The Cannock Chase Examiner. — 1876-04-14 (Cannock, Staffordshire, England)

EXEOUTION AT HERTFORD.  George Hill, aged twenty-two, a groom, was executed on Monday morning, within the County Prison, at Hertford, for the murder of his illegitimate child. The murder was committed under circumstances of groat atrocity. The prisoner, who was in the service a gentleman at St. Albans, had formed an acquaintance with a young woman employed at a ribbon manufactory at St. Albans, and the child whose death he was convicted of causing was hers. The mother had taken out an affiliation summons against the prisoner, and he appeared to have formed in consequence, the intention of killing the child, and the mother also. He represented to the latter that he had prepared a house for them to go and live in, and a day was appointed for their marriage. Two days before the marriage was to have taken place, on a Sunday evening, in July last year, the young woman met him by appointment in the neighbourhood of St. Albans, at his earnest request bringing the child, which was five years old, with her, and as they were walking through a corn-field the prisoner made a desperate attack upon them both with a heavy hammer, leaving the mother dead in the field, and the infant a corpse. The prisoner was at once apprehended, and, the only excuse he made for his conduct wis that he was seized with a sudden impulse to destroy the mother and the child, and added that he intended afterwards to have destroyed his own life. The defence of insanity was set up for the prisoner at the trial, but the evidence failed to establish the plea, and the jury, without hesitation, convicted the prisoner. A day or two ago, the prisoner, in a conversation he had with the governor of the prison, fully admitted the justice of his sentence, and said that when he went into the corn field, with the mother andthe child he intended to have killed them both, and said he believed that the mother was dead before he left, or he should have stayed and killed her. Nearly forty years have elapsed since there was an execution at Hertford. The last person executed there was a young man named Taylor, who was convicted with three others of the murder of an aid pensioner at Tewin, near the town.  Reverend Sir—We regret to find from your reply to the memorial presented to you on 27th March last that you decline to discontinue the practices, and the use of the manuals specified. With regard to your reference to the counter memorials which you have received, we have only to say that the wishes of any number of persons for a continuance of illegal acts can in nowise justify you in disobeying the law. Your application of the term "aggrieved parishioners" to those who would desire a continuance of illegal practices is surely fallacious, as the law only recognises a grievance where a right is invaded. Nor is this a question of pleasing, but of obeying, Neither can your conviction that the practices specified are in accordance with the law of the Church,when fairly interpreted, justify a continuance of conduct which has been condemned by the legal tribunals of our country. The present Dean of the Arches, following the views of Dr. Phillimore in this , respect, has very lately clearly held that the law must be obeyed until the decisions are reversed, and, even pending an appeal, obedience must be rendered to the decision pronounced, You speak of the probability that tho law will be fairly interpreted very shortly, but you are silent as tothe proceedings in which you deem such reversion can be had. The only appeal (so far as we know) is one by Mr. Ridsdale, of Folkestone, but in that case he only ventures to question the existing decisions site three of the eleven practices against which BETTER FROM THE PRD7CE OF WALES we have protested, and, even as to those, obedience TO