San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-09-06
CHAPTER iii.
fconinued from Last Sunday

tCo 1925 by American Weeklnc Britain Rights Reserved
LONDON, August 80.
THE Brides in the Bath" murderer lived a
despcabe life and died still more despicable
death. For he faced his Maker with DELHI
crate lie on his lips 81 innocent" were the. last
words he spoke as sent him into eternity He lied
in the presence of God.
This is the first time, here on this page, George
Joseph Smiths statement on the scaffold has ever
been made public though it has always seemed an
extraordinary thing to that the secret should have
been preserved so closely Public detestation such
this man earned of itself no proof of his guilt
but the revelations made at his trial and things
heard afterward left no for any question as to
the mans guilt.
Smith was fated for the gallows almost from
childhood. His parents respectable people,
living in Roman Road, Bow, London, but when George
Joseph Smith came into the world on January IL,
1872, something vital must have been lacking in his
moral makeup He was more than ordinarily mis-
chevous-he positively vicious, and nothing that
his parents his teachers could do ever seemed to
make the slightest impression on him.
When at last he overshot all bounds he was
packed off to reformatory school, an occasion which
led his mother to make remarkable prophecy.
HE will die in his boots!' she remarked.
And he did,
He wasn't long out of the reformatory before he
went to prison. bicycle stealing episode at Lam
beth when he only eighteen earned him six
months hard labor, and his punishment, far from
curing him. was utilized for thinking out ways
of living without working. He came out of prison
with his head full of criminal ideas which ruled the
rest of his career and eventually brought him to the
gallows
His great scheme was to prey on women In its
early days his plan may be described as Love and
Larceny. Later it developed into Marriage and
Murder"
In both stages of his abhorent plan he relied on
his extraordinary influence women, and it is an
undeniable fact that although men invariably de-
tested him and the majority of women dsliked him,
yet he could always be sure of certain number of
easy victims. He would make love to girls and force
them to commit thefts for him, and though they re-
belled at first they usually ended in doing what they
were told. When they no longer of use to him
he flung them aside and left them stranded and went
on to his next victim. He made slip once and went
to prison for twelve months as a 'nSequence, but
that affected him not jot.
In the course Of his mgrations he came to Leices-
ter and there entered into marriage bonds for the
hrst-but by no means the last-tme in his life
George Oliver Love- was the name he was then
living under, and it may be here mentioned that only
once In the seven matrimonial adventures Of which
we have ever been able to learn anything did he use
his full real name
This first maTTiage-to a girl named Caroline
ThOmhill-was the one that stamped all his subse-
quent weddings as bigamOus, for Miss ThOrnhiII was
still living when Smith stood charged with the muir
der of three of his wives" In fact she providod
one of the dramatic sensations at the trial Of the
case against him. for she was brought all the way
from America to testify that this infamous Buebeard
was actually the man who married her at a church in
Leicester on January II, 1898
Their courtship lasted only two months. Speedy
wooing was one of Smiths strong points Unhap-
PLY Miss Thornhill discovered very soon how true is
the old adage about marrying in haste and repenting
al leisure. Her husband quickly dropped the guse
Of lover and tried to force his wife into his own