The following paragraph appeared next day in the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_:--“The depredations that have been committed by housebreakers in and about this city for this some time past have been no less alarming than the art with which they have been executed, and the concealment that has attended them has been surprising. From a discovery, however, just made, there is reason to hope that a stop will soon be put to such acts of atrocious villainy. With what amazement must it strike every friend to virtue and honesty to find that a person is charged with a crime of the above nature who very lately held a distinguished rank among his fellow-citizens? With what pity and compunction must we view the unfortunate victim who falls a sacrifice to justice for having violated the laws of his country, to which violation he was perhaps impelled by necessity, when rank, ease, and opulence are forfeited in endeavouring to gratify the most sordid avarice? For to what other cause than avarice can we impute the late robbery committed upon the Excise Office, when the situation of the supposed perpetrator is considered? No excuse from necessity can be pled for a man in the enjoyment of thousands, who will run the risk of life, honour, and reputation in order to attain the unlawful possession of what could in a very trifling degree add to his supposed happiness.--See the advertisement from the Sheriff-Clerk’s Office.” The advertisement to which this article refers--a copy of which will be found in the Appendix--was the offer by the Procurator-Fiscal of a reward of two hundred pounds for the apprehension of “William Brodie, a considerable house carpenter, and burgess of the city of Edinburgh,” together with the minute and somewhat unflattering description of that gentleman’s personal appearance, to which we have already alluded. So the murder was out at last, and the ex-Town Councillor became a fugitive from justice with a price upon his head. In consequence of the revelations of Smith, the officers of justice proceeded on Monday, 10th March, to search the house in Brodie’s Close. There Smith, who accompanied them, unearthed the Deacon’s pistols, buried in his woodyard. His dark lantern, several pick-locks, and a parcel of false keys were also found--the first “in a pen where game-cocks had been [Illustration: Deacon Brodie’s Dark Lanthorn and False Keys. (From the originals in the Museum of The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.)]