Once more in his native land, he procured work without difficulty at house painting, but, as usual, remained in one place but a very short time. His earnings, like those of a great majority of the working class in England, were squandered in the public house.
Soon after the events just recorded, Heep concluded to visit his old home in Macclesfield. He accordingly threw up his situation, and arrived at the railway station an hour before the train was due. In order to while away the time he entered a public house and drank several glasses of ale. The compartment which he entered happened to be empty, and as usual whenever he indulged his appetite for anything containing alcohol, he was soon quite out of his mind and fancied that some one on the train was coming to murder him, and leaped headlong from the train, which was going at the rate of forty miles an hour. This came to a standstill, he was taken on board again, not seriously injured, and left at Wrexham in Denbighshire, from which he was sent to the Denbigh Insane Asylum. This being a Welsh institution, did not, according to Heep, possess those facilities for enjoying life which were so liberally supplied to the inmates of the Raynell asylum near Liverpool. Accordingly he behaved himself with so much propriety that the doctor discharged him as cured.
Not long after his return he got work near Manchester at painting in a block of new houses where the plumbers were at work putting in the gas and water pipes. On a Saturday, when he left work at noon, he met a young plumber who was out of a job. This man said he knew where he could earn a sovereign if he had tools to do a job in a butcher shop, and told Heep that if he would go to the houses where he had been painting and borrow a few plumbers' tools and assist him he would divide the amount. Heep went back, but finding that the master plumber and all his men had gone (Saturday afternoon in England being a half-holiday for laborers), he took the few tools required, went and finished the job by 7 p. m.; then instead of taking the tools back, they went into a public house where they caroused till midnight, when they separated, Heep taking the tools to his boarding house. On Monday he started early, so as to get the tools back before the other workmen arrived. On nearing the houses he passed a policeman who walked a little lame. He turned his head to look back, and the policeman happened to do the same thing, and seeing Heep looking at him his suspicions were aroused. Turning back, he came up and asked him what he had in the two bosses (tool baskets). Heep informed him, and on further questioning showed him the key to the house from which he had taken the tools, and asked him to accompany him there, which he did. They entered, Heep putting back the tools, and showed the policeman where he had been painting and wished him to stay until the master came in half an hour. This the policeman declined to do, and took the tools and told Heep to come to the police station.
Heep lost his temper and began cursing him. The policeman went to the door, and seeing another just passing beckoned him in, and the two marched him to the station. The plumber was sent for, and was induced to make a charge against Heep and value the stolen goods at ten shillings. Seeing that the police were bound to make a case against him, he seized the plumber's knife and cut his throat, severing the windpipe. The doctor was sent for, he was transferred to the jail hospital, and in the course of two or three weeks was well enough to appear before the magistrate, though he could not speak, and was bound over for trial.
In the mean time the police had discovered that he had served two penal terms, on the strength of which, when convicted, the magistrate sentenced him to ten years' penal servitude.
At the trial he had not yet recovered the use of his voice, nor did he have any one to defend him, for at that time, unlike the present, the Crown did not furnish a lawyer for the defense of those who were unable to employ one at their own expense. When the magistrate was about to pronounce the sentence, he said that as the prisoner had escaped from ordinary asylums he should send him to a place from which he could not escape—meaning a prison.
BANK OF ENGLAND SCENE.—VISITOR HOLDING £1,000,000 ($5,000,000) BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.