GEORGE ALLEN. EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS THREE CHILDREN.

THERE can be little doubt that the horrid offence committed by this wretched man was prompted by insanity; and it is surprising that a jury should have found him guilty of the crime imputed to him, without declaring this to be their opinion.

It appeared on his trial, which took place at Stafford in the month of March 1807, that on the evening of the 12th of January, he retired to rest with his wife, and that in about an hour the latter was awoke by her finding her husband sitting upright in bed, smoking a pipe. In another bed in the same room lay three of his infant children asleep, the eldest boy about ten years old, the second, a girl, about six, and another boy about three, and Mrs. Allen also had an infant at her breast. On his perceiving his wife to be awake, the prisoner demanded to know “what other man she had in the house with her;” to which she answered “that there was no man there but himself.” He, however, insisted to the contrary, and jumped out of bed, and ran down stairs. His wife followed him; but he returned, and meeting her on the stairs, bade her go back. He then went to the bed where his children were, and turned down the clothes. On her endeavouring to hold him, he told her “to let him alone, or he would serve her the same sauce,” and immediately attempted to cut her throat, in which he partly succeeded, and also wounded her right breast; but a handkerchief she wore about her head and neck prevented the wound from being fatal. She then extricated herself (having the babe in her arms all the time, which she preserved unhurt), and jumped, or rather fell, down stairs; but before she could well rise from the ground, one of the children (the girl) fell at her feet, with its head nearly cut off, which her wretched husband had murdered and thrown after her. The woman opened the door, and screamed out “that her husband was cutting off their children’s heads;” and a neighbour shortly came to her assistance; and a light having been procured, the monster was found standing in the middle of the house-place, with a razor in his hand. He was asked what he had been doing; when he replied coolly, “Nothing yet; I have only killed three of them.” On their going up stairs, a most dreadful spectacle presented itself: the head of one of the boys was very nearly severed from his body, and the bellies of both were partly cut and partly ripped open, and the bowels torn completely out and thrown on the floor. Allen made no attempt to escape, and was taken without resistance. He said that it was his intention to murder his wife and all her children, and then to have put an end to himself. He also declared that he meant to have murdered an old woman who lay bed-ridden in the same house.

An inquest was subsequently held on the bodies of the three children, before Mr. Hand, coroner, of Uttoxeter, when the miserable man confessed his guilt, but without expressing any contrition. He promised also to confess something that had lain heavily on his mind; and Mr. Hand, supposing it might relate to a crime he had before committed, caused him to be examined in the presence of other gentlemen, when he told an incoherent story of a ghost, in the shape of a horse, having about four years before enticed him into a stable, where it drew blood from him, and then flew into the sky. With respect to the murder of his children, he observed to the coroner, with apparent unconcern, that he supposed “it was as bad a case as ever he heard of.”

The horrid circumstances of these murders having been fully proved, he was convicted, and suffered the final sentence of the law at Stafford, March 30th 1807.