THE VILLAGE: IN AND ABOUT IT 141 



houses in such a choice vilk de plaisance, while 

 others had to content themselves with mean 

 lodgings in St. Pancras or Soho. 



It is difficult, indeed, to draw the line between 

 these neighbour villages that have now grown into 

 each other. The Old Deer Park of Richmond 

 ran into the parish of Kew. They had a common 

 excitement in 1795, making a more than local 

 sensation, when one John Little, said to have 

 been a favourite attendant of George III. in 

 his walks through the Gardens, came to a bad 

 end. He is described as keeper or porter of 

 the Observatory, who passed for being a quiet, 

 worthy, and even religious man till he committed 

 a most brutal murder under circumstances that 

 suggest insanity. He had borrowed money from 

 a friend, an old man named MacEvoy, living in 

 the lane between Kew and Richmond ; and when 

 this creditor pressed for payment, Little wiped 

 out the debt by climbing into his house at night, 

 beating him to death with a large stone, and 

 killing his old housekeeper in the same way. 

 Their cries roused the neighbours, who burst in 

 too late ; but instead of making off, the murderer 

 had hid himself in a chimney of the house, and 

 was there found by a Richmond constable. 



