to London, and then engaged in the service of Brown, esq. of Golden Square, who used to make frequent excursions to Hampstead, attended by his servant.

Price now became acquainted with Mary Chambers, servant in a public house at Hampstead, whom he married at the expiration of a fortnight from his first paying his addresses to her; but Mr. Brown, disapproving of the match, dismissed Price from his service.

Soon after this he took his wife into Brecknockshire, and imposed her on his relations as the daughter of a military officer, who would become entitled to a large fortune. He was treated in the most friendly manner by his relations; and the young couple returning to London, the wife went to lodge at Hampstead, while Price engaged in the service of a gentleman in New Broad Street.

Mrs. Price, being delivered of twins, desired her husband to buy some medicines to make the children sleep, which he procured; and the children dying soon afterwards, a report was circulated that he had poisoned them; but this circumstance he denied to the last moment of his life.

In a short time Price's master removed into Kent, whither he attended him; and, in the interim, his wife was again brought to bed, a circumstance that greatly chagrined him, as he had now made other connexions, and was grown weary of the support of his own family. Mrs. Price having afterwards become a third time pregnant, he told her he could not support any more children, and recommended her to take medicines to procure abortion; which was accordingly done, and the horrid intention was answered.

Price now paid his addresses to

a widow in Kent; and, considering his wife as an obstacle between him and his wishes, he formed the infernal resolution of murdering her.

Having been bruised by a fall from his horse, and his master having business in London, he was left behind, to take his passage in a Margate hoy as soon as his health would permit; and on his arrival at Billingsgate his wife was waiting to receive him, in the hope of obtaining some money towards her present support.

Price no sooner beheld her than he began to devise the plan of the intended murder; on which he told her that he had procured the place of a nursery-maid for her in the neighbourhood of Putney, and that he would attend her thither that very day. He then directed her to clean herself, and meet him at the Woolpack, in Monkwell Street.

In her way to her lodgings she called at the house of her husband's master, where the servants advised her not to trust herself in her husband's company; but she said she had no fear of him, as he had treated her with unusual kindness. Accordingly she went home and dressed herself (having borrowed some clothes of her landlady), and met her husband, who put her in a chaise, and drove her out of town towards Hounslow.

As they were riding along, she begged he would stop while she bought some snuff, which he, in a laughing manner, refused to do, saying she would never want any again. When he came on Hounslow Heath, it being near ten o'clock at night, he suddenly stopped the chaise, and threw the lash of the whip round his wife's neck; but drawing it too hastily, he made a violent mark on her chin: immediately finding his mistake, he placed it lower; on which she ex

claimed, My dear! my dear! for God's sake-if this is your love, I will never trust you more!'

Immediately on her pronouncing these words, which were her last, he pulled the ends of the whip with great force; but, the violence of his passion abating, he let go before she was quite dead: yet, resolving to accomplish the horrid deed, he once more put the thong of the whip about her neck, and pulled it with such violence that it broke; but not till the poor woman was dead.

Having stripped the body, he left it almost under a gibbet, where some malefactors hung in chains, having first disfigured it to such a degree that he presumed it could not be known. He brought the clothes to London, some of which he cut in pieces, and dropped in dif. ferent streets; but, knowing that the others were borrowed of the landlady, he sent them to her; a circumstance that materially conduced to his conviction.

He reached London about one o'clock in the morning; and, being interrogated why he came at such an unseasonable hour, he said that the Margate hoy had been detained in the river by contrary winds.

On the following day the servants, and other people, made so many inquiries respecting his wife, that, terrified at the idea of being taken into custody, he immediately fled to Portsmouth, with a view of entering on board a ship; but no vessel was then ready to sail.

While he was drinking at an ale. house in Portsmouth, he heard the bellman crying him as a murderer, with such an exact description of him, that he was apprehensive of being seized; and, observing a window which opened to the water, he jumped out and swam for his life.

Having gained the shore, he travelled all night till he reached a

farm-house, where he inquired for employment. The farmer's wife said he did not appear as if he had been used to country work; but he might stay till her husband's arrival.

The farmer regarded him with great attention, and said he wanted a ploughman, but that he was certain he would not answer his purpose, as he had the appearance of a person who had absconded for debt, or possibly there might be some criminal prosecution against him.

Price expressed his readiness to do any thing for an honest subsistence; but the farmer refused to employ him, though he said he would give him a supper and a lodging. But, when bed-time came, the farmer's men refused to sleep with Price, in the fear of his robbing them of their clothes; in consequence of which he was obliged to lie on some straw in the barn.

On the following day he crossed the country towards Oxford, where he endeavoured to get into service, and would have been engaged by a physician; but, happening to read a newspaper in which he was advertised, he immediately decamped from Oxford, and travelled into Wales.

Having stopped at a village a few miles from Hay, at the house of a shoemaker to whom his brother was apprenticed, the latter obtained permission to accompany George home; and, while they were on their walk, the malefactor recounted the particulars of the murder which had obliged him to seek his safety in flight.

The brother commiserated his condition; and, leaving him at a small distance from their father's house, went in, and found the old gentleman reading an advertisement describing the murderer. The

younger son bursting into tears, the father said he hoped his brother was not come; to which the youth replied, "Yes, he is at the door; but, being afraid that some of the neighbours were in the house, he would not come in till he had your permis

sion.'

The offender, being introduced, fell on his knees, and earnestly besought his father's blessing; to which the aged parent said, 'Ah! George, I wish God may bless you, and that what I have heard concerning you may be false.' The son said, 'It is false; but let me have a private room: make no words; I have done no harm; let me have a room to myself.'

Being accommodated agreeably to his request, he produced half a crown, begging that his brother would buy a lancet, as he was resolved to put a period to his miserable existence: but the brother declined to be in any way aiding to the commission of the crime of suicide; and the father, after exerting every argument to prevent his thinking of such a farther violation of the laws of God, concealed him for two days.

It happened that the neighbours observing a fire in a room where none had been for a considerable time before, a report was propagated that Price was secreted in the house of his father; whereupon he thought it prudent to abscond in the night; and, having reached Gloucester, he went to an inn, and procured the place of an ostler.

The terrors of his conscience now agitated him to such a degree, that the other servants could not help

asking what ailed him; to which he replied, that a girl he had courted having married another man, he had never been able to enjoy any peace of mind since.

During his residence at Gloucester, two of the sons of the lady with whom he had first lived as a servant happened to be at a school in that city; and Price behaved to them with so much civility that they wrote to their mother, describing his conduct; in reply to which she informed them that he had killed his wife, and desired them not to hold any correspondence with him.

The young gentlemen mentioning this circumstance, one of Price's fellow-servants said to him, 'You are the man that murdered his wife on Hounslow Heath. I will not betray you; but, if you stay longer, you will certainly be taken into custody.'

Stung by the reflections of his own conscience, and agitated by the fear of momentary detection, Price kuew not how to act; but at length he resolved to come to London, and surrender to justice; and calling on his former master, and being apprehended, he was committed to Newgate.

At the following sessions at the Old Bailey he was brought to his trial, and convicted on almost the strongest circumstantial evidence that was ever adduced against any offender. He had prepared a written defence; but declined reading it, as he found it was so little likely to operate with any effect in his favour.

He was sentenced to death, but died of the gaol fever,* in New