am; can’t you put the things straight in the morning?” and then fell asleep again. If she had awakened and seen him he would certainly have murdered her. Some suspicion that Higgins was not altogether the plain country squire he wished to be supposed may very well have been excited by his occasional absences. It is traditionally stated that his horse’s feet were cased in woollen stockings for his nocturnal expeditions. The murder of Mrs. Ruscombe, an old gentlewoman, at Bristol, caused some noise. The murderer was Higgins. Before the murder was known at Knutsford, in his anxiety to establish an _alibi_, he put in an appearance at an inn, and made an incautious allusion to it which piqued one of the company, a confirmed newsmonger, who prided himself on having the first intelligence of every event of interest. Suspicion was thus cast upon Higgins. He was arrested at his own residence, but managed to elude the constables, and vanished from the neighbourhood of Knutsford. He played the same _rôle_ of country squire a few months later at French Hay, near Bristol. Thence he removed into Wales, “where he broke open Lady Maud’s house at West Mead.” For this he was tried at Carmarthen, and, notwithstanding that he managed to have a forged respite sent to the Sheriff, he was hanged at Carmarthen on Saturday, 7th November, 1767. He died, we are told, in a very sullen humour, but before he was “turned off” delivered to the officials a letter to the High Sheriff. From this document and the contemporary accounts it appears that the High Sheriff was acquainted with the birth and parentage of Edward Higgins, about which no details are given. His first exploit was that of eloping from the house of his mother with a neighbour’s wife. This was the beginning of “all kinds of wickedness.” He was tried at Worcester, 14th May, 1754, for housebreaking, and was sentenced to transportation. “The day before the transports were sent off from Worcester, his sister came to him early in the morning, and desired to speak with him in a private room; this was refused. She then requested that he might have permission to show her the dungeon; thither they went, and stayed some time in close conference. She had not left the gaol more than half an hour when a farmer who lived near Worcester came in to enquire whether his sister had not been there, ‘for,’ says he, ‘I have been robbed of £14, and I have reason to suspect her, and that she has given the money to her brother.’ The turnkey told him what had passed. Higgins was searched, but nothing was then found. He was brought down to Bristol, put on board the _Frisby_ for Maryland, and delivered, with the other convicts, at Annapolis. The farmer who lost the £14 (as above) came with him from Worcester to Bristol, and when Higgins was stripped on board the transport the farmer’s money was found concealed in the lining of Higgins’ hat; but as it could not be taken from him, the farmer was obliged to _be contented with the loss of it_.”