Note 644 — Chapter XL · CRIME.

The Newgate Calendar gives a long list of crime in this reign, but they are all of the ordinary type—murder, highway robberies, and burglaries with violence, which last was a capital offence; and so indeed it ought to be, were there many such burglaries as this: 'We hear that on Tuesday night last, five Housebreakers broke into Sir Charles Thorn's House near Bedington in Surrey, and having Jagg'd[644] his Servants, got into his Bed Chamber. At their Entrance Sir Charles fir'd a Pistol at them, which unhappily miss'd doing Execution; upon this they bound and Jagg'd him, and afterwards one of them attempted to insult his Lady; at which Sir Charles being exasperated, with much struggling he got his Hands at Liberty, and flung a Perriwig block at the Villain's Head; who in revenge stabbed Sir Charles, then cut his throat from Ear to Ear, and left him Dead on the Spot. They afterwards Ransack'd the House, and it's said, carried off to the value of £900 in Money and Plate. The Lady Thorn is so ill by this barbarous Treatment, that her Life is despaired of.'