to
inquire for her husband, whose absence began to be noticed. Ashley and
Longmore were mutual {51} friends, and their suspicions being excited by
the contradictory statements which Mrs. Hayes had given to them, they went
to look again at the head, when a minute examination satisfied them that it
had belonged to Hayes. The apprehension of the murderers was the result. On
the day they were brought up for examination, the trunk and limbs of the
murdered man were found. Wood and Billings confessed and pleaded guilty.
Katherine Hayes put herself on her country, was tried and convicted. Wood
died in prison. Billings was hanged in Marylebone fields, near the pond in
which Hayes's body had been concealed. Katherine Hayes was executed at
Tyburn, under circumstances of great horror; for, in consequence of the
fire reaching the executioner's hands, he left his hold of the rope with
which he ought to have strangled the criminal, before he had executed that
part of his duty, and the result was, that Katherine Hayes was burnt alive.
The wretched woman was seen, in the midst of flames, pushing the blazing
faggots from her, whilst she yelled in agony. Fresh faggots were piled
around her, but a considerable time elapsed before her torments ended. She
suffered on the 3rd of November, 1726. This tragedy forms the subject of a
comic ballad which is attributed to Swift.

C. ROSS.

The communication of E. S. S. W. (Vol. ii., p. 6.), which is as interesting
as it is shocking, induces me to send you a short extract from _Harrison's
Derby and Nottingham Journal, or Midland Advertiser_. The number of this
journal which is dated Thursday, September 23, 1779, contains as follows:--

"On Saturday two prisoners were capitally convicted at the Old Bailey
of high treason, viz. Isabella Condon, for coining shillings in
Cold-Bath-Fields; and John Field, for coining shillings in Nag's Head
Yard, Bishopsgate Street. They will receive sentence to be drawn on a
hurdle to the place of execution; _the woman to be burnt_, and the man
to be hanged."

I presume that the sentence which the woman underwent was not executed. The
barbarous fulfilment of such a law was, it may be hoped, already obsolete.
The motives, however, upon which this law was grounded is worth noting:--

"In treason of every kind," says Blackstone, "the punishment of women
is the same, and different from that of men. For, _as the decency due
to the sex