Broadside entitled 'Horrid Parricide'

Transcription

Horrid Parricide.

An account of the awful and inhuman Murder of

PETER   MOFFAT,

Carter in Kilsyth, by his own Son, on Tuesday the 2d of April,
1822, who cruelly stabbed his father several times in the belly,
so that he died soon after.

THE many wanton outrages and wicked murders with which the accounts from
the Sister Island has of late shocked the feelings, is truly distressing, but when
the barbarous and ignorant state of the inhabitants is taken into consideration, and
the present irritation from distress and supposed grievances, hardiy any other thing
could be expected; but is with pain that we have to record one of the most inhuman
murders, committed in the neighbourhood of this city, which ever stained the crimi-
nal records of our country.

On Tuesday the 2d April, a barbarous murder was committed at Kilsyth, 12 miles
from Glasgow, under the following circumstances :?Peter Moffat, carter, Kilsyth,
going home to his house, after his day's labour, found his second son lying much.
intoxicated and was angry with him. Some dispute ensued, but the father aware of
the vindictive and ungovernable temper of his son when in that state, left him and
[ ] to a little distance from the house. The son soon after got up, and seiz-
ing a large knife, which he was accustomed in his drunken fits to wield, rushed out
and going straight forward to the place where his father stood, seized him by the
throat with one hand, and shocking to relate, made three deep stabs into his pa-
rent's bowels with the knife which he held in the other hand! The unfortunate fa-
ther, who had some distance to walk, reached his house with difficulty, literally car-
rying in his hands, part of his bowels which had obtruced through his wounds; he
languissed in great pain for a short time, and then expired.

The cruel monster fled, but had the savage hardihood to return on Saturday last
go into the house and survey the dead body of his murdered father! The mur-
derer has, for the moment, escaped, but the, officers of justice are in search of him.

It is a lamentable fact. and one which affords another instance of the barbarous
and brutalizing effects of illicit distillation, that the unfortunate young man had,
for some time previous, been deeply engaged in the system of smuggling, of late
become so prevalent in this country. Every one must look with abhorrence on a
fact attended with such aggravated circumstances, as the crime which this man has
committed. The poor man was his father, so that he was, consistent with the dic-
tates of natural reason, bound to do all that lay in his power to protect him, instead
of which he inhumanely deprived him of life.

Parricide is that of a son murdering his father; and the crime has always been con-
sidered in so odious a light, that it was long before some Heathen nations ever so
much as thought of a law to punish it; for this reason that they did not think any
person capable of committing it. The ancient Egyptians are the first mendioned
in history, who made a law to punish parricide; and when a son was found guilty of
murdering his father, he was tied up in a sack with a cock, an ape, and a serpent,
and thrown into the Nile.                                                                           

John Muir, Printer.

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