Hi,

Please post the Charlie's text if you have it. I'm putting all the texts on my site!! I'll also post the broadside text from Boston dated 1829.

There is one version of the Two Sister's titled Berkshire Tragedy which has caused some confusion.

This is the source of Cox and others attribution of John Mauge being the killer:

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Notices of Fugitive Tracts
By James Orchard Halliwell, 1851 p. 90

118. THE BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY, OR THE WHITTAM MILLER, who MosT BARBAROUSLY MURDER'D His SwBETHEART. 12mo, Edinburgh. Printed for John Keed, in the Swan-closs, 1744.

In verse, with a cut of the miller on the gallows. It concludes with "the last dying words and confession of John Mauge, a miller, who was executed at Reading, in Berkshire, on Saturday, the 20th of last month, for the barbarous murder of Anne Knite, his sweetheart."

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Obviously the names may be spelled differently: Maunge; Mage; Maude etc or Knight; Kite etc.

I didn't see that early date- Ballad index has c. 1700 probably from Ebsworth (Roxburghe) who offers no proof.

Berkshire did follow William Grismond c. 1658 and Bloody Miller c.1683 both are murders of a pregnant sweetheart.

Richie