Hanging on High aka The Butcher's Butcher. Multi-Cache

“The first thing, which met the eye on entering the crime scene, was a stream of gore flowing over the shop, and proceeding backwards by the track of blood visible on the floor, the body of the unfortunate Hoskins was discovered perfectly lifeless, his throat cut through to the bone, the vertebral column broken and a frightful gash on the chin; independent of these wounds, which were enough to have destroyed him, there was a second in the pit of the stomach, a third in the region of the heart, a fourth in the right side, a fifth above the hip, from which the intestines protruded in a frightful manner, a sixth across the arm, and a seventh, by which his left thumb was nearly severed from his body, that had evidently been inflicted when the unfortunate man was struggling with his murderer.”

On a coroner’s inquest report, held the same day at Mr Cummins’ Commercial Tavern, it appeared in evidence that 12 months earlier “the prisoner had contemplated the murder of his master, but the cause which ultimately led to the atrocious act was the simple fact of his having been found drinking at the tap of the Commercial Tavern, from whence his master forced him home, threatening at the same time to punish him for neglect.”

At the inquest, Dr Mallon gave evidence that “he attended the deceased in the morning and found him lying on his face with his head nearly severed from his body; he found six deep wounds in different parts of the stomach, all of which would have proved mortal – he had no doubt they were inflicted with the knife now produced, which must have been buried up to the hilt in the body, as the top of it had actually struck a bone and taken a piece off the edge.”

The coroner’s jury delivered a verdict of wilful murder against Moore and he was committed to Sydney for trial. The trial was held on February 15 before Mr Justice Burton and a military jury and found guilty.

The authorities ordered that the prisoner’s execution should take place – not, as is usually the case, on the scaffold erected in Sydney gaol, but on the spot where the crime was perpetrated.

Moore was sent from Sydney to Maitland on Thursday, February 22 for his execution.

The media reported that: “Yesterday evening about 6 o’clock, William Moore, convicted of the wilful murder of the late John Hoskins of Maitland, butcher, was removed from the gaol of Sydney, to the Tamar steampacket,under a strong escort, to proceed by that vessel to where he is to suffer death, near the scene of his crime.

Mr Rogers, the late under sheriff, accompanied the criminal, and the frame of a scaffold was forwarded in the vessel. “The culprit was removed from the gaol in his irons, and sat on his coffin, also the executioner sitting on the coffin alongside him.

“The countenance of the culprit was pale, but he exhibited no trepidation as he looked around on the crowd that accompanied the procession. When he arrived at the wharf, hisses and groans arose from a part of the crowd.”

Justice was swift in the early days of the colony and on February 26, 25 five days after his crime, Moore paid the extreme penalty.

A Sydney paper reported that: “On Monday morning, at 10 o’clock, William Moore, the murderer of Hoskins, was executed alongside his late master’s house at Maitland.

The frame of a scaffold, prepared in Sydney, was erected for the purpose.” On Monday morning Moore was brought from the lock-up house where he had been confined. He was attended by two ministers of religion and exhibited none of the bravado he displayed at his trial

Before the cap was drawn over Moore’s face he uttered a few words to the spectators, desiring them to take warning by his fate and not to fall into the same excesses.