BURNED FOR POISONING HUSBANDS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 215, 6 October 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

BURNED FOR POISONING HUSBANDS.

On Thursday. July 17, 1735, at tho Assizes, of Northampton, Mary Fasson was condemned to lie burned to dent!) for poisoning her husband to whom s!i<j had been married for only .s ; x weeks. She had put poison with the sugar into the sops, or soaked food, which he ate. He was only seventeen years of age, hut heir to about £IOOO, which money, perhaps, attracted her; she was twenty years o!d. and a domestic servant, bub she had an' intrigue with a young man, and this was supposed to have led to the crime. Until long after that date, women in England, if condemned for pettv treason, which accord ng to .i statute of 1 .'152, in Edward lll.'s reign, included murder of master or mistress, as well as of a husband, were vim. burned to death, this being considers! more decent than hanging and exposure on a gibbet, especially as executions were public.till 1868. Tn prartice however, tho femnle convict w- • strangled before be-ng burned, win-1 was ccrtiinlv more merciful. Hie la>. woman thus burned in England was Psev-Mitrd in 1789, such punishment not being abolished till 1790. The t<rm "petty treason" was itself legally abolished in 1828.