EXECUTION OF DR. PRICHARD.

Evening Post, Issue 221, 23 October 1865, Page 2

EXECUTION OF DR. PRICHARD.

Dr. Pritchard was executed on Friday July 28, in the presence of nearly 100,000 spectators. On the preceding night he retired to rest about 1 2 o'clock, and slept soundly until about five o'clock the following morning, when he rose and dressed himself in the suit of mourning which he wore when apprehended on returning from conveying the body of his wife to Edinburgh. He was visited by the prison chaplain at 6 o'clock, and with him engaged in devotional exercises till half-past 7 o'clock. He waa thea visited by the Rev. Dr. Macleod, the editor of Good Words, and the Rev. Mr. Oldham. The religious services continued till 8 o'clock, when he was pinioned by Calcraft, and then walked

with a firm and steady step preceded by Mr. Oldham.who read the opening sentences of the Church of England burial service, into the Court -hall. He was there asked by the senior magistrate if he had anything to say^ and simply replied, "I beg to acknowledge the justice of my sentence." The procession was then formed to the scaffold, the convict walking with head erect and self-absorbed gaze, right up to the drop, unassisted and with unfaltering step. The bolt was drawn soon afterwards. He fell about 3 feet, struggled for about two minutes, strong muscular spasms convulsing his frame.— The following is a copy of a letter written by the criminal to his brother-in-law :— "27th July, 1865.— T0 Dr. Undel Taylor, Hutton-liall, Penrith, Cumberland.—Farewell, brother. I die in 20 hours from this . (Romans viii. v. 34 to 29.) Mary Jane, darling, mother and you I will meet, as you said the last time you spoke to me in happier cir. cumstances. Bless you and yours. Pray for the dying penitent. — Edward William Pritchard." A cast was taken of the head of the murderer for the Phrenological Museum of Edinburgh, which gives, it is said, a very different impression of the cerebral development from what one gets from the portraits, or even from having seen the man himself. His baldness concealed the deficiency in the intellectual part of the brain, by making the forehead appear larger than it really is. Tha fact was found to be that the animal part of the brain was fully four-fifths of the whole : as an eminent phrenologist expressed it, the skull was bestial. The same gentleman remarked thai he had only known one head of a sane person to equal it in its unfavourable development. The organ of amativeness was immensely large, and also that of love of approbation. A request was made to have the brain for scientific purposes, it being an opinion on the part of some that the, quality as well as the size and form of the'4pain has something to do with natural disposition. This request w*ts declined, on the ground that it is opposed to the modern act, which forbids the dissection of the bodies of malefactors. — Home News.