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The story of the Play is in some measure taken from a melancholy event which took place many years ago in Glasgow, yet still within the recollection of some of its present inhabitants. A young man, whose father was in prison, and about to be tried for a capital offence,—his fate depending on the single evidence of one person, which it was believed must prove fatal,—fired through a window at night, and killed the dreaded witness. The father's life was by this means spared, and the son was executed for the criminal act, though it was perpetrated from the strongest feeling of filial affection, being himself in no degree implicated in the guilt of his father.