both said, ‘We shall be hanged.’ I have no ill-will towards any man, and I now leave this world for a crime which I shudder at.”
The unfortunate man, as we have already said, had been married about three years. He was a native of Enfield, and was brought up by his father to the business which he followed, that of a jobbing gardener. He attributed his misfortunes to his marriage, and to his inability to procure work sufficient to support him and his family.
His late fellow-prisoner Fare, was on a subsequent day put upon his trial, for stealing from the deceased the money of which he was known to have been possessed, and a portion of which had been found in the prisoner’s pockets on his apprehension. A verdict of “Guilty” was returned, and the prisoner was sentenced to be transported for fourteen years.
Fare, it appears, was like Johnson a native of Enfield, and at the time of his apprehension lived with his mother, a widow in that village. He had been occasionally employed among his neighbours at jobbing-work of all descriptions, and was at the time of the murder in extreme poverty.
Cooper, the companion in guilt of the two convicts, having been detained in custody until the end of the sessions, was then discharged.