embankment, belonging to the London Dock
Company, and across this the man escaped
through the rising mist.

The agitation of the neighbourhood at the
news was irresistible frenzy. People leaped
down from windows; every house poured forth
its inmates. Sick men rose from their beds.
One man, who died, indeed, the next week,
snatched up a sword and went into the street.
The one desire was to tear and hew the
wolfish demon to pieces in the very shambles
where he had been found. The drums of the
volunteers beat to arms; the fire-bells rang.
Every cart and carriage was stopped, every boat
on the river and every house in the neighbourhood
was searched, but in vain. Rewards of
fifteen hundred pounds were offered by government
and the parish of St. George.

The very next day an Irish sailor, named John
Williams, alias Murphy, was apprehended at
the Pear -Tree public-house, kept by Mrs.
"Vermillot, where he lodged. About half-past
one on the night of the first murder, he had
come up into the loft, where there were five
or six beds, two Scotchmen and several
Germans. The watchman was crying the half
hour at the time. The Germans were sitting
up in bed with a lighted candle reading; but
they put it out because Williams said, roughly,
"For God's sake put out that light, or
something will happen!" In the morning a fellow-
lodger, named Harris, told him of the murder
before he got up. He replied surlily, "I know
it." Since then he had been restless at nights,
and had been heard to say in his sleep: "Five
shillings in my pocket?—my pockets are full of
silver." Alarmed, at the Marrs', the murderer
had taken nothing there, although there was
a sum of one hundred and fifty-two pounds
in the house, besides several guineas in Marr's
pocket. The mallet left, with another maul
and an iron ripping chisel, at Marr's, was
identified as belonging to Peterson, a
Norwegian ship carpenter, who had left it in a tool-
chest in Mrs. Vermillot's garret at the Pear-
Tree, from which it was now missing. Mrs.
Vermillot's children remembered the mallet from
having often played with it. The prisoner's
washerwoman also proved that a shirt which he
had recently worn came to her bloody and
torn, and he had told her he had had a fight.
It was proved that he knew Marr and Williamson,
and several publicans certified that they
had resolved to refuse him their houses because
he was always meddling with their tills. It
was also proved that he nad recently cut off his
whiskers, and that muddy stockings he had
worn had been found hidden behind a chest.

This was on the Friday; on the Saturday he
was committed for trial. On his way to prison,
but for a powerful escort he would have been
torn in pieces by a fierce mob. At five o'clock
he was left in his cell at Coldbath-fields, and
his candle removed. In the morning he was
found dead, hanging by his braces to an iron
bar.

A few weeks later, the guilt of this horrible
wretch was finally and completely proved. In
a closet at the Pear-Tree public-house, some
men, searching behind a heap of dirty clothes,
found plugged into a mouse-hole a large ivory-
handled French clasp-knife, the handle and blade
both smeared with blood. Williams had been seen
using the knife about three weeks before the
Williamsons' murder. They also found a blue
jacket of Williams's, the outside pocket of which
was stiff with coagulated blood: as if the
murderer had thrust the money into this pocket
with his hand still wet.

A lady who saw Williams at the police-court
examination, described him to De Quincey
as a middle-sized man, rather thin and
muscular, and with reddish hair: his features mean
and ghastly pale. It did not seem real blood
that circulated in his veins; but a green sap
welling from no human heart. He was known
for an almost refined and a smooth insinuating
manner; he is even said to have once asked a
girl he knew, if she would be frightened if she
saw him appear about midnight at her bedside
armed with a knife? To which the girl replied:

"Oh, Mr. Williams, if it was anybody else
I should be frightened, but as soon as I heard
your voice I should be tranquil."

The interment of this wretch was ghastly
enough. A quaint grim print of the procession
still exists. On Monday, December 30th, the
body was taken in procession from Cold
Bathfields to the watch-house near Ratcliff-highway.
The corpse lay on a high platform, in a very
high cart drawn by one horse. The platform
was composed of rough deal battened together,
and was raised at the head so as to slope the body,
while a partition at the other end, towards the
horse, kept the feet from slipping. The body
was dressed in a clean white frilled shirt open
at the neck, the hair was neatly combed, and the
face washed. The countenance was ruddy, the
bare arms and wrists were a deep purple; the
lower part of the body was covered with clean
blue trousers and brown stockings (no shoes),
and at the head was the stake that was to be
driven through the suicide. On the right leg was
fastened the iron which Williams had on when
he was committed to prison. The fatal mallet
was placed upright at the left side of his head,
and the ripping chisel on the other side.

About six o'clock the procession of three
hundred constables and headboroughs, most of
them armed with drawn cutlasses, moved slowly
towards Marr's house, where the cart stopped
a quarter of an hour. The jolting having turned
the murderer's head away from the house, a
man clambered on to the platform and placed it
directly facing the spot. The procession then
moved on, down Old Gravel-lane and Wapping
High-street, and, entering New Gravel-lane by
Wapping-wall, reached the second house, where
the constables again halted the cart. Then,
entering Ratcliff - highway, they turned up
Cannon-street, and near the turnpike, where
the New-road crosses, they reached the grave—
which was dug purposely small and shallow.
After a deep and solemn silence for about ten
minutes, the body was jolted into its infamous
hole, amid the yells and cheers of thousands. The