On Monday the 6th of March, at about eleven o’clock at night, Smith hired another coach, and ordered the driver to proceed to St. George’s-row, on the Uxbridge-road. Upon his arrival at the place of his destination, he demanded the coachman’s money and watch with the most horrid imprecations; and on some hesitation being shown to comply with his request, he produced a pistol and a tuck-stick, with the latter of which he wounded the driver in the side. Two seven-shilling pieces, and eight and sixpence in silver, were then handed over to him, and he decamped, threatening the coachman with instant death in case of his attempting to pursue him.

His career of guilt, however, was destined soon to close; for being met in King’s-road, Chelsea, by a patrole named Jones, on Sunday night, the 20th of March, under suspicious circumstances, he was taken into custody, and a pistol and sword-stick were found in his possession. Information of his capture being published, on the morning of his examination at Bow-street, he was instantly recognised by Jones and Treadwell, the two coachmen, his robberies upon whom we have described; and further proof of his identity in the former case was found in a duplicate which was taken from his pocket, referring to the pawning of the watch of the prosecutor.

Three other charges of a similar character were subsequently preferred against him by other coachmen, whom he had induced to convey him to unfrequented places in the vicinity of London; and a fourth case of robbery on the highway was proved by John Chilton, a porter at Messrs. Spode’s Staffordshire warehouse, whom he had met at Bayswater, and whom, after having maltreated and wounded, he had robbed of three shillings and sixpence.

On his trial the prisoner was recognised as a discharged artillery-man, and was identified by Treadwell, one of his prosecutors, as having been his fellow-prisoner in the King’s Bench; and he was found guilty, and sentenced to death.

He was hanged at the Old Bailey in the month of June 1803, apparently fully sensible of the enormity of the crimes which he had committed.

GEORGE FOSTER.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE AND CHILD.

THE conviction of this wretched man was founded entirely upon circumstantial evidence.

He was indicted on the 14th January, 1803, at the Old Bailey, for the wilful murder of his wife and child.

From the testimony of the witnesses called in support of the case for the prosecution, it appeared, that the prisoner lived in a place called North row, Grosvenor-square, and that his wife and child lived with the mother of the former in Old Boswell-court, but were in the habit of going to the prisoner’s lodgings to sleep, every Saturday night. On the 4th December, in compliance with this custom, his wife quitted her mother’s house with the child, and was never more seen by her until the Wednesday following, when her body was picked up in the Paddington Canal, near the Mitre Tavern, at a distance of about two miles from Paddington. Inquiries were subsequently made, the result of which proved, that the prisoner had been seen with his wife at the Mitre, as late as half-past four o’clock on the evening of the 5th December, and that then they went away together, walking by the side of the canal towards London. The prisoner was met in town, by an acquaintance, at about six o’clock; but no suspicion was entertained until the discovery of the body. The prisoner was then taken into custody, when he declared that immediately on his leaving the Mitre, he had quitted his wife, and had gone across the fields as far as Whetstone, on his way to Barnet to see two of his children, who were in the workhouse there; but that on his arrival there, it was so dark that he returned to London at about eight o’clock, but that he never saw his wife again.