EDWARD BEAZLEY, WHIPPED FOR DESTROYING WOMEN'S APPAREL. UNTIL the severe examples made of this boy, females often found their clothes drop to tatters, and such as restricted themselves to mere muslin and chemise were frequently dreadfully burnt, in a way invisible, and almost unaccountable. A set of urchins, neither men nor boys, by way of a high game,' procured aqua-fortis, vitriol, and other corrosive liquids, and, filling therewith a syringe, or bottle, would sally forth to give the girls' a squirt.' Of this mischievous description we find Edward Beazley, who was convicted of this unpardonable of fence at the Old Bailey, the 11th of March, 1811. He was indicted for wilfully and maliciously injuring and destroying the apparel of Aune Parker, which she was wearing, by feloniously throwing upon the same a certain poisonous substance, called aquafortis, whereby the same was so injured as to be rendered useless and of no value. He was also charged upon two other indictments for the like of fence, on the prosecution of two other women. It appeared that the prisoner, a little boy about thirteen years old, took it into his head to sally into Fleet Street, on the night of Saturday, February 16, and there threw the same upon the clothes of several of the Cyprians who parade up and down there. He was caught, carried before the sitting magistrate at Guildhall, and fully committed on three several charges. Three ladies appeared, and proved the facts stated in the indictments, and exhibited their burnt garments, such as pelisses, gowns, and other articles, which were literally burnt to riddles. He was found Guilty. His master, Mr. Blades, and an eminent chymist on Ludgate Hill, gave him a good character for honesty; he never knew any thing wrong of him before; but he acknowledged that he had access to both vitriol and aqua-fortis, The Court having a discretionary power under the act of parliament, instead of transporting him for seven years, only ordered him to be well whipped in the gaol, after which he was returned to his friends. MARY GREEN, CONVICTED OF PUTTING OFF BASE COIN. COINERS of base money employ low people to go from shop to shop to put off their counterfeits; and in doing this every stratagem that can be devised is employed. One of these tricks is to ask change for a good dollar; and, in counting the shillings given for it, they secrete one or more of them, and substitute counterfeits. Then they pretend that part of their change is bad; and the tradesman, unconscious of the deception, takes their base coin, and gives them good money in return. This the rogues, among each other, call ringing the changes.' At the Sessions for Middlesex, held the 5th of April, 1811, Mary Green, a decent-looking girl, was found guilty of putting off two bad shillings to Mr. Harris, a linen-draper, in Pickett Street, Temple Bar. She went into Mr. Harris's shop, and asked for small silver for a dollar; Mr. Harris gave it her. She walked two or three yards up the shop, and, addressing herself to the shopman, told him that his master aad given her two bad shillings. This Mr. Harris denied, and refused to take them. She then conducted herself most rudely; whereupon a constable was sent for. Before he arrived, she still persisted in her impudent behaviour, saying that she had no more money about her but the dollar. Lack, the officer, soon arrived, and searched her, and there were found concealed about her twelve shillings and four sixpences, all in good silver, besides the change of the dollar. The jury, after a charge from Mr. Mainwaring, found her Guilty. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, the counsel for the prosecution acquainted the Court, that as the punishment was pointed out by the act of parliament, from which they could not deviate, the prisoner's case could not be affected by the profligacy of her character. He thought it right to mention that this was the second time she had been brought into that court (first with her mother) for this kind of crime; that her father was transported; and her younger sister was then in confinement under the sentence of the Court for the same kind of offence. She was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. RICHARD ARMITAGE AND C. THOMAS, EXECUTED FOR FORGERY. an hour thereon; after which a chair was set on the pillory; and he being put therein, the hangman with a sort of pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and immediately a surgeon clapt a styptic thereon. Then the executioner, with a pair of scissors, cut his left nostril twice before it was quite through, and afterwards cut through the right nostril at once. He bore all this with great patience; but when, in pursuance of his sentence, his right nostril was FORGERY, from the accumulating number of instances the farther we proceed in our work, is manifestly a crime which increases with the certainty of punishment. Murderers, if aught of palliation can be offered for the frailty of human nature, may indulge a distant hope of the extension of the royal mercy. Forgery is now never pardoned-a determination on the part of the crown, laid down in the cases of the Perreaus and of Doctor Dodd, whom no interest could save from an ignomini-seared with a red-hot iron, he was ous death. Thus excluded from all hope of pardon, it is daily becoming more common; and the alteration in the law, from the pillory and corporal punishment to death, has no terrifying influence. The ancient punishment for this crime we find thus minutely described in a London periodical publication for the year 1731: June 9th-This day, about noon, Japhet Crook, alias St. Peter Stranger, was brought to the pillory at Charing Cross, according to his sentence for forgery. He stood in such violent pain that his left nostril was let alone, and he went from the pillory bleeding. He wis conveyed from thence to the King's Bench Prison, there to remain for life. He died in confinement about three years after.' The crime for which Armitage and Thomas so very justly suffered was of the very worst description of forgery-a scandalous breach of public trust-a robbery upon the very corporation they were bornd to protect from the nefario is attempts of others. Like Asiett, their former head of department, they long had practised impositions on the Bank of England, unsuspected; and in the mean time maintained the show of integrity. Aslett was detected by Bish, the lottery-office keeper, wherein he performed a public service-Armitage and Thomas by Robert Roberts, the notorious swindler, to save the halter's noose being affixed round his own neck. The circumstances which led to the detection more excited public interest than the frauds of Walsh and Hunt, two members of the House of Commons,-more than Chinnery's flight or Davison's incarceration for who can bring back to mind any public act of delinquency that more excited the astonishment of the individual, or alarmed the mercantile interest of the country, than the result of this Roberts's escape from that strong and dread prison, the House of Correction, Coldbath Fields? Hence the history of the accomplice in this case becomes more interesting, than any other particulars which can be brought forward respecting the suf has sufficient means to facilitate his escape out of the country, if unfortunately he should not be speedily arrested.' Towards the latter end of August, 1810, Robert Roberts was apprehended for being concerned in the many forgeries which for some time had been practised on the Bank of England and the commercial part of the metropolis. He was brought to one of the public offices, and from thence remanded to the House of Correction in Coldbath Fields. In a few days, in company with another prisoner, of the name of Harper, he effected his escape, and the public were surprised at seeing large printed sheets of paper, pasted on the walls of the city, announcing this extraordinary circumstance, and offering a large reward for their apprehension, but particularly for the discovery of Roberts, the other belonging merely to the gangs of smaller rogues. Mean time strict inquiry was made into the manner of this singular escape. The prison was searched; and Aris the gaoler,* or governor, as such fellows style themselves, and his sons acting as turnkeys, were brought before a bench of Middlesex magistrates, on the 31st August, 1810, on a charge of conniving thereat. Mr. Aris, senior, his four sons, and the whole of the servants of the prison, were closely examined. It appeared that the two prisoners, Roberts and Harper, were not supposed to know each other; and that the whole of the gates leading from This is the gaoler who persecuted a reputable tradesman in the Strand, for defamation of his character; and a jury actually gave him large damages! This was not the heaviest punishment which awaited the convicted; as will be seen by the following obituary, of the 24th of September, 1808 : Died, on Saturday morning, Mr. Dickie, late stationer in the Strand, who has been confined nearly five years in the Fleet Prison, in consequence of a verdict given against him for seven hundred pounds damages for uttering defamatory words against Mr. Aris, the Governor of Coldbath Fields Prison. He has left a distressed widow and four children still to lameut his unfortunate offence and unhappy death.' the confinement of Roberts, six in number, were found open in the morning, they having been made fast at locking-up time on the preceding night. The prisoners then made their escape over the wall, by ascending a new lodge in the prison, not then finished; and when at the top of the wall they were supposed to have let themselves down by a rope, as a hook was found in the morning by Daniel Aris, the gaoler's son. The investigation closed with the suspending of Aris, the gaol-keeper, the committal of Daniel Aris, his son, for felony, and the dismissal of another of Aris's sons, who was a turnkey. No clue had then been had of Roberts or Harper. The evidence against Roberts, relative to the forgery upon the Bank, was quite conclusive, and a woman he cohabited with was admitted an evidence. At a second examination the testimony went still further to criminate the son of Aris, who was fully committed; but the method of escape remained then a secret, and was not disclosed until some time after. The facts were these:-Roberts bribed a person, employed to sweep the cells, to get him impressions of the keys, by which he procured some to be made; and the person instructed Harper how to open the gates, and secure his own and Roberts's escape. Much mystery, however, was thrown over the whole case, and it evidently appeared that Roberts had a friend, besides the sweeper, within the prison, but who he was remained a secret. Aris's son was subsequently acquitted. saine During these long examinations, and notwithstanding a large reward was offered for his apprehension, Roberts evaded the strict search of justice. It was known that he had carried off a considerable sum of The remaining part of this sin- Richard Armitage was first ap- His forgeries of dividend warrants were to the amount of two thousand four hundred pounds. On the 2d of May following, C. was apprehended, and Thomas brought to the same office, on a charge of having forged several diwas also vidend warrants; and, after three separate examinations, committed for trial. The prisoner was a Bank clerk in the Imperial Annuity Office, and the warrants forged were to obtain the dividends of a person who had been dead about three years, and whose executors had not applied for his property. It appeared that three hundred and sixty pounds had been paid out of the Bank, and the prisoner's name was signed as an attesting witness. It was also proved that bank-notes, with which the dividends were paid, were found in the prisoner's possession. Under these circumstances the prisonet was fully committed for trial. This is one of the cases disclosed by Roberts. Armitage was fully committed, and Roberts and his wife were the principal witnesses against him. The trials of these unfortunate men were unattended by any other circumstance worthy noticing, farther than, independent of the evidence of Roberts and his wife, which, unsupported, would have received little credit, full proof was adduced of their guilt; they were consequently found guil ty, and received sentence of death. On the 24th of June, 1811, Rick:ard Armitage and C. Thomas, late clerks in the Bank, were executed in the Old Bailey, pursuant to their sentence, for repeated forgeries on that corporation. The former, from severe illness, was under the necessity of being supported by a friend while ascending, and during his continuance on the scaffold. He was attended by a clergyman, to whose pious admonitions he appeared to pay becoming attention. The latter, who was a Catholic, was attended by a priest of that persuasion, and conducted himself with apparent fortitude. JANE COX, EXECUTED FOR MURDER. We have already reprobated the constant practice of country apothecaries, and even their apprentices, selling poison to any one who of fers the stale pretext of killing rats. The lust of lucre, even in the pennyworth, induces these underlings of the disciples of Esculapius to supply the means of death to the lowest order of the communityeven to women-when they might often perceive that it was craved for diabolical purposes. There ought to be a law, as from Shakspeare we learn was in Mantua of old, against such practices; for the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet says: 'Such mortal drugs I have, but Man tua's law 1791, at Palermo, a city not far distant from Mantua, an old woman was executed for dealing out such mortal drugs. Many people in this town and neighbourhood,' (Palermo,) says this author, died in a sudden and extraordinary manner; they were generally seized with vomiting, and expired in a few hours. A young woman went to an officer of justice to make some complaints concerning her husband; he desired her to be reconciled, and refused to proceed against him, upon which she turned away in a rage, muttering that she knew how to be revenged. The magistrate paid attention to what she said, and gave orders for her being arrested; when, upon strict inquiry concerning the meaning of her word, she confessed that it was her intention to poison her husband, by purchasing a bottle of vinegar from an old woman, who prepared it for that purpose. In order to ascertain the truth of this story, another woman was sent to the old jade, to demand some of the |