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SARAH PRIDDON, ALIAS SALLY SALISBURY,

CONVICTED OF AN ASSAULT IN WHICH MURDER WAS ATTEMPTED.

THERE is no state in human nature so wretched as that of the prostitute. Seduced, abandoned to fate, the unhappy female falls a prey to want; or she must purchase existence at a price degrading, in the last degree, to the mind of sensibility. Subject to the lust and de

VOL. I.

bauchery of every thoughtless blockhead, she becomes hardened in shame.

Hence modesty is put to the blush by the obscenity of those, once pure as our own darling daughters. Every public place swarms with this miserable set of beings, so that parents dread to in

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dulge their children with even the sight of a moral stage performance. The unhappy prostitute, heated by drink, acquires false spirits, in order to inveigle men to her purpose; and, in so doing, she too often takes apparent satisfaction in annoying, by looks and gestures, often by indecent words, the virtuous part of the audience. The law, while it assumes the guardianship of youth by suppressing immorality, still permits these wantons to rove, uncontrolled, among the virtuous as well as the profligate. There ought, in public at least, some bounds to be set-some check to the pernicious example. They may surely be restrained, at least to the outward show of deeency, when in mixed company.

Yet, says the philanthropist, they demand our pity. They do indeed! The cause, while nature progresses, cannot be removed; but the legislature might do more to regulate the evil than is done in this country. It is by some held a necessary evil, tending, in its utmost extent, even to the benefit of the yet virtuous female; but a mind once formed by precept and good example will ever repel a liberty attempted by a profligate man; they are cowards when reproved by virtuous indignation.

We can only accord our tribute of pity to them, though about to give the effects of prostitution in its greatest extent, by quoting the words of the poet, as applied to the miseries of the unhappy Jane Shore:

When she was mine, no arm came ever
near her;

I thought the gentlest breath of heaven
Too rough to blow upon her.

Now, sad and shelterless, perhaps she
wanders,

And the rain drops from some penthouse
On her wretched head, drenches her locks,
And kills her with the cold,'

On the 24th of April, 1723,

'Sarah Priddon was indicted at the Old Bailey, for making a violent assault on the Hon. J F▬▬; and stabbing him with a knife in his left breast, and giving him a wound of which he long languished, with an intent to kill and murder him.

Mrs. Priddon, or rather Salisbury (for that was the name by which she was best known), was a woman of the town, who was well ac. quainted with the gentleman whom she wounded. It appeared on the trial that Mr. F. having gone to the Three Tuns tavern in Chandos Street, Covent Garden, about midnight, Sally followed him thither soon afterwards. The drawer, after he had waited on Mr. F. went to bed; but at two in the morning he was called up, to draw a pint of Frontiniac for Mrs. Salisbury. This he did, and carried it to her with a French roll and a knife. The prisoner was now in company and conversation with Mr. F. and the drawer heard them disputing about an Opera ticket, which he had presented to her sister; and, while they were talking, she stabbed him ; on which he put his hand to his breast, and said, Madam, you have wounded me.'

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No sooner had she committed the fact than she appeared sincerely to regret what she had done: she sent for a surgeon, who finding it necessary to extend the wound, that the blood might flow outwardly, she seemed terrified, and, calling out O Lord! what are you doing?' fainted away.

On her recovery, she asked Mr. F. how he did; to which he answered, Very bad, and worse than you imagine.' She endeavoured to console him in the best manner she could, and, after some time, the parties went away in separate chairs; but not till the wounded gentleman had forgiven

her, and saluted her as a token of she stabbed, and there is nothing that forgiveness. ungenerous in supposing that their acquaintance was of the criminal kind.

The counsel for the prisoner endeavoured to prove that she had no intention of wounding him with malice prepense; and that what she did arose from a sudden start of passion, the consequence of his hav. ing given an Opera ticket to her sister, with a view to ingratiate her affections, and debauch her.

The counsel for the Crown ridiculed this idea, and insinuated that a woman of Mrs. Salisbury's character could not be supposed to have any very tender regard for her sister's reputation. They allowed that Mr. F. had readily forgiven her at the time; but insisted that this was a proof of the placability of his temper, and no argument in her favour.

They said that, if the gentleman had died of the wound, she would have been deemed guilty of murder, as she had not received the least provocation to commit the crime; and that the event made no difference with respect to the malignity of her intentions.

The jury, having considered the circumstances of the case, found her guilty of assaulting and wounding Mr. F. but acquitted her of doing it with an intent to kill and murder him. In consequence hereof she was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred pounds, to be imprisoned for a year, and then to find security for her good behaviour for two years; but, when she had suffered about nine months' imprisonment, she died in Newgate, and was buried in the church-yard of St. Andrew, Holborn.

The case of the unhappy woman who has been the subject of this narrative will afford matter for serious reflection. She had been acquainted with the gentleman whom

It was insinuated by the counsel for the Crown that it could not be supposed that Mrs. Salisbury had any regard for the reputation of her sister. But why so? It is to be presumed that a woman of any sensibility, who had been unhappy enough to forfeit her own character, should become the more anxious to preserve that of one to whom she was bound by the ties of consanguinity. It does not follow that, because a woman has failed in the great article of personal chastity, she must therefore be deficient in every other virtue that can adorn the female mind.

Too frequently, indeed, it happens that women in this predicament become dead to all those finer feelings that do honour to their sex in particular, and to humanity in general. But then what shall be said of those men who reduce them to a situation so calamitous? Will the sudden impulse of passion be pleaded in mitigation of a crime which, in its consequences, almost always detaches a woman from the company of the virtuous of her own sex, and renders her, in a great degree, an outcast of society?

If there be any truth in the common opinion that women in general are weaker than men, it follows, of course, that the wisest ought to be the most virtuous; and that the man' who seduces a woman is more criminal in that act than she is in yielding to the seduction: yet so, ungenerous is the vulgar opinion, that a woman for ever loses her character in consequence of an of. fence which is hardly deemed criminal in a man. Agreeable hereto are the sentiments of the poet :

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THOMAS ATHOE, THE ELDER, AND THOMAS ATHOE, THE

YOUNGER,

EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

THIS murder was attended with shocking barbarity; and, when we have to relate that it was committed by father and son, the relation becomes additionally painful. A solitary murder is sufficiently detest able; but when it is proved that a parent advises, aids, and abets his child in the horrid purpose, we are shocked at the extent of human depravity.

The elder Athoe was a native of Carew, in Pembrokeshire, where he rented above a hundred pounds per annum, and had lived in such a respectable way, that in the year 1721 he was chosen mayor of Tenby, and his son a bailiff of the same corporation; though they did not live in this place, but at Mannerbeer, two miles distant from it.

George Merchant (of whose murder they were convicted) and his brother Thomas were nephews, by the mother's side, to the elder Athoe, their father having married his sister.

On the 23d of November, 1722, a fair was held at Tenby, where the Athoes went to sell cattle, and there met with George Merchant and his brother Thomas. A quarrel arose

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Late in the evening, after the fair was ended, the Merchants left the town; but the Athoes, going to the inn, inquired of the ostler which way they went. He gave them the best information in his power, on which they immediately mounted, and followed them. The brothers stopped on the road, at a place called Holloway's Water, to let their horses drink. In the mean time they heard the footsteps of other horses behind them, and, turning about, saw two men riding at a small distance. It was too dark for them to know the parties, but they presently heard the voice of old Athoc.

Knowing that he had sworn revenge, and dreading the consequence

that would probably ensue, they endeavoured to conceal themselves behind a bridge, but they were discovered by the splashing of their horses' feet in the water. The Athoes riding up with large sticks, the younger said to George Merchant, I owe thee a pass, and now thou shalt have it ;' and immediately knocked him off his horse.

The elder Athoe was taken into custody on the following day, but the son had fled to Ireland: however, those who had been concerned in favoring his escape were glad to use their endeavours to get him back agin. The murder was committed in Pembrokeshire, but the prison

ers

were removed by a writ of Habeas Corpus to Hereford, and, on the 19th March, 1723, they were indicted for the murder.

In the interim, old Athoe attacked Thomas Merchant, and beat him likewise from his horse, calling out, at the same time, Kill the dogs! kill the dogs! The brothers begged hard for their lives, but they pleaded to those who had no idea of pity. The elder Athoe seized Thomas Merchant in the tenderest part, and squeezed him in so violent a manner that human nature could not long have sustained the pain; while the younger Athoe treated George Merchant in a similar way, and carried his revenge to such a length that it is not possible to relate the horrid deed with decency. When he had completed his execrable purpose, he called out to his father, saying, 'Now I have done George Merchant's business.' A great effusion of blood was the consequence of this barbarity; but his savage revenge was not yet glatted: seizing George Merchant by the nose with his teeth, he bit it off, and then strangled him, by tying a handkerchief tight roundAll murders and robberies comhis neck.

This done, the murderers quitted the spot; but some persons coming by took the Merchants to an adjacent house, and sent for a surgeon, who dressed the wound of Thomas, but found that George was dead. The surgeon declared that the blows he had received were sufficient to have killed six or seven men; for he had two bruises on his breast, three large ones on his head, and twenty-two on his back.

On the trial, the principal evi. dence against them was the surviving brother, who was even then so weak as to be indulged to sit down while he gave his evidence; but the jury, though satisfied of the commission of the murder, entertained a doubt whether the prisoners could be legally tried in any county but that in which the crime was committed; on which they brought in a special verdict: whereupon the case was referred to the determination of the twelve judges; and the prisoners, being brought up to London, were committed to the King's Bench prison, where they remained till the 22d of June, 1723, and were then taken to the Court of King's Bench, in Westminster Hall; when, a motion being made by counsel in arrest of judgment, the Court di rected that an act of the 33d of Henry VIII. should be read, in which is a clause, ordaining that

mitted in, on, or about the borders of Wales, shall be triable in any county of England where the criminal shall be taken; and that the Court of King's Bench shall have power to move, by writ of Habeas Corpus, any prisoner confined in Wales to the next county of England, to be tried.'

In consequence hereof, the Court proceeded to give judgment, and the prisoners were remanded to the King's Bench prison.

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