Anthony Calas to have been strangled: the surgeon, having been ordered to examine the stomach of the deceased, deposed also, that the food which was found there had been taken four hours before his death. As no proof of the supposed fact could be procured, the Capitoul had recourse to a Monitory, in which the crime was taken for granted, and all persons were required to give such testimony concerning it as they were able, particularizing the points to which they were to speak. This Monitory recites, that La Vaisse was commissioned by the Protestants to be their executioner in ordinary when any of their children were to be hanged for changing their religion; it recites also, that when Protestants thus hang their children, they compel them to kneel; and one of the interrogatories was, whether any person had seen Anthony Calas kneel before his father when he strangled him; it recites too, that Anthony died a Roman Catholic, and requires evidence of his catholicism. These ridiculous opinions being thus adopted and published by the principal magistrate of a consider able city, the church of Geneva thought itself obliged to send an attestation of its abhorrence of opinions so abominable and absurd, and of its astonishment that they should be suspected of such opinions by persons whose rank and office required them to have more knowledge and better judgment.

But before this Monitory was published, the mob had got a notion, that Anthony Calas was the next day to have entered into the confraternity of the White Penitents. The Capitoul immediately adopted this opinion also, without

the least examination, and ordered Anthony's body to be buried in the middle of St. Stephen's church, which was done; forty priests and all the White Penitents assisting in the funeral procession.

Four days afterwards the White Penitents performed a solemn service for him in their chapel; the church was hung with white, and a tomb was raised in the middle of it, on the top of which was placed a human skeleton, holding in one hand a paper, on which was written abjuration of heresy; and in the other a palm, the emblem of martyrdom.

The next day the Franciscans performed a service of the same kind for him; and it is easy to imagine how much the minds of the people were inflamed by this strange folly of their magistrates and priests.

The Capitoul continued the prosecution with unrelenting severity; and though the grief and distraction of the family, when he first came to the house, were alone sufficient to have convinced any reasonable being that they were not the authors of the event which they deplored, yet having publicly attested that they were guilty in his Monitory without proof, and no proof coming in, he thought fit to condemn the unhappy father, mother, brother, friend, and servant, to the torture, and put them all into irons on the 18th of November. Casing wa enlarged, upon proof that he wa not in Calas's house till after An thony was dead.

From these dreadful proceeding the sufferers appealed to the par liament, which immediately tool cognizance of the affair, annulled the sentence of the Capitoul as ir regular

regular, and continued the prose

cution.

When the trial came on, the hangman, who had been carried to Calas's house, and shewn the folding doors and the bar, deposed, that it was impossible Anthony should hang himself as was pretended; another witness swore that they look ed through the key-hole of Calas's door into a dark room, where they saw men running hastily to and fro; a third swore, that his wife had told him, that a woman named Mandrill had told her, that a certain woman unknown had declared she heard the cries of Mark Anthony Calas at the farther end of the city. Upon such evidence as this, the majority of the parliament were of opinion, that the father and mother had ordered La Vaisse to hang their son, and that another son and a maid-servant, who was a good Catholic, had assisted him to do it.

One La Borde presided at the trial, who had zealously espoused the popular prejudices; and though it was manifest to demonstration that the prisoners were either all innocent or all guilty, he voted that the father should first suffer the torture ordinary and extraordinary, to discover his accomplices, and be then broken alive upon the wheel; to receive the last stroke when he had lain two hours, and then to be burnt to ashes. In this opinion he had the concurrence of six others, three were for the torture alone, two were of opinion that they should endeavour to ascertain upon the spot whether Anthony could hang himself or not; and one voted to acquit the prisoner. After long debates the majority was for the torture and the wheel, and probably condemned the father by way of

experiment whether he was guilty or not, hoping he would, in the agony, confess the crime, and accuse the other prisoners, whose fate, therefore, they suspended. It is, however, certain, that if they had had evidence against the father that would have justified the sentence they pronounced against him, that very evidence would have justified the same sentence against the rest; and that if they could not justly condemn the rest, they could not justly condemn him, for they were all in the house together when Anthony died, all concurred in declaring he hanged himself, which those who did not help to hang him, if hanged by others, could have had no motive to do, nor could any of the prisoners have hanged him by violence, without the knowledge of the rest.

Poor Calas, however, an old man of sixty-eight, was condemned to this dreadful punishment alone; he suffered the torture with great constancy, and was led to execution in a frame of mind which excited the admiration of all that saw him.

Two Dominicans, father Bourges and father Caldagues, who attended him in his last moments, wished "their latter end might be like his," and declared that they thought him not only wholly innocent of the crime laid to his charge, but an exemplary instance of true christian patience, fortitude, and charity.

One single shriek, and that not very violent, escaped him when he received the first stroke; after that, he uttered no complaint. Being at length placed on the wheel, to wait for the moment which was to end his life and his misery together, he expressed himself with an humble hope of an happy immortality, and acompassionate regard for the judge [K]2

who

who had condemned him. When he saw the executioner prépared to give him the last stroke, he made a fresh declaration of his innocence to father Bourges; but while the words were yet in his mouth, the Capitoul, the author of this catastrophe, and who came upon the scaffold merely to gratify his desire of being a witness of his punishment and death, ran up to him and bawled out, Wretch, there are the faggots which are to reduce your body to ashes; speak the truth. Mr. Calas made no reply, but turned his head a little aside, and that moment the executioner did his office.

Though the testimony of a dying man had thus acquitted the rest of the prisoners, yet the judges, that they might act with an uniform absurdity throughout the whole affair, banished Peter Calas for life, and acquitted the rest. The widow and the other sufferers are seeking such redress from the king as can now be had, to whom the sentence of the judge was not sent for confirnation, as it ought to have been.

The judges have thought fit to suppress this trial: the widow petitions that it may be ordered to be laid before the parliament of Paris for a revision.

Some account of the murder of Anne Naylor, by Sarah Matyard, and her daughter Sarah Morgan. Metyard.

In the year 1758, Sarah Metyard, the mother, kept a little haberdasher's shop in Bruton street, Hanover-square, and her daughter, then about 19 years old, lived with her: their chief business was making of silk nets, purses, and mit

tens; and they took parish children apprentices. They had then five, Philadelphia Dowley, about 10 years old; Sarah Hinchman, about 12: Anne Naylor, about 13; Mary, her sister, about eight; and Anne Paul, whose age does not appear: but as Hinchman is said to have been the biggest girl, she was probably not more than 10.

These children were kept to work in a small slip of a room, so close, that their breath, and the heat of their bodies, made it suffocating and unwholesome; and they were not only treated with unkindness and severity, but were not allowed sufficient food. As it was natural to suppose they would complain, another punishment became necessary; and they were suffered to go out of doors but once a fortnight, and then were never alone. Anne Naylor had a whitloe upon her finger, so bad that it was obliged to be cut off; and, being besides a weak sickly child, fhe became particularly obnoxious to the inhumanity and avarice of the petty tyrant, of whom she was condemned to be the slave.

Being almost worn out by a long series of ill-treatment, the girl, at length, ran away, but was soon brought back; after this she was treated with yet greater severity, and kept so short of food, that finding her strength decay, she watched for an opportunity to run away a second time; but this was now be. come very difficult, for the mother and daughter being apprehensive of such an attempt, and dreading the consequences of a complaint yet more than the loss of the girl, were careful to keep the street-door fast and their unhappy victim in the upper part of the house.

It happened, however, that, on the 29th of September, she watch. ed the door's being opened for the milkman, and creeping down stairs, took the opportunity of the daughter's back being turned, to slip out; but the daughter missing her while she was yet in sight, called out to have her stopped; and the milkman, as she was running with what strength she had left, caught her in his arms. The poor child expostulated with the man, and pressed him, with a moving earnestness, to let her go. Pray, milkman, says she, let me go, for I have had no victuals a long time; and if I stay here, I shall be starved to death. By this time the daughter was come up; and the milkman having no power to detain the child, and it being impossible for her to escape, she fell again into the hands of her merciless tyrants; and the daughter haying dragged her into the house by the neck, slapped to the door, and then forced her up stairs into the room, where the old woman was still in bed, though she had started up and joined in the cry upon the first alarm. Here she was thrown upon the bed; and the old woman held her down by the head while the daughter beat her with the handle of a hearth-broom; after this, she was forced into a two pair of stairs back room; and a string being tied round her waist, she was made fast to the door with her hands bound behind her, so that she could neither lie nor sit down. In this manner she was kept standing, without food or drink for three days, being untied only at night that she might go to bed; and the last night she was so feeble, that she was obliged to crawl up to bed upon her hands and knees. During this time

the other children were ordered to work in the room by her, that they might be deterred from attempting to escape, by seeing the punishment that was inflicted upon one who had thus offended already.

The first day she said little, her strength failing her apace; the next day she said nothing; but the pains of death coming on, she groaned piteously; on the third day, soon after she was tied up, her strength wholly failed her, and she sunk down, hanging double in the string which bound her by the waist. The children being then frighted, ran to the top of the stairs, and called out, Miss Sally! Miss Sally! Nanny does not move! The daughter came up stairs, and found her without any appearance of sense or motion, hanging by the string, with her head and her feet together; but she was so far from being touched with pity, that she cried out, If she does not move, I'll warrant I'll make her move, and immediately began to beat her with the heel of her shoe : finding, however, notwithstanding the blows, which were very hard, that the poor wretch shewed no signs of sensibility, fear took the alarm, and she hastily called up her mother, When the old woman came up, she sat down upon the garret stairs at the door where the child was still hanging; and the string being at length cut, she laid her acrosss her lap, and sent Sally Hinchman down stairs for some drops. When the drops were brought, the girls were all sent down stairs; and the mother and daughter were soon convinced that their victim was dead.

Having consulted together, they carried the body up stairs into the fore-garret, next to that where the [K] 3

child

child used to lie, and locked the door that the other children might not see it. They pretended she had had a fit, from which she soon recovered; and for two or three days they insinuated that she was confined in the garret to prevent her running away, having made a third attempt to escape; and the mother herself, in sight of the children, took victuals and carried it up into the garret, pretending it was Nanny's dinner.

:

On the fourth day, the body being stripped, was locked up in a box and in consequence of a plan concerted between the mother and daughter, the garret-door was left open when the children were sent down to dinner, and the streetdoor was also opened and left ajar; when they were at dinner, the mother said to the daughter, Hark! Sally, don't you hear a noise? go and see what it is; to which the daughter, as had been agreed, replied, There is no noise, and continued at table: then said the old woman to Sally Hinchman, Go and fetch Nanny down, she shall dine below to-day. Hinchman went up, and finding the garret door open, and the child not there, ran back frighted, and said, Madam, Nanny is not there. Run down then, said the old woman, and look below; upon this several of the children ran down, and finding the street door also open, came up, and told what they had seen.-Aye, said the old woman, then she is run away at last; and it was she that I heard when I mentioned the noise. Girls, did not you hear a noise? O! law, madam, said the poor children, implicitly concurring in an opinion they did not dare to contradict, so we did.

Thus they hoped to account for

the child's absence to her fellow. 'prentices, who were not, however, without suspicions: one of them, in particular observed, that, if she had run away, she had run away without her shoes, of which she was known to have but one pair, and they were found in the garret soon after the supposed escape; another remarked, that they had all her shifts in the wash, and that it was not likely she should escape without either shift or shoes. The old woman hearing this whispered, said, That she went without her shoes for fear of being heard to go down stairs; and that if she should but get into the street she would not mind being barefoot. The shifts she could not so readily account for; and a person who lodged in the house, having asked what was become of Nanny, was answered by her sister, that she was dead. The lodger was satisfied with the answer, having no suspicion that her death was not natural; but the mother hearing of it, asked Molly Naylor, who told her that her sister was dead; she replied, Philly Dowley, one of her fellow-'prentices; Philly, therefore, was sharply reproved. Molly was soon after destroyed as her sister had been; and the horrid secret slept with the mother and daughter.

It became necessary, however, to keep the children out of the garret, for the body was become very offensive; they were therefore or dered not to wash their hands there as usual, but to wash them in the kitchen; and the garret-door was kept locked. But at the end of two months, the putrefaction was so great, that the whole house was infected; and it became absolutely necessary to remove the body.

The