Punishment of Death: The York Tragedy: The Late Execution of William Ross, at York V. 1

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1 Punishment of Death: The York Tragedy: The Late Execution of William Ross, at York 1 (1850)

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PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

THE YORK TRAGEDY.

THE LATE EXECUTION
OF

WILLIAM ROSS,

AT YORK.

Reprinted, by permission, from the Eclectic Review for
October, 1850.

THE city of York has just been made the scene of one
of those unutterably horrible and depraving exhibitions,
the violent destruction of human life by the hands of
a pul iec executioner; and this particular instance of
capital punishment has been rendered more than com-
monly frightful by the fact that there is good reason to
believe that the poor victim of our barbarous law was
perfectly innocent of the crime for which he suffered.
The following narrative will, we fear, substantiate this
statement, only, alas! too clearly.
In the spring of 1849, a young man named William
Ross, then only eighteen years of age, married, at
Ashton-under-Lyne, a woman named Mary Bottomley.
This youth was of decent family, and of perfectly good
character. His wife's relations, however, were persons
of very bad reputation. The mother was a woman