London Union, and to request the relieving officer to
take them in, and take care of them.
On the 22nd, Mr. and Mrs. Boreham, described as a
"respectable" farmer and his wife, were tried at the
Chelmsford Sessions for inhuman Cruelty to a
Workhouse Child, 10 years old, in their service. One night
the farmer and his wife came home drunk. The child,
worn out with fatigue, had lain down on a bed and
fallen asleep, leaving the candle burning. The woman
made her strip herself naked, when they both beat her
so cruelly that her whole body was one mass of bruises
and wounds, and so great was the injury that for
several days her life was despaired of. The chairman,
on the part of the magistrates present, expressed
their horror and detestation of the cruelty to which
this helpless child had been subjected, and fined the
prisoners £5.
S. Beamish was charged at the Marlborough Police
Court on the 22nd with attempting to defraud the
public by a Begging Petition. About two months ago he
called at the house of Mr. Frankum, in Burlington-
gardens, and introduced himself as a physician. He
made himself quite at home, examining the ornaments
on the mantel-piece, and making comments on them
He represented himself to be a great traveller; talked
of his reminiscences of Rome, Naples, and other places
in Italy. Mr. Frankum at length got tired of his visit,
and pressed him as to the purport of it, when he told
him he was in great distress and wanted some ready
money, and in fact he was so much reduced, that half-a-crown
would be a God-send. Mr. Frankum, suspecting
him to be an impostor, sent for a constable and gave
him in charge. The prisoner had previously given him
a paper containing the names of Dr. Moore and other
medical gentlemen, who, the prisoner stated, had
relieved him with money. This paper the prisoner
tried to burn, but was prevented. There were about
twenty other gentlemen in the court who had been
duped by the prisoner. The superintendent of the Dover
police produced a warrant for the apprehension of the
prisoner, who had absconded from his bail, having been
charged at Dover with defrauding various persons there;
and the magistrate gave him in charge to that officer,
to be conveyed to Dover.
Mr. Robert Lindsay Mauleverer, a magistrate in the
county of Londonderry, and an agent over extensive
estates in the North of Ireland, was Murdered on the
23rd. He was travelling on an outside car to meet the
train on the Dundalk and Enniskillen railway, when he
was shot through the head and killed on the spot. He
had been engaged of late in serving ejectment notices
on a very extensive scale. Two persons have been
arrested on suspicion.
In a Fatal Phrenzy occasioned by love, a young man
named Cooper destroyed himself on the 25th. At the
Inquest, which was held on his body, the chief witness
was a young woman named Straker, with whom he was
violently in love, but who was unable to return his
passion. She said that his attentions had been more
violent than agreeable, particularly during the last
fourteen weeks, and on one occasion she was so much
persecuted by him that she threatened to apply to a
magistrate. On Saturday the 25th, Cooper called at her
house, and when she opened the door he held a pistol
at her, and said he would blow her brains out. She ran
instantly up stairs, and called the landlord of the house.
They afterwards heard the report of a pistol, and
discovered the deceased lying in the parlour a corpse. The
upper part of his head appeared to be blown to pieces,
and a pistol was lying by his side. The police were
called in, and the following letter, addressed to his
father, in the handwriting of the deceased, was found in
his pocket:—"Dear Father—When you receive this I
shall be no more, for I have made up my mind to live
no longer without Miss Straker. Her shadow is always
following me, and my thoughts are constantly with
her." The jury agreed to a verdict of "Temporary
Insanity."
Charles and C. Machin, charged at Guildhall with
obtaining various sums of money and a large number
of law-books, from solicitors and other persons, Under
False Pretences, were, on the 27th, fully committed to
Newgate for trial.
NARRATIVE OF ACCIDENT AND
DISASTER.
Much interest has been excited by the arrival at Liverpool
of a large body of Shipwrecked Emigrants. They
were poor people from the neighbourhood of Galway,
who had sailed from that port in an emigrant ship,
which foundered at sea in the middle of the Atlantic,
but the passengers and crew were saved by Captain
Purdy of the Infanta, of New York, who took them on
board his vessel and brought them to Liverpool. Their
ship had been struck by a heavy sea in a gale, on the
30th of March, and thrown on her beam ends, but the
captain contrived to keep her afloat till the 15th of April,
when she fell in with the American vessel. Two of the
passengers died of injuries received when the ship
was struck, and the people suffered inexpressible
hardship, till they were rescued, when the ship was almost
sinking. Several vessels passed near them, but paid no
attention to their signals of distress. On the 26th of
April, Captain Thomas, the master of the emigrant ship,
applied at the Liverpool police court for relief to the
destitute people, the greater number of whom were
helpless women and children; and it was promptly
afforded.
The Wyndham club-house in St. James' Square,
Narrowly escaped Destruction by fire, on the night of the
10th. The fire broke out in the "strangers' room,"
a magnificent apartment, and the pictures and costly
furniture were destroyed before the flames could be got
under.
Mr. John Thomas, a druggist at Menai Bridge, was
Killed by an Explosion, on the 25th of April, while
making detonating powder. A piece of the mortar, in
which he had been mixing the ingredients, penetrated
the great artery of the thigh, causing almost instant
death.
The Lostwithiel Powder-works, near Liskeard, exploded
on the 26th of April. There were in store three or four
tons of gunpowder, which went off in three different
explosions. The premises were blown to pieces, and the
bodies of the two watchers, Pengelly and Truscott,
shockingly mutilated. Cottages, a quarter of a mile
distant, were unroofed and the walls damaged.
A Mysterious Death took place at Clapham on Sunday
the 28th of April. Mr. Maddle, a gentleman residing
in Claremont place, went to church in the morning,
leaving his housekeeper, Sarah Snelling, an elderly
woman, alone in the house, desiring her as usual to lock
the doors and gates. On his return he could not obtain
admittance by ringing, but found the back garden gate
unfastened, and discovered the housekeeper lying dead
on the floor of the kitchen, with her head resting on a
piece of carpeting, one foot without a shoe, and a coil of
rope lying by her. The body presented no sign of
violence. The house had been robbed, drawers and boxes
forced open, and a number of articles carried off. The
Coroner's inquest threw no light upon the affair. The
examination of the body discovered no injury, either
external or internal, to which death could be ascribed.
Some suspicious-looking persons were observed in the
neighbourhood of the house, but the police have been
unable to trace them. It was supposed that the woman
might have died from chloroform administered by the
housebreakers; but, as the body exhibited no signs of
the action of that drug, it seems more probable that she
died from the effect of sudden terror.
One of the diminutive African savages, called Bosjemans,
now exhibiting in the provinces, terrified the
people assembled to see them in the Town Hall at Devizes
on the 2nd of May, by a sudden outbreak of ferocity.
Taking offence at some imaginary affront, he discharged
an arrow at the head of the offender, which pierced his
hat. He then sprang among the company with a terrific
yell, and his companions were preparing to follow, when
the keepers rushed forward and secured them, amid the
screams of the women and a scene of general consternation.
They had once before made a similar exliibition
of fierceness.
Two Railway Accidents took place on the 6th. On
the Durham branch of the York, Newcastle, and
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