"The man whom I stabbed richly deserved it. He behaved to me with great violence and cruelty, he degraded my nature as a human being; he tied me down, handcuffed me, and confined my hands much higher than my head, with a leathern thong: he stretched me on a bed of torture. After some days he released me. I gave him warning, for I told his wife I would have justice of him. On her communicating this to him, he came to me in a furious passion, threw me down, dragg'd me through the court-yard, thumped on my breast, and confined me in a dark and damp cell. Not liking this situation, I was induced to play the hypocrite. I pretended extreme sorrow for having threatened him, and by an affectation of repentance, prevailed on him to release me. For several days I paid him great attention, and lent him every assistance. He seemed much pleased with the flattery, and became very friendly in his behaviour towards me.--Going one day into the kitchen, where his wife was busied, I saw a knife; (this was too great a temptation to be resisted;) I concealed it, and carried it about me. For some time afterwards the same friendly intercourse was maintained between us; but, as he was one day unlocking his garden door, I seized the opportunity, and plunged the knife up to the hilt in his back."--He always mentioned this circumstance with peculiar triumph, and his countenance (the most cunning and malignant I ever beheld) became highly animated at the conclusion of the story. During the time he was in Bethlem Hospital he most ingeniously formed a stiletto out of a mop-nail; it was an elaborate contrivance, and had probably been the work of several months. It was rendered extremely sharp and polished, by whetting on a small pebble; it was fixed into a handle, and had a wooden sheath made from the mop-stick. This instrument he carried in his left breeches pocket, his right hand grasping the hilt. As I always found him in that posture when I visited him, I suspected he had some concealed implement of mischief, and therefore employed a convalescent patient to watch him through the key-hole of his door. This person saw him with the weapon, and also ascertaining the distance at which he could use it. The instrument was taken from him by surprise. When he found he was prevented from executing his purpose, he roared out the most horrid imprecations; he cursed the Almighty for creating him, and more especially for having given him the form of a human being, and he wished to go to Hell that he might not be disgraced by an association with the Deity.