The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-11-26 00:00:00

SHOCKING DISCOVERY IN LIVERPOOL

f4VIIN

TRNIONB

AUITOC £1

A most shocking .7sacurren—ce.7;ol7p-Irore.oo Thursday
night or early on Friday morning, in a house in a
court off Clive-street. Toxteth Park; a whole faintly,
consisting of a mother and six children, having been
orothered during their sleep, apparently by the fumes
of a coke fire. The room of the tenement in which
thin shocking occurrence took place is a small apart-
ment sufficiently loge only to admit of all the victims
lying side by side upon the floor in which position
they were found on the bare board, some of the bodies
being utterly naked, and others having only portions
of the scanty clothes which they wore during the day
upon them. The bodies almost covered the whole
area of the floor, each body being in contact with
another, and each of the full grown victims extending
very nearly the whole width of the apartment, which is
only fie feet in breadth. The room is about 12 feet in
length, and about 9 It. in height. It has no fire-plea.,
hut there is • fair-sized window, eight panes in height,
by three panes in width. The window WAS closed.
There was no fire-place in the room, but an old gel nudged
pail, in which some coke was found burning, had been
placed in one corner of the apartment. upon an iron
fender, placed there apparently to prevent the floor
from taldng fire. Immediately below the room, and
of the same size, a place like a covered area or
sknllery, which might serve its a back kitchen, and
into which there was an entrance from the court.
From this room • stairs, scarcely wide enough for a
stout person to pots, led up to the bedroom in which
the bodies were found. There was no door at the
head of the stairs, so that there was • free pamage of
air from the under apartment to the other, Into which
air waa freely admitted by a grating over the door.
The family were last seen about 11 on Thursday
night, and shortly before noon yesterday the discovery
of the tragedy was mole. The eldest of the children,
a lad, not having gone to work, a woman entered the
place, and finding the people dead, reported it to the
police. The mother's name Cameron, widow of •
ship carpenter. She was about 41 years of age. The
children are -Elizabeth, 9 years; Mary, ; Duncan,
13; Flora Anne, 14; Angus, 18; and John 15.
They lay calm as if no great struggle had taken
place in death. The two ounmet children were
naked ; the mother wore the clothes she had on during
the day ori the boys were partly undressed, having
but their shirts and trousers on. A little cramping
was apparent in some of the lower limbs of the
victims, but, generally speaking, they ley calm, look-
ing as if asleep, some on their sides and some on their
backs, They all lay with their heads to the wall,
except one of the little girls, who lay crossways_, with
her Nos downwar4e, an.l resting upon one of the other
bodies. The corpam present no repulsive aPra
the deceased being, without exception, rathertng:d
looking, most of them of dark complexion. With the
exc.,ptiou of one little girl, who seemed to have been
somewhat ailing, the bodies all appear to have been
well nourished. The suggestiveness of the sad comm.
rence nevertheless made the spectacle a painful one,
particularly when it wee remembered that the poor
people had retired to rest in such an utterly barbarous
and miserable condition on • cold winto's night, in
the midst of a crowded community. There waa no
appearance of bed or bedding, or bed clothing, or even
straw to de upon in the room. In addition to the
fender and the pail containing the coke, the fumes of
which had smothered the people, according to the
opinion of Dr. Brady, of the South Dispensary, who
waa called in by Inspector Logan, there was also •
paraffin oil lamp on the fender. Both the coke and
the lamp are said to have been burning when the
discovery of the suffocation took place. A. portion of
a dip candle was stuck up against the wall. Betides
these things the only other thing, in the room
were in two corners of the apartment—some bed
docks covered with dust and, aa it seems, long disused.
The house, of which thia room and the scullery beneath
it, and a smell cellar kitchen on slower level than that,
form part, is itself a small and shabby-looking tene-
ment two stories in height, fronting into Clive-street,
and numbered 45. The apartments we have indicated
are detached from the other part of the house, which
is occupied by a labourer named John Sheridan and
his family- Though the sleeping-place of the
unfortunate victims wall 'nal II miserable One, the
cellar kitchen was not so bad. It contained, besides
some articles of furniture and a few cooking utensils,
several plain
fair
on the Them was in the
cupboard a fair store of bread and butter, and the
remnant of • &eh of porridge. The kitchen was
• small apartment, about 64 feet high. These two ,
apartments', with the scullery, in which was • water-
tap and a closet, were all that the Cameron' occupied.
The man Sheridan states that during the night he
heard some nebs as of moaning in the bedroor of the
Dungeons, but believing it to be only the cries
of some of the children in their sleep, he took
no heed of it. Mn. Cameron is said to have
been a widow for two years past. The ebbed
boy was employed in •4647 in the neighbourhood,
and the other boy was in • ocialyard in Hill.
street—Mr. Dastigan, of ark-road, who is the agent
for the property states that Mrs. Chenteroo occupied the
*os for *even weeks pest, and that he believed her
to be • respectable and hard-working woman. He
tuulsestood from her that she had but two children, and
be had no ides that so many persons slept in the bed-
room. On the other hand it appears that the deceased
woman had been several times changed by the School
Board with neglecting to send her children to school,
and one of them had been charged with begging. It
is also said that the woman wee of intemperate habits,
and that she had spent in drink • good deal of
the money she had onealn.d from a club on the death
of her husband, and that she was in receitp of ES
per month from some person in Scotland. Her mother
who is stated to live at 6 Dttobarton-place, Glasgow,
,beenh.
theetohhAtZLtufretjondedlOW.7ll,oikfia2..;
to
a woman named Catherine Mitchell, then
unlocked the outer door of the cellar, and
oom
Itioomadaftv:osw.4:Aheutatt:weeringeassfa:o:w%abadfwa.githuveeptakenoonervidaldtotlt°°curehtehe linbedzcce
olaoe ::::Ini by whonnsoeurtourshoandm.
Dr. Beady was summoned to the . The doctor
eral
the
arewiltis visit. The bodies remain in the room where
they were bound, the police being in of the
•
up to late bout lest algid. AR met will be lesid j
a Wag%

All cheques and PedroSae ardent are_psysbis to
Mn. Maur lima, 8, High Weigh-street, Dáishir
Printed and Published by Sow= K. W111C071% "
t" °llllll Wotet West, Iluoiseeter, in the
perish el Trinity, for tkr Profyi.".
Tosiday, Notuebir UM