Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EXECUTION OF ALICE HOLT, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EXECUTION OF ALICE HOLT, by                    
First Line: A dreadful case of murder
Last Line: On chester's fatal tree
Subject(s): Capital Punishment;crimes & Criminals;death;murder; "hanging;executions;death Penalty;dead, The;


A dreadful case of murder,
Such as we seldom hear,
Committed was at Stockport,
In the County of Cheshire.
Where a mother, named Mary Bailey,
They did so cruelly slaughter,
By poison administered all in her beer,
By her own daughter.

The daughter insured the life of the mother
For twenty-six pounds at her death,
Then she and the man that she lived with
Determined to take away her breath.
And when Betty Wood represented the mother
She didn't act with propriety,
For the poor mother lost her life,
And they all swindled the Society.

Now that the old gal's life's insured,
Holt to the daughter did say,
Better in the grave she were immured,
And the money will make us gay.
Now that you have got me in the family way,
And from me my virtue you've wrung,
You'll never be happy a day
Till on the gallows I'm hung.

She laid a plan to murder her,
As we now see so clear,
To put a quantity of arsenic
Into her poor mother's beer.
To see her lay in agony,
Upon that dreadful night,
With a dreadful dose of arsenic,
Oh, it was a dreadful sight.

She lived but just six hours,
Then the poor woman did die,
And this base murdering wretch
The dreadful deed did deny.
On the man Holt she laid the blame,
Vowed he did her mother slay,
Holt on her did the same,
Saying she took the mother's life away.

* * *

But there's no doubt the base wretch
Did her poor mother slay,
For which on Chester's scaffold
Her life did forfeit pay,
So all young women a warning take,
By this poor wretch you see,
A hanging for the mother's sake
On Chester's fatal tree.





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