being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He
was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts
which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This
is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these
pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more
unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves
to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the
highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming
eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the
village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of
spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child
to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with
her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to
disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still
dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother
to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the
more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this
opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at
length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of
all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and
procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply
with his request, and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend, in a moment of
unbridled passion, made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a
hatchet--alas! it needed not a hard one--_he destroyed her_. I caught the
judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered, and his
countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster _too_, but my heart
failed me, and my blood boiled with indignation, and I could not turn to
him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the
evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner, leaving upon the
minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother,