Elizabeth Brownrigg was the wife of a plumber
who carried on business in Flower de Luce Court, Fleet Street. She practised midwifery, and received parish apprentices, whom she took to save the expense of keeping servants. Two girls, victims of her cruel ill-usage, ran away, but a third, Mary Clifford, bound to her by the parish of Whitefriars, remained to endure still worse. Her inhuman mistress repeatedly beat her, now with a hearth-broom, now with a horsewhip or a cane. The girl was forced to lie at nights in a coal-hole, with no bed but a sack and some straw. She was often nearly perished with cold. Once, after a long diet of bread and water, when nearly starved to death, she rashly broke into a cupboard in search of food and was caught in the act. Mrs. Brownrigg, to punish her, made her strip, and while she was naked repeatedly beat her with the butt end of a whip. Then fastening a jack-chain around her neck she drew it as tight as possible without strangling, and sent her back to the coal-hole with her hands tied behind her back. Mrs. Brownrigg's son vied with his mother in ill-treating the apprentices, and when the mistress was tired of horse-whipping, the lad continued the savage punishment. When Mary Clifford complained to a French lodger of the barbarity she experienced, Mrs. Brownrigg flew at her and cut her tongue in two places with a pair of scissors. Other apprentices were equally ill-used, and they were all covered
with wounds and bruises from the cruel flagellations they received.
At length one of the neighbours, alarmed by the constant moaning and groanings which issued from Brownrigg's house, began to suspect that "the apprentices were treated with unwarrantable severity." It was impossible to gain admission, but a maid looked through a skylight into a covered yard, and saw one of the apprentices, in a shocking state of filth and wretchedness, kept there with a pig. One of the overseers now went and demanded Mary Clifford. Mrs. Brownrigg produced another, Mary Mitchell, who was taken to the workhouse, but in such a pitiable state that in removing her clothes her bodice stuck to her wounds. Mary Mitchell having been promised that she should not be sent back to Brownrigg's, gave a full account of the horrid treatment she and Mary Clifford had received. A further search was made in the Brownriggs' house, but without effect. At length, under threat of removal to prison, Mrs. Brownrigg produced Clifford from a cupboard under a buffet in the dining-room. "It is impossible," says the account, "to describe the miserable appearance of this poor girl; nearly her whole body was ulcerated." Her life was evidently in imminent danger. Having been removed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, she died there within a few days. The man Brownrigg was arrested, but the woman
and son made their escape. Shifting their abode from place to place, buying new disguises from time to time at rag-fairs, eventually they took refuge in lodgings at Wandsworth, where they were recognized by their landlord as answering the description of the murderers of Mary Clifford, and arrested. Mrs. Brownrigg was tried and executed; the men, acquitted of the graver charge, were only sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The story runs that Hogarth, who prided himself on his skill as a physiognomist, wished to see Mrs. Brownrigg in Newgate. The governor, Mr. Akerman, admitted him, but at the instance of a mutual friend played a trick upon the painter by bringing Mrs. Brownrigg before him casually, as some other woman. Hogarth on looking at her took Akerman aside and said, "You must have two great female miscreants in your custody, for this woman as well as Mrs. Brownrigg is from her features capable of any cruelty and any crime." This story, although ben trovato, is apocryphal. At the time of this alleged visit to Newgate Hogarth was not alive.
I pass now to murders of less atrocity, the result of temporary and more or less ungovernable passion, rather than of malice deliberate and aforethought. In this class must be included the case of Mr. Plunkett, a young gentleman of Irish extraction, who murdered a peruke-maker, when asked an exorbitant price for a wig. Brown had made it to order for Mr. Plunkett, and wanted seven
pounds for it. After haggling he reduced it to six. Plunkett offered four, and on this being refused, seized a razor lying handy and cut Brown's throat.
A somewhat similar case was that of Mr. Edward Bird, a well-born youth, who had been educated at Eton, and after making the grand tour had received a commission in a regiment of horse. Unfortunately he led a wild, dissolute life, associating with low characters. One morning, after spending the night in a place of public resort, he ordered a bath. One waiter deputed the job to another, the latter went to Bird to apologize for the delay. Bird, growing furious, drew his sword, and made several passes at the waiter, who avoided them by holding the door in his hand, and then escaped down-stairs. Bird pursued, threw the man down, breaking his ribs. On this the master of the house and another waiter, by name Loxton, tried to appease Bird, but the latter, frantic at not having the bath when ordered, fell upon Loxton and ran him through with his sword. Loxton dropped and died almost instantaneously. Bird was arrested, committed to Newgate, and eventually tried for his life. He was convicted and received sentence of death, but great interest was made to get it commuted to transportation. His powerful friends might have obtained it but for the protests of Loxton's representatives, and Bird was ordered for execution. The night before he first tried poison, then stabbed himself in
several places, but survived to be taken the following morning to Tyburn in a mourning coach, attended by his mother and the ordinary of Newgate. At the gallows he asked for a glass of wine and a pinch of snuff, which "he took with apparent unconcern, wishing health to those who stood near him. He then repeated the Apostle's Creed and was launched into eternity."
The military were not overpopular at times, when party disputes ran high, and the soldiery were often exposed to contumely in the streets. It must be admitted too that they were ready enough to accept any quarrel fastened upon them. Thus William Hawksworth, a guardsman, while marching through the park with a party to relieve guard at St. James's, left the ranks to strike a woman who he thought had insulted his cloth. It was not she, however, but her companion who had cried, "What a stir there is about King George's soldiers!" This companion, by name Ransom, resented the blow, and called Hawksworth a puppy, whereupon the soldier clubbed his musket and knocked the civilian down. Hawksworth marched on with his guard; Ransom was removed to the hospital with a fractured skull, and died in a few hours. But a bystander, having learned the name of the offender, obtained a warrant against Hawksworth, who was committed to Newgate. He was ably defended at his trial, and his commanding officer gave him an excellent character. But the facts