One hundred years ago
THE efforts to secure a respite for Mrs Pearcey, the Kentish Town murderess, on the ground of her liability to epilep- tic attacks, failed, Mr Matthews, who as regards the administration of justice has been an excellent Home Secretary, seeing no excuse in facts which were equally true of Mahommed and Napo- leon. The fanatics of life, who must regard Providence as horribly cruel for killing everybody, had no voting press- ure to threaten, for the populace was deeply incensed against the criminal. She was executed on Tuesday, and in the terrible cold of that morning a great crowd gathered round the Old Bailey, to cheer lustily as the black flag went up, and to congratulate each other that justice had been done. Up to a late moment, Mrs Pearcey, whose nerve to the last was unshaken, stoutly though coldly maintained her innocence, and amused herself by telling her solicitor a wild romance about her having, at sixteen, contracted a secret marriage in a drawing-room in Piccadilly, with some one who now lives 'in Madrid.' As the last moment approached, however, she admitted to the chaplain that 'the sent- ence was a just one, though the evi- dence, — or much of the evidence , was false,' that is, inaccurate, a favourite idea of criminals, who think it unjust to condemn them for poisoning with strychnine, when in fact they have used powdered glass. It is said that the wretched woman has written a letter completely exonerating her paramour, whom she wished to see on the day before her death, but who maintained the admirable consistency of his charac- ter by refusing to go.
The Spectator, 27 December 1890
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