the first five-shilling Saturday-night-to-Monday-morning trip to
Llandudno came off on August 14, 1880. The railway companies do not fail
to give ample notice of all long excursions, and for those who prefer
the pleasant places in our own district, there is a most interesting
publication to be had for 6d., entitled "The Birmingham Saturday
Half-holiday Guide," wherein much valuable information is given
respecting the nooks and corners of Warwick and Worcester, and their
hills and dales.

~Executions.~--In 1729 a man was hung on Gibbett Hill, site of Oscott
College, for murder and highway robbery. Catherine Evans was hung
February 8, 1742, for the murder of her husband in this town. At the
Summer Assizes in 1773, James Duckworth, hopfactor and grocer, of this
town, was sentenced to death for counterfeiting and diminishing the gold
coin. He was supposed to be one of the heaviest men in the county,
weighing over twenty-four stone. He died strongly protesting his
innocence, On the 22nd Nov., 1780, Wilfrid Barwick, a butcher, was
robbed and murdered near the four mile stone on the Coleshill Road. The
culprits were two soldiers, named John Hammond (an American by birth)
and Thomas Pitmore (a native of Cheshire) but well known as "Jack and
Tom," drummer and fifer in the recruiting service here. They were
brought before the magistrates at the old Public Office in Dale End;
committed; and in due course tried and sentenced at Warwick to be hanged
and gibbeted on Washwood Heath, near the scene of the murder. The
sentence was carried out April 2, 1781, the bodies hanging on the gibbet
in chains a short time, until they were surreptitiously removed by some
humanitarian friends who did not approve of the exhibition. What became
of the bodies was not known until the morning of Thursday, Jan. 20,
1842, when the navvies employed on the Birmingham and Derby (now
Midland) railway came upon the two skeletons still environed in chains