Broadside report of a murdering publican in the Scottish Highlands, nineteenth century

Transcription

A Horrible Account of a Man who kept a pub-
lic-house in the Highlands who murdered and
Robbed almost every person that stopped in
his house, giving an account of a man who
stopped in his house, with a curious discov-
ery of the landlord.

This is giving an account of a horrid murder,             Magistrate, and the inn-keeper swore quantity
of a treacherous innkeeper that has kept an                and number of the notes and he was searched ;
inn those several years past and has been in the          the same quantity of money was found on him,
habit, of murdering a number of people, and               to which he was commited to jail, he wrote to
never was found out till Thursday last. A gen-            Inverness for his character and let it be seen to
tleman happened to pass by, and had been detain-      the Sheriff of the County, on this man having a
ed and was obliged to stay there all night. This          good character; the gentleman held a committee
said gentleman was in the custom of purchasing         on it to which they considered they would make
black cattle ; he had two hundred pounds of notes,    a general search in the inn-keeper's house on ac-
besides twenty pounds of cash; This gentleman          count of the many robberies, that had been com-
got a place from the landlord to secure the men          mitted on that road before. They brought few
ey, when he locked it up in a drawer and put             town officers with them and made a general search
the key in his small clothes pocket, when he               and found a great number of gold and silver watch-
thought aft was safe, but the false villain the land-    es belonging to gentlemen, and their names were
lord, had a false key, and when he found the gen-      on the watches. They found a trap door and
tleman asleep, he opened the drawer and found          when they went down, they found a large boiler;
what money he had ; and the number of his notes,    a large quantity of men's bones in the cell, to
he locked the drawer again and left all as it was,       which they apprehended him and his wife and
again he went and acquainted his wife and what       commited them to jail when he confessed the
he was intending to do, but his wife prevented          whole transaction, he confessed that he murdered
the horrible deed, and when he could not get it          and robbed fifteen drovers, and none of them es-
brought to execution he took another plan. In             caped but Andrew Johnston. He put an end to
the morning the gentleman arose and settled his          his own life by hanging himself with his own neck-
bill, and rode away. The inn-keeper made an a-          cloth and Johnston was turned out of jail, and his
larm that there was a drover in his house last night      wife is to stand her trial at the next assizes the
and robbed him of two hundred pounds of cash,          horrible action was commited between Montrose
to which two officers pursued him on herse-baok       and Inverness, by Sandy M'Toysh.
and brought him prisoner and took him before a

previous