A murderer of the Peace type has during the week
attracted some attention. Jackson, a plumber addicted to burglary, was on Tuesday serving his term in Strangeways -Gaol, Manchester. He had been ordered to mend a gas-pipe in a room of the gaol, and was watched by a warder named Webb. He induced Webb in some way to stoop down to look at the pipe, and brained him with a hammer. He then knocked a hole in the roof, got out, crossed a wall or two, and dropping into the road, made for Oldham, where he at once recommenced his trade of burglary. He stole some clothing in one Taylor's house, leaving behind him a prison sock, and then entered the house of T. Wood, a captain in the Salvation Army. Here he stole £1 16s., Mr. Wood being asleep, enjoyed himself with porter and cigars, and then stealing the keys of the Salvation Army barracks, deposited his cigar-ends there. Moved, apparently, by mere bedevilment, he even wrote down on paper an accurate description of the money he had taken, finishing the account with, " Good-bye, Captain ; though lost to sight, to memory dear," and signed it " Shakespeare." Then he disappeared ; and although the police are hunting him with unusual vigilance and zeal, the murder of a warder being fatal to all discipline, up to Friday evening he had not been arrested. If the penalty of death were abolished, how could that man be punished ?
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