Whenever the Commandments were read aloud in the chapel of Newgate, Foster Snow trembled, turned pale, and wept—so relates the chronicler—as often as the words forbidding murder rang forth. He would then beseech the Almighty to forgive his transgression. Condemned for the death of Thomas Rawlins, he was shortly to be conveyed from the gaol to Tyburn tree. The man who had formerly enjoyed the esteem of his neighbours as a respectable victualler now spent his days reproaching himself for his crime, while his wife came not near him and his family continued, without him, an existence already fraught with bitter contention.
Snow was born of parents whom the chronicle describes as honest and reputable folk. They gave him an education suitable to their condition and bred him to the business of gardening. He served as a gardener or domestic servant in several families of quality, maintaining an unblemished reputation throughout. About fourteen years before his death, he took a wife and opened a public house. His neighbours held him in good regard. The chronicle imputes to him no flagrant vices, save for an ungovernable passion to which he too frequently surrendered: whenever he had taken liquor, he fell into extravagant speeches and actions, treating with uncommon roughness whosoever crossed his path.
The writer traces these violent fits to domestic grievances which, he suggests, had long troubled Snow before the murder took place. His wife had a daughter by a former marriage, whom she brought to dwell in the house. Snow showed her no coldness: he committed the management of the household to her hands and conceived, writes the chronicler, a very tender affection for her. This attachment he likewise extended to her infant daughter. The source dwells upon the fondness he showed towards the child, and upon the contrast between that tenderness and the breach that had opened between himself and the mother.
Thomas Rawlins had found means, according to the same relation, to ingratiate himself with the mother and still more with the daughter. His fortunes were mean, yet he obtained considerable credit. Accompanied by his children, he came frequently to the house and tarried there so long that, by degrees, he was seldom seen to depart. Snow took umbrage at this. He warned him that his company was no longer welcome. Rawlins replied, according to the chronicler, with contemptuous and scurrilous words; moreover, he was indebted to Snow in a sum of money. Their mutual enmity was sustained through a series of altercations. Snow complained bitterly to his wife and household, yet Rawlins continued to frequent the house and his children to receive assistance therein.
Upon the day of the murder, Snow had drunk more freely than was his custom when Rawlins entered the premises. He demanded the money owing to him and sharply rebuked Rawlins for his conduct towards him. Rawlins returned an answer, the narrative records, with equal insolence. Snow’s menaces had already manifested his resentment; he seized a common case-knife and pursued Rawlins. He struck him a mortal wound, whereof Rawlins instantly expired. Snow was apprehended and committed to Newgate.
At the subsequent sessions, he was indicted for the murder of Thomas Rawlins, charged with having inflicted with a knife the wound that caused his immediate dissolution. He was further prosecuted upon the Stabbing Act, and a third time upon the Coroner’s inquisition, all for the selfsame fact. These three indictments did not denote three several victims: they pursued the death of Rawlins through distinct legal avenues. The jury found Snow guilty upon each of them. Witnesses called to speak to his character had nevertheless described him as a civil, honest, and peaceable neighbour; yet their testimony could not prevail against the evidence of the bloody fact.
In passing sentence, the Deputy Recorder, Mr. Faby, insisted upon the heinous nature of homicide and upon the divine law which demanded the blood of him who had shed that of man. He admonished Snow to entertain no hope of pardon, murder being a crime wherein the Crown rarely extended its royal clemency. This solemn address placed before the convict the absolute certainty of his doom. The chronicle then describes a demeanour far different from that formerly ascribed to the choleric master of the public house: in the condemned hold, he exhibited great devotion and visible marks of unfeigned repentance.
Snow sought to comprehend the full enormity of the crime he had committed. He now regarded it as utterly contrary both to religion and to natural affection. The chronicler reports that he was often heard lamenting by himself, repeating that the guilt of murder lay heavy upon his soul. In the chapel, when the Commandments were recited, the precept “Thou shalt do no murder” caused him to shake and turn pale; he wept bitterly, imploring the mercy of God. The account asserts that no man, during his confinement, had ever displayed a livelier sense of his guilt. He dreaded lest his penance prove insufficient for a life he could never restore to him whom he had slain.
Several ministers of the Gospel and the Ordinary of Newgate afforded him spiritual counsel. They exhorted him to rely upon the mercies of God, that his contrition might not sink into despair. Snow hearkened to their admonitions with great meekness, according to the chronicle. Remorse was now the constant companion of his days, as anger had formerly attended the quarrels of his home. Yet none of the consolations he embraced could restore to Rawlins the breath that had been extinguished.
His wife, on the contrary, never visited him in his affliction and administered but slenderly to his necessities, the chronicle affirms. Their former bickerings had so alienated their hearts that all mutual affection between husband and wife appeared utterly extinguished. Snow complained of this neglect, yet disclaimed having ever harboured any jealousy of her chastity. His grievance lay solely in the credit she had extended to Rawlins. Touching his daughter-in-law, he reiterated that his kindnesses had been ill requited. Nevertheless, his fondness for the little girl remained undiminished: he expressed great concern lest, after his demise, none should take proper care of her education, which he had intended to direct himself. The resentment he bore against the mother reached not the child.
As the hour of execution drew near, a violent distemper seized him, so reducing his strength that he was unable to attend chapel. When the fever abated, it left his senses so impaired that he appeared at times disordered in his understanding. On the Sunday preceding his death, he cried aloud in the chapel, as a man sorely distracted by the weight of his guilt and the judgment he was shortly to undergo. Yet he declared, says the source, that he freely forgave all who had in any measure contributed to his death. Shortly thereafter, being conveyed to Tyburn in a mourning coach, he appeared more composed than he had been for a considerable time.
Before the assembled multitude, Snow declared that, apart from the crime for which he died, he had never, to his knowledge, committed anything that could make him fear such an end. He was executed on the 3rd of November 1725, being aged about fifty-five years. The convict’s death, however, did not silence the controversy. Almost immediately, a printed paper entitled his case was dispersed abroad, setting forth circumstances tending to alleviate his guilt, which the chronicler asserts were never offered at his trial.
At the following sessions, the bench of the Old Bailey took notice of this publication. The judges deemed that it reflected dishonour upon the justice of those who had tried Snow, and summoned the printer, Mr. Leech, to appear before them. They charged him with having published a narrative calculated to misrepresent their proceedings. Leech offered his submission, pleading that he had acted through inadvertence, and promised never to print any such paper again. The court discharged him with a severe reprimand, strictly admonishing all other printers against publishing papers that tended to question the course of justice. Thus, after the verdict, the condemnation, and the gallows, a fresh dispute arose over the manner in which the tale was to be delivered to the world.