Barbarous and Bloody News FROM THE Parish of St. GILES'S: BEING A TRUE ACCOUNT OF Two Horrid Murders, Committed on the Bodies of a ●Vidow Gentlewoman, and her niece, On Saturday the 13th. Instant.  
〈…〉 most Cruelly cutting their Thoats, and afterwards Robbing them, in a Coffee-House in Short's Gardens, between the Hours of Five and Six in the Morning; whose Bodies are still to be seen, as a Dismal Spectacle of human Misery.  
PLATO, a Heathen, thought Virtue so aimable in itself, that could it appear clad in human shape, the excellency of its Features would attract the love and admiration of all its Spectators: and shall we, who are Christians, be less in love with the Beauty 〈◇〉 Holiness? Shall we, who live under the Meridian Illustrations of Divine ●… isdom, not see those Glorious Truths which the glimmering light of ●… ture He so much reversed? O shane on that Egyptian Darkness which ●… ouds our Reason! He lived a Divine Heathen, while we live and die ●… ofessed Christians, but in practise more wretched and inexcusable than ●… gans, witness the Avarice and Rapine of some, the Malice and Ambition 〈◇〉 others; in a word, the frequent Murders, and the more close Adulteries; 〈◇〉 bloody Revenge of the enraged B●avo, and the wanton Embraces of the ●… tful Paramour, the two last, viz. Murder and Adultery, are the crying ●… s of this Age: Murder, 'tis true, got the start of Adultery, and was the ●… st born of its wretched Parent Cain. Murder has been always looked up●… as a most detestable Sin in the sight of God and Man, and punished as ● capital Offence; yet had the Precepts of God or the Laws of Man been ●… le to restain the Extravagence of our debauched Natures within the limits 〈◇〉 our Duty, we should have had not only no Occasion, but no Examples 〈◇〉 such wicked Wretches, whose Lust, Ambition, or Revenge, has made ●… em the unhappy Arguments of human Misery. Their vicious Courses ●… ve plunged them into Crimes which could not be expiated here, but by 〈◇〉 severest Punishments. The following Relation is very Tragical, and the parts of the Actors writ in Characters of Blood; the publishing 〈◇〉 which is not so much designed to divert the Reader with the variety 〈◇〉 surprising Circumstances, as to affright him, by the sad Example from th●… Commission of that horrid Sin of murder, of which fincerely to repen●… is highly difficult, but to make satisfaction far impossible. When once th●… Golden Bowl is broken( which the Wise man speaks of, Ecclesiastes the 12th.▪ by the Impious hand of some bold Assassin, he fills full the Cup of God●… Indignation against him, which will be a draft more bitter than a●… the glorying pleasures Life or Fortune can sweeten with their greate●… advantages. human Laws have provided Shackles and Dungeons, Rack●… and Gibbets, not only to punish, but deter such Sanguinary Bravoes, wh●… if they chance( which but rarely happens) to escape the latest han●… of Justice, yet are they constantly haunted with the horror of the Crime▪ and antedate the Torments of a future, by the present Hell of an Evi● Conscience: But I proceed to the Relation, which is thus.  
In Short's-Garden by Piccadilly, near the Hay-Market, there lately live●… one Mrs. Sarah Wilkins, an ancient Widow-woman, with one Jane Gi●… her niece, keeping a Coffee-house of good Repute and Trade, and wer● supposed to be indifferent well to pass in the world. On Saturday th● 1●th. of this Instant December, Jane Gill the niece, coming down Stairs▪ as her usual custom was, about Five in the Morning, to cleanse the Coffe● Room, order the Cinders and prepare the Fire, &c. some Persons got o● were let into the House, and immediately seized the Maid and cut he● Throat: then going up two pair of Stairs, where Mrs. Wilkins lay, they served her in the like Barbarous manner, taking off four Rings that sh● generally wore on her Fingers, which when they had done, they rifle● the House of all that was valuable and portable, which was to a pretty considerable value, particularly( as a Relation of the Deceased does Relate) there was in a Dressing-Box a Medal of Massy Gold, and severa● guineas, and other things of worth. The Murtherers at present, are s● far from being discovered, that it's now known how many they were, o● so much as whether they were Men or Women, that were the Author● o● this Horrid Fact, onely some Persons that were up in the Adjacen● Houses, heard a knocking at the Coffee-house Door about the hour of fiv● that Morning.  
These poor Unhappy People have lived in the Parish for several years in very good Credit and Repute, demeaning themselves very Civilly and Honestly to all Persons, upon which account the Neighbours in general, are very sorry for so Cruel and Barbarous a murder.  
FINIS.   

Printed for W. Hethcock, 1690.