Page:Life of David Haggart who was executed at Edinburgh, 18th July, 1821, for the murder of the Dumfries jailor.pdf/4

 cmomittedcommitted [sic] several depredations by himself.

The first of these was stealing a Bantam Cock from a woman at the back of the New Town, Edinburgh. Having taken a fancy to it, he offered to buy it, but the woman would not sell it; he fell on the scheme of putting another cock of his own a-fighting, and then came off with his prize. His next was lifting a shop till from a poor woman in Stock-Bridge. Being some miles from town and tired, he mounted a ponny which was grazing on the road side, and rode home, where he kept it for some time in an out-house, where he had formerly kept a Cuddie; he kept it there for several days, until the owner found it out by accident. At Leith races in 1813, he enlisted in the Norfolk Militia, and learned the drum and Buglehorn; the Regiment was disbanded in about a year afterwards, and he was discharged. His father was then living in the south back of the Cannongate, Edinburgh, and he went home, when he was put as an apprentice to the Millwright and engineering business, with Cockburn and Baird, in the Canongate,