The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-02-15
A Cheshire HighHayman.

The career OF the dashing rObber
Higgins is indeed remarkable. We first
hear of him in the West, robbing q
farmer coming home from market. and
being transported to the American
plantations. There he escapes from
custody, breaks into house at Boston,
and SO, provided with funds, gets on
shipboard, and back to his native land.
Then, with renewed confidence and
daring. he takes to the road, and is SO
successful in his pursuits that he is
enabled TO set up housekeeping at
Knutsford-quite the gentleman, with
sporting dogs and thoroughbred hunters.
He marries the daughter of rcspecta-
BILE family, and is much looked up to by
the neighborhood. and pays his way with
strict punctuality. But some night,
when all the world is a-bed, he saddles
one of his thoroughbreds, muf1ies up
its hoOfs in worsted stocking, rides
silently out of the paved courtyard, and
through the sleeping town, then dashes
off to some rendezvous, fifty or one
hundred miles away. Presently a
terrible affair happens at Bristol; an
old lady is found one morning murdered
and her house ransacked. She is known
to have had considerable hoard of
coin in Spanish dollars and doubloons;
perhaps the old lady herself had been
the child of a bold buccaneer and the
dollars had been got by evil deeds upon
the Spanish main. Higgins is the first
to bring the news 10 Knutsford. long
before the flying posts and weekly
mails have wind of it; and it is noticed
that soon after that Spanish money has
suddenly come into circulation about
knutsford, where. perhaps, more
cosmopolitan spirit reigned than at
present, in the way of currency.
People might have put this and that
together, but it seems they didn't, for
Higgins still continued to move in the
best society; and one night attended an
assembly at Knutsford, ruffling it among
all the county grandees. One Lady
Warburton, of Arly, was noticed for the
splendor Of her diamond parure and
general display of gems and jewels, and
Higgins marked them for his own. He
left earlier than the rest, and rode out
to meet the Warburton chaise, which
presently came numbering up. Hig-
gins, trusting to the darkness of the
night and his slouched hat and cloak,
dashed up to the coach; but the lady
within, catching sight of his face,
greeted him with friendly wave of the
hand-"Oh, Mr.. Higgins, why did you
leave us so early?" The highwayman,
abashed, muttered some polite rejoinder
and rode Off
His last exploit was to break open the
house of lady of rank near Carmar-
then, terrible ride for the thorough
bred over the wild mountain passes; but
here he was caught red-handed, tried
and convicted; protesting that he was a
gentleman of condition, and that the
whole affair was mistake. Apart
from these eccentricities of conduct,
Higgins seems to have been an amiable
man-anyhow, he had secured the warm
affection of his wife, who stood by him
to the last. just before the date fixed
for the execution, reprieve came
down, signed by Lord Shelborne; but
the Under Sheriff, convinced that this
was forgery, refused to delay the
hanging. The gallows was, as was then
usual, some little distance from the
town, and Higgins walked at such rate
that the attendants could hardly keep
up with him, abusing the Under Sheriff
all the way, and protesting that the re-
prieve was a good one. On mounting
the fatal ladder he handed letter to
the Sheriff, it is said. containing full
confession of his crimes, including the
Bristol murder. According to the An
nual Register, however. he only gave a
letter to his wife, and died impenitent.
A broadsheet exists purporting to be the
full, confession in question, which is evil
dence at all events of the current belief |
as to his crimes.-AU the Year Round. |