The New Hampshire Gazette

EXECUTION.

On Tuesday the 12th inst. took place at Haverhill, N. H. the execution of Josiah Burnham. The concourse of people at this solemn and interesting spectacle was exceedingly numerous. It was impossible to make any accurate computation of the number present--but from the best calculations that could be made, they were estimated to be about ten thousand.

At eleven o'clock the criminal was taken from the gaol and conducted by a military guard to the place of execution. Religious exercises were there performed by the Rev. David Southerland of Bath. They were commenced with singing--prayer-singing-a sermon on the words from Romans vi. 23.-"For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."and were concluded with prayer. The sermon was ingenious, pathetic and well adapted to the occasion.

When the time had expired, the cord that held the plank on which he stood, was cut with the fatal knife with which he perpetrated the horrid murder. The appearance of the criminal at the gallows was marked with an indifference truly astonishing.-- When the Reverend Clergyman in his address to him touched upon his condition with a feeling and emphasis, which one would have supposed must have melted into tears of sensibility the most hardened and reprobate, he appeared to be unmoved. He seemed less affected by his situation than a great part of the spectators around him. When conducted from his confinement to the place of execution, he was observed to keep step with the music, as accurately as any soldier of the guard ; and but a few minutes before he was swung from the gallows he drank, with the greatest composure, a large draught of liquor.