The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-08-18 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

STEVENSON.  A CHESHIRE HIGHWAYMAN. The career of the dashing robber Higgins is indeed remarkable. We first hear of him in the west, robbing a farmer coming home from mar ket, and being transported to the American plantations. There he escapes from custody, breaks into a house at Boston, and so, provided -with funds, gets on shipboard, and back to his native land. Then with renewed confidence and daring be takes to the road, and is so suctinssful 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 a respectabletamily, and is much looked up to by the neighbourhood, and pays his way with strict punctuality. But some night, when all ,the world. is abed, he sallies one of his thorotigbreds, muffles up its hoofs in worsted stockings, rides silently oaf of the paved court-yard, and through the sleeping town; then dashes off to some rendezvous, fifty, or a hundred miles sway. Presently a terrible affair happens at Bristol: an old lady is found one morning murdered, and her house rantacked. She is known to have had a considerable hoard of coin in Spanish dollars and doubloons; perhaps the old lady herself had 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 sews to linutsford, 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 linutsford—:-where, perhaps, a 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 Higginosetill continued to move in the beat society; and one night attended an assembly at Knutsford, ruffling it among all the country grandeee. One Lady Warburton, of Arly, was noticed for, the splendour 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 roe out to jmeet the Warburton chaise, which presently came lumbering up. Higgins trusting to the darkness of the night and hi' slouched hat and cloak, dashed up to the coach. but the lady within, catching 944 of his face, greeted him with a friendly wave of the hand— "Oh, Mr Higgins, why did you leave us so early ?" The highwayman, abashed, muttered some Wits rejoinder, and rode off. His last exploit was to break open the house of a lady of rank near Carmarthen, a terrible ride for the thoroughbred 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 a 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%xed for the execution a reprieve came down, signed by Lord Shelburne; 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 a rate that the attendants could hardly keep up with him, aiming the under-sheriff all the way, and protestipg that the reprieve was a good one. On mounting the fatal ladder he ha.nded a letter to the sheriff, it is said containing a full confession ol his crimes, ineuding the Bristol murder. According to the Annual Reg star, 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 evidence, at all events, of the current belief as to his crimes.—AU the Year Round.  been I