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Subject: Excerpt Of History
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 17:18:50 EDT
"After felons gave a confession, they were printed up as pamphlets, which
contained a detailed account of their crimes. Sometimes these pamphlets were sold
to the crowd at the execution. Known as "gallows literature," some of these
pamphlets even contained poems and letters by the condemned man. While its
generally impossible to know whether this material was actually written by the
felon himself, if it wasn't, it was generally based on the dying mans confession.
There are also many ballads written from the criminals point of view, but its
doubtful any of these were written by the person they're attributed to."
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