170 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



hand, and in the background a number of military 

 trophies. 



The especial scandal attaching to the fact of this 

 monument ever having been placed in the church 

 arises from the fact that Edward Bird was hanged for 

 murder. Some particulars are gleaned from one of 

 the many catchpenny leaflets issued at the time by 

 the Ordinary — that is to say, the Chaplain — of New- 

 gate, who was never averse from adding to his official 

 salary by writing the " last dying words " of interesting 

 criminals ; but his flaring front pages were, at the best 

 — like the contents bills of modern sensational evening 

 newspapers — indifferent honest, and his account of 

 Bird is meagre. 



It seems, collating this and other authorities, that 

 this interesting young man had been given the 

 advantages of "a Christian and Gentlemanlike 

 Education," which in this case means that he had 

 been a Westminster bov under the renowned Dr. 

 Busby, and afterwards a scholar at Eton. This 

 finished Christian then became a lieutenant in the 

 Marquis of Winchester's Horse. He married when 

 twenty years of age, and his wife died a year 

 later, when he plunged into a dissolute life in 

 London. 



One evening in September, 1718, he was driven 

 " with a woman in a coach and a bottle of Champain 

 wine " to a " bagnio " in Silver Street, Golden Square, 

 and there " had the misfortune " to run a waiter, 

 one Samuel Loxton, through the body with his sword. 

 " G — d d — n you, I will murder you all," he is reported 

 to have threatened, and a farrier of Putney, called at 

 the subsequent trial, deposed to having once been 

 run through the body by this martial spirit. 



Greatly to the surprise of himself and friends, 

 Lieutenant Bird was not only arrested and tried, 

 but found guilty and sentenced to death. The 

 historian of these things is surprised, too ; for 

 gentlemen of fashion were in those times very 

 much what German officers became — privileged 



