, for the security of society, that they should finish their career by an ignominious and shameful death.