Identifier: chroniclesofcrim01pelh (find matches)
Title: The chronicles of crime, or The new Newgate calendar. Being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to the present time including a number of curious cases never before published. Embellished with fifty-two engravings, from original drawings by "Phiz" (pseud.)
Year: 1841 (1840s)
Authors: Pelham, Camden, pseud Browne, Hablot Knight, 1815-1882. illus. cn
Subjects: Crime Criminals
Publisher: London, T. Tegg (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Pittsburgh Library System

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Text Appearing Before Image:
accident, speedily relieved him from pain. He expired in a moment, and
without any struggle.
He was cut down after he had hung about an hour. On the preceding
Wednesday he had had a carpenter to take his measure for his coffin, and
he ordered it to be a strong oak one, plain and neat, requesting that, after
he was taken down, he might be put into it immediately, with the apparel
he might have on, and carried to the churchyard of Burgh-on-Sands,
there to be interred in the evening.
The conscientious parishioners of Burgh, however, objected to his being
laid there, and the body was consequently conveyed in the hearse to St.
Mary's, Carlisle, where it was interred in a distant corner of the church-
yard, far from the other tombs. No priest attended, and the coffin was
lowered without any religious service. Notwithstanding his various and
complicated enormities, his untimely end excited considerable commisera-
tion. His manners were extremely polished and insinuating, and he was
possessed of qualities which might have rendered him an ornament of
society.
Text Appearing After Image:
SHOOTING A GHOST
P.399

Landon. Published by Thomas Tegg, Cheapside. Oct^r1,1840.

THE NEW NEWGATE CALENDAR. 399

FRANCIS SMITH.

CONDEMNED FOR THE MURDER OF A SUPPOSED GHOST.

The Hammersmith Ghost will be in the remembrance of every one.
Its vagaries and mischievous pranks were in some cases productive of
very serious consequences, and in no instance were more melancholy effects
produced than in that of the unfortunate prisoner, whose case is now
before us, who shot a poor man, who offended only in wearing the garb of
his trade at night, and who was afterwards tried and condemned to death
for the offence.
Among the other evil effects produced by the absurd proceedings of the
ghost, it appears that one poor woman in particular, who was far ad-
vanced in her pregnancy of a second child, was so much shocked on
seeing him, that she took to her bed, and survived only two days. She
had been crossing near the churchyard about ten o'clock at night, when
she beheld something, as she described, rise from the tomb-stones. The
figure was very tall, and very white. She attempted to run, but the
ghost soon overtook her, and, pressing her in his arms, she fainted, and
fell to the ground. In this situation she remained some hours, till dis-
covered by some neighbours, who kindly led her home, when she took to her
bed, from which she never rose.

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