diary (quoted by Mr Roughead) recording the death of the wife he
so cruelly murdered:


March 1865, 18, Saturday. Died here at 1 A.M. Mary Jane, my own
beloved wife, aged thirty-eight years. No torment surrounded her
bedside [the foul liar!]--but like a calm peaceful lamb of God
passed Minnie away. May God and Jesus, Holy Ghost, one in three,
welcome Minnie! Prayer on prayer till mine be o'er; everlasting
love. Save us, Lord, for Thy dear Son!


Against the mean murders of Flanagan and Higgins I will set you
Mr Seddon and Mr Smith of the ``brides in the bath.''



% IV

I am conscious that in arguing against the ``more deadly than the
male'' conception of the woman criminal I am perhaps doing my
book no great service. It might work for its greater popularity
if I argued the other way, making out that the subjects I have
chosen were monsters of brutality, with arms up to the shoulders
in blood, that they were prodigies of iniquity and cunning,
without bowels, steeped in hypocrisy, facinorous to a degree
never surpassed or even equalled by evil men. It may seem that,
being concerned to strip female crime of the lurid preeminence so
commonly given it, I have contrived beforehand to rob the ensuing
pages of any richer savour they might have had. But I don't,