Page:Life of Richard Turpin (1).pdf/2



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ICHARd TURPIN was born at Hampstead, in Essex, where his father followed the occupation of a Butcher, with a fair reputation; and after being the usual time at school, he was apprenticed to a Butcher in Whitechaple, but did not serve out his time, for he was discharged, for the brutality, and egregious improprcty [sic] of his conduct, which was much increased by the improper indulgence of his parents, in supplying him with money, which enabled him to cut a dash round the town among the blades of the road and turf, whose company he affected to keep.

His friends, thinking that marriage, and a settlement in life, would reclaim him, persuaded him to marry Hester Palmer, a young woman of good family, but he had not long been married, before he again returned to vice, and became acquainted with a gang of theives [sic], whose depredations alarmed the whole county of Essex, and the neighbourhood of London. His share of the spoil was not sufficient, it appears, to support his extravagance, for he