Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,040 pages of information about Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences.

Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,040 pages of information about Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences.

At the place of execution his wife came to him, embraced him with great tenderness, and all he said there in relation to the world was that he hoped nobody would reflect upon her for the misfortune which had befallen him, and then, with great piety and resignation in the midst of fervent ejaculations, yielded up his last breath at Tyburn, at the same time with the malefactor before mentioned, being at the time of his decease about forty-three years of age.

The Life of JAMES CLUFF, a Murderer, in which is contained a concise account of the nature of Appeals

To curb our vicious inclinations and to restrain those passions from the sudden transports of which cruel and irreparable mischiefs are done, is without doubt the best end of all instructions; and for my own part, I cannot help thinking that this very book may contribute as much to this purpose as any other that has been published for a long time.  That vices are foul in their nature is certainly true, and that they are fatal in their consequences, those who, without consideration pursue them, feel.  There are few who will take time to convince themselves of the first, but no man can be so blind as to mistake the latter after the perusal of these memoirs, in which I have been particularly careful to describe the several roads by which our lusts lead us to destruction; and have fixed up Tyburn as a beacon to warn several men from indulging themselves in sensual pleasures.

This unfortunate person we are now going to give the public an account of was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market.  They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower.  There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, and preserved a tolerable remembrance unto the time of his unhappy death.

After he was out of his time, he served as a drawer at several public houses, and behaved himself civilly and honestly without any reflections either on his temper or his honesty until he came to Mr. Payne’s, who kept the Green Lettuce, a public house in High Holborn, where the accident fell out which cost him his life.

It seems there lived with him as a fellow servant, one Mary Green, whom some suggested he had an affection for; but whether that were so or not, did not very clearly appear, but on the contrary it was proved that they had many janglings and quarrels together, in which Cluff had sometimes struck her.  However it was, on the 11th of April, 1729, Mary Green being at dinner in a box by herself, Cluff came in and went into the box to her, where he had not continued above four or five minutes before he called to his mistress, who was walking up and down, Madam, pray come here. By this time the maid was dead of a wound in her thigh, which pierced the femoral artery.  There was a noise heard before the man himself came out, and the wench was dead before her mistress came in.

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Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.