commoners by a jury of twelve men, and lords by the House of Lords.

Sir Simon Clarke and Lieutenant Robert Arnott were tried, and convicted of a highway robbery, at an assize held at Winchester. We have shown the reader that unrestrain. ed gusts of passion have brought some noblemen to the gallows; and others have been led to the block for treason; but still more have escaped their merited fate through influence. No man, however, of title, do we remember to be brought to ignominy for a robbery, in the common course practised by highwaymen, save Sir Simon Clarke; and no mercy should be extended towards those favoured by fortune after the commission of so despicable a crime.

The influence exerted in behalf of this culprit, and his coadjutor in iniquity, almost smothered the promulgation of the trial. We, how

ever, in the course of our researches, found it named in one of the best publications of that day, The Gentleman's Magazine, which, for the month of March, 1731, contains the following information:

Came on at Winchester, the trials of Sir Simon Clarke, Bart. and Lieutenant Robert Arnott, who were convicted of a rubbery on the highway. A numerous con. course of gentry were present. Sir Simon made a most pathetic and moving speech, which had such an effect, that there was scarce a dry eye in the Court. The high sheriff and grand jury, considering the an. tiquity, worth, and dignity, of Sir Simon's ancestors, the services they had done their king and country, together with the youth and melancholy circumstances of that unhappy gentleman, agreed to address his majesty in their behalf; upon which a reprieve sine die, which implies for ever, was granted them.'

In the fate of this man we have another instance of the tormenting impulse which impels murderers, who have escaped the punishment awaiting such as shed innocent blood, to return, as it were involuntarily, to make atonement for the horrid crime.

This hoary sinner was, at the time of his committing the murder in question, a soldier in the second regiment of foot-guards; and, on the evening of the perpetration of the fatal deed, he had been drinking Geneva with a comrade of the name of John Briggins: after which they went together to a gaminghouse called the Phoenix, in the

Haymarket, and where Irwin had some time held the office of doorkeeper.* Ringing the bell, one Piercy, who had succeeded Irwin as door-keeper, opened the wicket; but, seeing who it was, said he had orders not to let him in, as he had already been turned out for breeding quarrels and disturbances. Enraged at this language from the man who had supplanted him, he drew his bayonet, pushed it through the wicket into the very heart of Piercy, and then made his escape. Hearing the next morning that the door-keeper of the Phoenix had been murdered, he determined to desert his regiment, which he imme

diately did, and fled to Ireland, where he remained long undiscovered among his relations, and might, for the remainder of his wretched life, have continued thus concealed, had his mind been undis. turbed; but his situation grew irksome, and nobody could dissuade him from returning to London. As a reason for so doing, he pretended that, from his long services in the army, he would, on application, be made an out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital, and fancied the mur

der would be forgotten. He had not, however, been many days in London, before he was met by one John Roberts, who caused him to be apprehended. He was tried at the Old Bailey, for the murder of Piercy, five years after the commission of the crime, when his old comrade Briggins appeared, and swore that he saw Irwin give the fatal blow. He was found guilty, and executed in the year 1731, at Tyburn, where he coufessed the fact.

In the former part of the last century horse-stealing was a very common offence. Thieves could then dispose of their stolen booty with much more facility than at present, the laws being now better maintained and carried into execution than formerly.

The subject of the present article was not only a stealer of horses, but of cattle of every description. Smith was born at Cambridge, bred a clothier, had been a soldier, then descended to the post of footman to a private family, and from that lazy, saucy, kind of life, became connected with horsestealers. Owing to his person not being known in the scenes of their depredations, he for some time acted as the receiver of the gang. He returned some of the stolen property for the reward offered, cut out, or altered, the marks of others, and drove the remainder to a distance for sale. From a rich farmer in Essex he stole four fine large colts, and gave them to a colonel in the French service, hoping to be rewarded by a commission in his regiment; but Monsieur, though he liked the young horses, despised the thief, and Smith found that he

had been outwitted. He afterwards defrauded a farmer of six horses, pretending to purchase them.

Becoming now known in Essex, he changed his depredations to Surrey, and soon cheated a farmer's widow of two cows. Having next stolen a horse and a mare, he was about to drive the whole off for sale, when, on the 27th of May, 1731, he was apprehended. The cows were found yoked together, and tied to the horses' tails; and he was in the very act of cutting off the ears of the former, in order to deface them, having already altered the marks of the horses.

He was tried for the offences committed in Essex at Chelmsford, and found guilty of felony in horsestealing. In the interim between his condemnation and execution he gave out that he could inform persons how to recover the property of which he had robbed them, and cheated many out of sums of money by false tales, and other deceitful acts; and the produce of this shocking depravity he wasted in drinking and gaming, which shameful practices he continued to the day of his execution. He suffered at Chelmsford, along with Thomas Willer,

another horse-stealer, on the 13th of August, 1731.

At the next assize for the same county a third horse-stealer was convicted and executed. This man's name was John Doe, against whom thirty-nine bills of indictment were

found by the grand jury! He belonged to a numerous gang of depredators, who stole cattle of every description, and drove them to Smithfield market, in London, where he had the effrontery to sell them.

EXECUTED

WAS a native of London, and intended by his parents for a maritime life, in preparation for which they had him instructed in navigation, and then apprenticed him to the captain of a trading vessel. He served his time with fidelity, acquired the character of an able seaman, and afterwards went on board several vessels as a mate, and was held in great reputation.

On his return to London he married a young woman, who being averse to his going again to sea, he purchased two of the Gravesend wherries, and continued to get his living on the Thames nine years.

His family being increased by several children, he took a public house, which was chiefly attended to by his wife, while he still pursued his business as a proprietor of the Gravesend boats.

The taking an alehouse was an unfortunate circumstance for Hallam; for the house being frequented by the lowest of the people, and his wife being addicted to drinking, the place was a perpetual scene of riot and confusion.

Hallam, returning from his business one evening, found his wife intoxicated: being irritated by this circumstance, he expressed his sentiments with great freedom; and she replying with some warmth, he beat her so as to leave evident marks of resentment on her face.

Hallam's son now told his father that a waterman who lodged in the

house frequently slept with his mother; and some persons present likewise hinting that this was probable, from certain familiarities they had observed between the woman and the waterman, Hallam charged his wife with being unfaithful to his bed, and she confessed that she had been so; on which he beat her in a more severe manner than before.

Not long after this he came home late at night, and knocked at the door; but, no one coming to let him in, he procured a ladder to get in at the window; when his wife appeared, and admitted him. On his asking the reason why she did not sooner open the door, she said she had been asleep, and did not hear him; but she afterwards confessed that she had a man with her, and had let him out at a back window before she opened the door to her husband.

The infidelity of Hallam's wife tempted him to equal indulgence of his irregular passions: he had illicit connexions with several women, and, in particular, seduced the wife of a waterman, which broke the husband's heart, and he died in consequence of the affair.

On a particular night Hallam came home very much in liquor, and went to bed, desiring his wife to undress herself, and come to bed likewise. She sat, partly undressed, on the side of the bed, as if afraid to go in; while he became quite

enraged at her paying no regard to what he said. At length she ran down stairs, and he followed her, and locked the street-door to prevent her going out. On this she ran up into the dining-room, whither he likewise followed her, and struck her several times. He then went into another room for his cane, and she locked him in.

Enraged at this, he broke open the door, and, seizing her in his arms, threw her out of the window, with her head foremost, and her back to the ground, so that, on her falling, her back was broken, her skull fractured, and she instantly expired. A person passing just

before she fell heard her cry out • Murder! for God's sake! for Christ's sake! for our family's sake! for our children's sake, don't murder me, don't throw me out of the window!'

We give the above circumstances as what were sworn to on the trial, in consequence of which the jury found Hallam guilty, and he received sentence of death: but the prisoner denied the fact, insisting that she threw herself out of the window before he got into the room; and he persisted in avowing his innocence to the last hour of his life. He was executed at Tyburn, February 14, 1732.

THOUGH adultery is, by holy writ, denounced a crime heinous to God, and though we have daily instances of the shocking enormities to which it leads the unguarded, yet are virtue and modesty constantly outraged by the commission of this offence with impunity. No wonder, then, at the mischief arising from this vice, when even princes, who are bound by every tie to hand down to the meanest members of society examples worthy of emulation alone, seem regardless of that commandment of God which says, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

John Hewit was a butcher, and a married man, at Derby; and Ro. samond Oderenshaw servant to the landlady of the Crown public house, at Nun's Green, a widow, to whose inordinate desires she fell a victim, having been made the instrument of murdering the wife of Hewit. From the confessions of these malefactors it appeared that Hewit had criminal knowledge of both the landlady and her servant. The former of these abandoned

women, in order to secure her paramour to herself by marrying him, determined on the murder of Mrs. Hewit. To this horrid end she procured some poison, and mixed it in a pancake, which, through promises of reward, she prevailed upon the servant to give to Hannah Hewit, who, little suspicious, ate heartily thereof, until she was seized with a pain in her stomach, and, vomiting a part of the contents in the yard, a pig that ate of it soon died, and the unfortunate woman herself expired, in excruciating torments, at the end of three hours. While the devoted victim ate the poisoned food the hardened landlady appeared to be composedly ironing some clothes in the parlour, yet this instigator of the foul deed escaped; while the husband, who was proved to have been accessory to the crime, and the servant, alone met their just punishment. The condemned female reprobate, a short time previous to her execution, confessed that, through the persuasion of her mistress, she had some weeks be

THE pillory is an engine made of wood, to punish offenders, by exposing them to public view, and rendering them infamous. There is a statute of the pillory 51 Henry III.; and by statute it is appointed for bakers, forestallers, and those who use false weights, perjury, for. gery, &c. Lords of Leets are to have a pillory and tumbrel, or it will be the cause of forfeiture of the leet; and a village may be bound by prescription to provide a pillory, &c.

The name is derived from two

Greek words, signifying to look through a door;' because one standing on the pillory puts his head, as it were, through a door.

This profligate wretch, Waller, to robbery added the still greater sin of accusing the innocent, in order to receive the reward in certain cases attending conviction. The abominable dealer in human blood was tried at the Old Bailey for robbing, on the highway, one John Edglin, and afterwards, under the name of John Trevor, giving a