nations.
He seemed to have a just notion both of the heinousness of that crime
which he had committed and of the shame and ignominy he had brought upon
himself and his relations. He was particularly affected with the
miseries which were likely to fall upon his poor wife for his folly, and
when the day of his death came, he seemed very easy and contented under
it, declaring, however, at last that he died in the communion of the
Church of Rome. This was on the 27th of June, 1726, being then not much
above eighteen years old.

The Life of JOHN MURREL, a Horse-Stealer

This malefactor was descended of very honest and reputable parents in
the county of York, who took care not only that he should read and write
tolerably well, but also that he should be instructed in the principles
of religion. They brought him up in their own way of business, which was
grazing of cattle (both black cattle and horses), and afterwards selling
them at market. As he grew up a man, he settled in the same occupation,
farming what is called in Yorkshire a grazing room, for which he paid
near a hundred pounds a year rent, and dealt very considerably himself
in the same way which had been followed by his parents. He married also
a young woman with a tolerable fortune, who bore him several children,
five of which were alive at the time of his execution, and lived with
their mother upon some little estate she had of her own.

For some years after his marriage he lived with tolerable reputation in
the country, but being lavish in his expenses, he quickly consumed both
his own little fortune and what he had with his wife, and then failing
in his business, a whim took him in the head to come to London, whither
also he brought his son. Here he soon fell into bad company, and getting
acquaintance with a woman whom he thought was capable of maintaining
him, he married her, or at least lived with her as if they had been
married, for a considerable space; the news of which reaching his wife
in the country, affected her so much that she had very nigh fallen into
a fit of sickness. Thereupon her friends demonstrated to her, in vain,
how unreasonable a thing it was for her to give herself so much pain
about a man who treated her at once with unkindness and injustice; in
spite of their remonstrances she came up to London, in hopes that her
presence might reclaim him. But herein she was utterly mistaken, for he
absolutely denied her to be his wife, and ev