The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN DRAINAGE QUESTIDN. A MEETING of the Board of Works was held on Wednesday to consider the communication received from the First Commissioner of Works, in relation to the main drainage of the metropolis. Mr. Thwaites presided. The engineer of the board, in reply to Mr. Wright, made a statement to the effect that if the plan pro posed by Sir B. Hall's referees were adopted the sewage at certain periods would be deposited one mile and a half within the metropolitan area. Mr. CARPMAEL proposed that the report of the board submitted to the Commissioners of her Majesty's Works and Buildings; also the report of Messrs. Galton, Simpson, and Blackwell (to whom the report of the board was referred by Sir B. Hall), be referred to two eminent engineers and the engineer of the board, to report thereon at their earliest con venience. _ _ Major LYON seconded the motion. ' Mr. WRIGHT moved, and Mr. TURNER seconded, by way of amendment—That this board could not adopt the plan recommended by Sir B. Hall. In the course of the discussion which ensued, Mr. LOWMAN TAYLOR, in supporting the resolution of Mr. Carpmael, complained of the overbearing con duct of Sir B. Hall, and denominated that right hon. gentleman " a second Nana Sahib." He considered that Sir B. Hall was in a dilemma, and they should keep him there. Mr. D'IFFANGER Was sure that if they waited on Sir B. Hall, he would treat them with the courtesy which always distinguished his actions. Mr. LOWMAN TAYLOR : Quite the contrary. On a division there appeared—For the amendment, 20; against it, 8; majority for the amendment, 12. The amendment having been put as an original resolution, Mr. LESLIE proposed, by way of an amendment, that a premium should be offered by the board of 5001., open to the public, for the best plan for separating the rain water from the sewage. The CHAIRMAN decided that the amendment was not in order ; and Mr. Wright's proposition was put, and carried by a majority of 18 to 9. Oa the motion of Alderman CURITT, a resolution was passed, that the open sewers proposed by the plan of the referees are altogether inadmissible, and that the board would not be justified in carrying out a plan of which open s'twers form a part, but that the other points of the difference appear to be fair sub jects for discussion. A committee was appointed to draw up a com munication to Sir B. Hall based upon the preceding resolutions preparatory to a conference to be re quested with him on the subject. Mr. LOWMAN TAYLOR hoped that if the board placed itself in the ignominious position of going to " that man," they would be made to go upon their knees before him. Mr. BRISTOW said the committee would have nothing to do with Sir B. Hall; they would merely have to draw up a communication for transmission to him. After about five hours' discussion the board adjourned. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 17, 1857. Both the thigh, leg, and back bones have been sawn asunder, in order, doubtless, to pack them in a small compass in the vessel of brine, in which they have evi • dently remained from two to ►hree weeks. Among these bones were discovered four long light bruwn hairs of a woman. With these bones were packed a brown mixture single-breasted over-coat, a single-breasted back frock-coat, a black cloth double-breasted waist coat, black lining, strap and buckle behind; a pair of new rough Oxford mixture tweed trousers ; a pair of elastic long drawers, one metal and one bone button—a small piece of thread tied in one button hole, which appears to be the private mark of a laundress ; a calico shirt, linen front, with small plaits—enamelled or porcelain buttons ; part of a merino under-shirt with three linen-covered buttons ; the half of a black silk necktie; a piece of black silk with a blue hedge, as a point or contrast; and a pair of knitted socks. The remains have been inspected by hundreds of persons, but without any satisfactory result. The clothes, which have evidently once been good and of superior quality, are so torn, stained with blood, marked with earth and whitewash, and, above all, so shrunken and altered by long immersion in strong brine, as evidently to be totally changed from the appearance which they must have presented when clean and new and worn by the unfortunate deceased. Still they are far Irom being quite un recognisable, though at the first glance few would suppose it possible that they were the clothes of a well-dressed gentleman. A minute examination of the dress and the con dition in which it is at present seems, writes a contemporary with peculiar gusto, to show at least the manner in which the murder was committed There are marks of three stabs in the back, between the shoulders, three in the abdomen, and no less than seven exactly over the region of the heart. All these are clean cuts, showing that tney must have been inflicted with a double-edged knife, about the thickness of a crown piece in the centre—a poniard bladed weapon similar to those called Spanish knives. The waistcoat is not pierced, so that it must have been unbuttoned at the time the murder was com- witted. The trousers, also, must have been partly undone, as they are only punctured in one spot, though the shirt shows marks of three stabs having been inflicted. If any conclusion can be founded upon these appearances they would certainly lead to the belief that the deceased must have been first stabbed from behind, and that then a desperate struggle ensued, for the other wounds in the back and abdomen are wide apart, as if the assailant struck when and where he could. As the deceased became weaker and offered less resistance the finish ing wounds in the heart appear to have been given with ferocious rapidity. They almost all lie within the circle of a crown piece, and must therefore have been struck as rapidly as the hand could rise and fall. The back of the great-coat is marked with white, as if the murdered man had struggled hard with his back against a white or lightly papered wall. After the assassination had been effected it is sup posed that the body must have been left as it fell upon its face for twelve or twenty-lour hours, as the blood has completely saturated all the front parts of the dress. The coats, waistcoat, shirt, and trousers, also, are all split down the back in two halves, and the sleeves of the coat ripped open, which leads to the supposition that the body must have become perfectly rigid and in a contorted and unnatural position before any attempt was made to remove the dress. _ _ _ The only evidence of any consequence adduced at the coroner's inquest, which was adjourned till next week, was thatof Etherington, a toll-keeper on Water- 100-bridge. He states that about 11.30 p.m. on Thursday night— A woman came from the Middlesex side of the water, and paid the toll at the western tollgate. H e took the toll, and saw that she had with her a brown-paper parcel tied with cord ; it was long, bulky, and apparently heavy. She had also the carpet-bag which he identifies, and in which the remains were afterwards found, and which also seemed full and heavy. His attention was particularly directed to the woman in consequence of her turning the turnstile twice while endeavouring to get the carpet•bag through. He spoke to her about this, said that he would have to pay the money himself, and that she should have been more careful. The woman did not reply, but looked at him steadily while he lifted up the carpet-bag for her and placed it on the top of the turnstile. She then muttered something in a very gruff voice to the effect that he should have told her the right way to get through, took the carpet-bag and walked slowly away. As it was thought possible from the gruffness of the voice that it might have been a man in woman's clothes, Etherington has been questioned on this point, but is positive as to its being a woman, as he saw her face most distinctly, and further more that be remarked she was short even for a woman. The police who are engaged in endeavouring to penetrate the mystery which surrounds the whole case believe that a woman so unequal to carrying a heavy weight as the woman at the bridge evidently showed herself to be must either have been assisted by male accomplices or have driven to the neighbour- 1015 hood of the bridge in a cab. Against the former supposition is the fact that none of the police in the vicinity of Wellington-street t eve seen persons carry ing bundles such as described, though the carpet-bag could not have escaped attention and remark had it been so conveyed. On the other hand, the most minute inquiries have been set on foot among the cabmen throughout the metropolis, as to whether any one answering the description of the woman with a carpet-bag and bundle, or any one at all with a carpet-bag and brown-paper parcel, was set down in the neighbourhood of Waterloo-bridge on Thursday night. As yet these inquiries have elicited nothing, though it is still hoped that, as the details of the atrocity committed are widely spread, information on this point may be obtained. It would be tedious and useless to detail the innumerable doubts and suspicions and unfounded statements of missing persons which have appeared. Suffice it to say that up to a late hour yesterday nothing decisive had come to light. The police are pushing their inquiries with great vigour and with some hopes of success. THE EXCITEMENT IN BATH occasioned by the Leigh Woods murder had scarcely began to subside there, when a still more fearful tragedy occurred to spread consternation through the neighbourhool. The victims in this case are a man and his wife, named Andrew Border and Sarah Rebecca Border, the former of whom was a groom in the employ of P. B. Skrine, Esq., Warleigh-house, about four miles from Bath, the murderer being a man named Thomas Miller, a cowkeeper, in the service of the same gentleman, who also lies in a precarious state from wounds inflicted by himself. On Saturday evening Border and his wife, who resided in a cottage about one hundred yards away from the Millers, went to the latter for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was safe to leave Thomas Miller by himself or not. Immediately on their entering the cottage, Miller, who was sitting alone, rushed upon Border and stabbed him in the bowels with a large clasp•knife. He then turned upon Mrs. Border and aimed a blow at her as she was running screaming from the apartment, which cut through the side of her bonnet and inflicted a wound near the shoulder bone. When she reached the porch it is supposed she caught her foot in something, and falling with great violence against the stone border of the garden, fractured her skull so severely that she died shortly afterwards. The screams of the unfortunate woman brought the mother of the murderer down stairs, when she found Border alive on the floor, with a dreadful gash in his abdomen. She called several neighbours to her assistance, and a surgeon was sent for, but medical skill was of no avail, and, two hours after, the unhappy man expired. In the meantime Miller had been found in the garden, with several severe cuts in his throat and another in the abdomen. He was taken into the cottage and his wounds dressed, and hopes are entertained of his recovery. He is about twenty-eight years of age. Border was twenty-five, and a native of King's Staunton, Devon ; his wife was twenty-nine, and came from Poplar. The inquest on the bodies was held on Monday. A great deal of evidence, confirmatory of the facts already stated, and of the opinion that the prisoner was insane when he committed the fearful crimes with which he is charged, was then taken. THE LATE SIR CHARLES M. CLARKE, BART.—At the half-yearly meeting of the Society for Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men, held on Wednesday evening, present Mr. Walne, V.P., in the chair, Drs. Roe and Merriman, Messrs. Miles, Pro pert, Iliff, Self, and other zealous members, the strongest feeling of regret at the loss of their presi dent, Sir C. M. Cla►ke, Bart., was expressed in an appropriate resolution, couched in terms of grateful iegard and high estimation of his uniform urbanity and liberality. It is understood that in his will Sir Charles did not forget a society to which he was during life a most liberal benefactor. THE FATE OF THE AMERICAN STEAMSHIP " PA CIFIC."—The maritime prefect of Brest has trans mitted to the Minister Secretary of State for the Navy and the Colonies, a note written with a pencil in English, and which was inclosed in a glass bottle, found on the 14th September, 1857, on the strand of Melon, in the syndicate of Porspoder (department of the Finisterre). Great interest is attached to this note, which appears to have been written by a passenger on board the American steamer Pacific, supposed to be wholly lost, with all hands, in 1856; and we think it, therefore, our duty to publish its contents verbatim :—" Steamship Pacific, Eldridge, commander. Smith, passenger. Steam-ship Pacific run between two icebergs. All hands lost. On the Ist of April, 1856. Just going down, two p.m." The word April is written over a word effaced, for the author of the note had first commenced with a capital M,, as if about to writ(' March.—Monikur. THE SUSPECTED MURDER. BY this time the whole of England is aware that the pickled remains of a man were found in a carpet bag upon a buttress of Waterloo-bridge last Friday. We have literally nothing of consequence to add to the daily and voluminous statements which have appeared in the columns of morning contempora• ries. The police, without a clue, ,cannot he said to be at fault—they have not yet arrived at that stage ; but the offer of 300/. reward will probably stimulate some of our keenest detectives to scent the blood of this atrocious murder. From the evidence given at the coroner's inquest on Tuesday, it appears that the carpet-bag was found lying "on its side " last Friday morning, between five and six a.m., on a buttress of one of the arches of Waterloo-bridge, by one Barber and a boy named Kilsby. They were pulling up the river at the time ; a rope was attached to the bag, and the rope was towing in the water. Barber and river, Kilsby pulled to their barge higher up the put the bag in, and in the presence of the elder Kilsby, a lighterman, they opened the bag, and there found a number of bones tied up in the portions of a coat. The bag was immediately taken to Bow-street, and a carefulexamination of its contents made, with the following results :—The bones of the body of a man, with the exception of the head, hands and feet, portions of the ribs, the whole of the cervical, the lower side of the left clavicle, and the lower part of the left fibula. In fact, these are nothing more than a pile of bones, on which the muscles and large tendons hung in ragged tatters; all the flesh and skin, except a small portion of the breast and under one armpit, having been completely hacked away.