me; and I assure you that you shall never repent it. As you hope for
mercy yourself at the hands of the great God, do have mercy on me, and
give me a chance of redeeming my character and preparing myself to meet
my God. I pray, and beseech you to have mercy upon me."

Peace's assumption of pitiable senility, sustained throughout the trial,
though it imposed on Sir Henry Hawkins, failed to melt his heart. He
told Peace that he did not believe his statement that he had fired the
pistol merely to frighten the constable; had not Robinson guarded
his head with his arm he would have been wounded fatally, and Peace
condemned to death. He did not consider it necessary, he said, to make
an inquiry into Peace's antecedents; he was a desperate burglar, and
there was an end of the matter. Notwithstanding his age, Mr. Justice
Hawkins felt it his duty to sentence him to penal servitude for life.
The severity of the sentence was undoubtedly a painful surprise
to Peace; to a man of sixty years of age it would be no doubt less
terrible, but to a man of forty-six it was crushing.

Not that Peace was fated to serve any great part of his sentence.

With as little delay as possible he was to be called on to answer to
the murder of Arthur Dyson. The buxom widow of the murdered man had been
found in America, whither she had returned after her husband's death.
She was quite ready to come to England to give evidence against
her husband's murderer. On January 17, 1879, Peace was taken from
Pentonville prison, where he was serving his sentence, and conveyed by
an early morning train to Sheffield. There at the Town Hall he appeared
before the stipendiary magistrate, and was charged with the murder of
Arthur Dyson. When he saw Mrs. Dyson enter the witness box and tell her
story of the crime, he must have realised that his case was desperate.
Her cross-examination was adjourned to the next hearing, and Peace was
taken back to London. On the 22nd, the day of the second hearing in
Sheffield, an enormous crowd had assembled outside the Town Hall. Inside
the court an anxious and expectant audiience{sic}, among them Mrs.
Dyson, in the words of a contemporary reporter, "stylish and cheerful,"
awaited the appearance of the protagonist. Great was the disappointment
and eager the excitement when the stipendiary came into the court about
a quarter past ten and stated that Peace had attempted to escape that
morning on the journey from London to Sheffield, an