In De Quincey’s famous essay on “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” the professor of homicide tells this grim story about Higgins. “At the time of his execution for highway robbery I was studying under Cruikshank; and the man’s figure was so uncommonly fine that no money or exertion was spared to get into possession of him with the least possible delay. By the connivance of the Under Sheriff he was cut down within the legal time, and instantly put into a chaise-and-four, so that when he reached Cruikshank’s, he was positively not dead. Mr. ——, a young student at that time, had the honour of giving him the coup de grace and finishing the sentence of the law.”
Mrs. Gaskell wrote a sketch—“The Squire’s Tale”—based on the career of Higgins, which appeared in Household Words, and is reprinted in her collected writings. When the Rev. Henry Green was preparing his history of Knutsford he carefully collected all the information that could be found respecting the gentleman highwayman. Edward Higgins deserves some remembrance not only for the strangeness of his career, but for his posthumous influence upon English literature.
Some Lancashire Centenarians.
According to the census of 1891 there were 146 persons enumerated who were returned as being more than 100 years of age. Eleven of these were resident in Lancashire. It may be interesting to compare this with the statements in some of the preceding census reports. Arranged in tabular form, the following results are seen:—
Centenarians returned at each successive census.
| England and Wales. | Lancashire. | |
| 1841 | 249 | 20 |
| 1851 | 215 | 18 |
| 1861 | 201 | 25 |
| 1871 | 160 | 11 |
| 1881 | 141 | 9 |
| 1891 | 146 | 11 |
In Lancashire, it will be noticed, there has been a marked tendency towards the diminution of reputed centenarians. The general consent of mankind seems to have fixed upon a hundred years as almost the outside limit for the duration of human life. The Hebrews and the Chinese are agreed in this. The Celestials have a quaint way of dividing a life into cycles. From birth to 10 years of age is the opening degree; at 20, youth expired; 30, strength and marriage; 40, officially apt; 50, error knowing; 60, cycle closing; 70, rare bird of age; 80, rusty visage; 90, delayed; 100, age’s extremity. Far more claims to great longevity are made than can be sustained by reasonable evidence, and it should not be forgotten that the burden of proof belongs to those who make these statements. The bulk of mankind do not exceed, and many of them never attain, the Psalmist’s term of three score years and ten, and it is only reasonable that those who claim for themselves or protégés an existence of five or six score should be required to produce adequate evidence in support of their allegations. Curiously enough until the second half of the present century statements of extreme old age appear to have been accepted without doubt or inquiry. In the census report of 1851 a sceptical note was struck, and since then the late Sir G. C. Lewis and Mr. W. J. Thoms—especially the latter—have done useful service by a persistent demand for evidence. Under investigation some cases have proved to be impostures, and others mistakes and self-deceptions.
The historian of the county of Lancaster claims for Ormskirk parish the prevalence of an unusual degree of longevity. In the churchyard there are gravestones over four venerable parishioners, which record that the first of them died at the advanced age of 94, the second at the age of 102, the third at the age of 104, and the fourth at the age of 106 years. Many centenarians, real or supposed, have been connected with Lancashire, and it is more than probable that a rigid investigation at the time would greatly have reduced the number. They are here presented in chronological order, and have been derived from a variety of sources:—
1668.—Dr. Martin Lister, writing to the Royal Society, says that John Sagar, of Burnley, died about the year 1668, “and was of the age (as is reported) of 112.”
1700.—“Here resteth the bodie of James Cockerell, the elder, of Bolton, who departed this lyfe in the one hundredth and sixthe yeare of his age, and was interred here the seventh day of March, 1700” (Whittle’s “Bolton,” p. 429).