THE CONFESSION.
On the 12th ultimo, I left my wife and family and went to the house of Sarah Potts, and during the day when we were drinking, she asked me to leave my family and live with her; I gave her no decisive answer at that time. At midnight I returned home and found my wife and children were gone to bed, but she got up and let me in without speaking an angry word; but I got hold of an iron bar and struck her a fatal blow on the head, and repeated the blows until she was dead. I then proceeded to the bed-room, where the children were. My eldest son, Thomas, four years of age, begged for mercy, but I was deaf to his cries and tears; I then raised the bar of iron and struck him three times on the head; the two youngest are twins, I beat their heads against the chamber floor, and I hope the Lord will forgive me.
A COPY OF VERSES.
All you that have got feeling hearts, I pray you now attend,
To these few lines so sad and true, a solemn silence lend,
It is of a cruel murder, to you I will unfold—
The bare recital of the tale, must make your blood run cold.
’Twas in the town of Banbury, all in fair Oxfordshire,