Historic%20Yorkshire

CHAPTER XXIII.
EUGENE ARAM, THE YORKSHIRE MURDERER.
OUBTLESS no namein the longrollof those
who have gone out from York Castle to die
on the scaffold is better known in this day
than that of Eugene Aram, the Yorkshire
schoolmaster, nor none to whom are more
widespread,if mistaken, sympathiesvouchsafed.
He was the son of PeterAram, who came of a
good Yorkshirefamily,which, however,wassoreducedthat
his situation in life was that of gardener to Sir Edward
Blackett, in which position he is said to have displayed
great capacity. He also cultivatedin some slight degree
the society of the muses, one poem of his being " On the
surpassingbeauties of Studley Park, and a description of
the venerable ruins of Fountains Abbey." Eugene was
born at the little village of Ramsgill, in Nidderdale, in
1704. When he was six years oldhis parents wenttolive
at Bondgate, a village within the sound of the bells of
Ripon Cathedral. Here he attended school,butremained
merely until he was able to read the New Testament.
This, with the exception of a month's teaching from the
Rev.Mr. Alcock, of Burnsall, a longperiod subsequently,
was the sum total of his learning so far as school tuition
was concerned;yet by he had attained the age of 16 he