Amongst my earlier executions was that of Arthur Shaw at Liverpool. Shaw was a tailor, thirty-one years of age, who lived in Manchester. He was married, but his married life was not happy, for his wife seems to have drunk heavily, and he himself was not steady. On November 3rd, 1884, they quarrelled, and fought for some time, and shortly afterwards the woman was found dead--killed, according to the doctors, by strangulation. Shaw did not deny the murder, but pleaded that it was unintentional, and that he had been greatly provoked by his wife's long-continued dissipation. The jury strongly recommended him to mercy. Immediately before meeting his fate, in a last conversation with the chaplain, the man admitted his guilt but earnestly insisted that he had never intended to cause his wife's death. He stated that he was not drunk at the time of the murder, but that he had been driven to drink by his wife's drunkenness and neglect of the home, which was always miserable; and that her drunkenness and neglect exasperated him until he was perfectly wild. He concluded by saying: "When we were having the scuffle I had no idea I was killing the poor woman." _Thomas Parry_, hanged in Galway on January 20th, 1885, for the murder of Miss Burns, wrote a long statement, which he handed to the governor to be read after his death. The gist of it was given in the following paragraph:--"I wish to assure the public and my family and friends that I was of unsound mind for a week previous to the murder and for some time afterwards. I am happy to suffer for the crime which I committed, and confident that I shall enter upon an eternity of bliss. I die at peace with all men, and hope that anyone that I have ever injured will forgive me." _George Horton_, of Swanwick, poisoned his little daughter; for the purpose, it is supposed, of obtaining the sum of £7 for which her life was insured; and was executed at Derby on February 1st, 1886. It is difficult, or impossible, for an ordinary person to understand such a man's frame of mind. One would think him absolutely callous, yet he wept over the body of his child when he found that she was dead, and wrote most affectionate letters to his other children when he was in prison. A portion of his last letter to his eldest daughter was as follows:--