Broadside ballad entitled 'William Burk's Execution'

Transcription

WILLIAM   BURK'S
Execution.

Let old'and young unto my song a while attention pay,
The news I'll tell will please you well, the monster Burke's away.
At the head of Libberton Wynd he finished his career,
There's few, I'm sure, rich or poor, for him would shed a tear.

Chorus.

Now Burke, the murderer, is dead, his troubles here are o'er,
We can't tell where his spirit's fled, he'll Burke the folk no more.

Eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, let it recorded be,
Twenty-eight day of January he suffer'd on a tree.
To Edinbro', numbers did go, that day before 'twas noon.
For to see Burke, that cruel Turk, receive his awful doom.

They brought him from the Calton Jail, sometime in the night,
They thought the crowd would do the job had they waited till
light,
From the Lock-up they brouht Burk out about the hour of eight,
Where about forty-thousand folk impatiently did wait.

The injur'd crowd, they groan'd aloud, this monster to behold,
Who in his time had thought no crime to murder young and old.
When the scaffold he did ascend, the people all did cry,
Bring out Will Hare, we think it fair, that he also should die.

As round his neck the rope it went, the shouts did rend the sky
Its " Burk him, Burk him," the blood-hound, the people al
did cry.
The shouts they did continue on, until he was cut down,
The like was never heard before in Edinbro' town.

His bloody den, it does remain, for strangers to behold,
Where him and Hare, they did uot spare the lives of young of
old.
In memory his bones will be preserv'd for years to come,
Ye Burkites! now beware, lest you, do meet with the san
doom.

QUEEN-SQUARE.

PITCH PLAISTERS.?Ann Stephenson, of 15, Crown-
street, Westminster, the wife of a Serjeant in the
Guards, stated that, as she was returning home about
halt'-past six on the previous evening, the was accosted
by a fellow at the lower end of Crown-street who
placed a pitch plaister over her face, while another man
fattened a rope round one of her arms, and endeavoured
to secure the other. She, however, succeeded In tearing
the pluster from her month, and called for assistance.
The ruffians then ran away. Her arms were much in-
jured by the cords, and from the terror, she bad been
on well since.            
A large pitch plaister was here shown to the Magis-
trate, which had been placed over the applicant's
mouth.
In answer to a question put by Mr. Marriott, the
applicant said she had seen the man before; he wore
mustachios, and appeared to be a female.?A warrant
was then issued against him.

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