The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-05-06 00:00:00

ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES.

DOUBLE MURDER IN FR ANCE.—A doable murder
was committed two days ago in the bagne of Toulon,
with a cool premeditation of no ordinary kind. A
soldier, named Huet, who had been condemned to
death in 1818 for attempting to kill one of his officers,
hut whose punishment had been commuted first to
hard labour for life, and afterwards to twenty years,
was suspected by two of his fellow prisoners of acting
as a spy of the police of the bagne, and they did not
conceal their suspicions from him. This roused Huet's
indignation, and he decided to revenge himself on
them. He accordingly armed himself with an ate,
used for chopping wood, and went in search of those
whom he called his traducers. He found one of them
fast asleep on ecamp bed, and with one blow on his
head terminated his existeisce, and the act being un-
perceived by any one, he went to look for the other.
He found him in his sleeping-room, but not in bed, and
in spite of his cries and vigorous resistance, infliAed
three such severe cuts on his head that no hopes are
entertained for his life. After having accomplished
this act of butchery, he quietly gave Isis weapon to the
guard, who hastened to the spot, saying he had no
further use for it. As the fez tationis forms one of the
articles of the code of bagne in cases of murder, every
snail killing another intentionally being put to death,
Huet will doubtless be brought to the scaffold in a few
days.—Galigneni.
CAUGHT IN A TRAP.—The quiet town of Mansle
(Charente) was enlivened by a rather comic incident
two days ago. About Sin the morning an adventurous
thief slipped unperceived into the house of H.
Barraud, a bailiff, and got up to the garret. On enter-
ing a room be found a quantity of linen hung to dry,
and immediately packed up what best suited his pur-
pose. 11, thought it would be as well to put on one
of the clean shirts, and was in the act of doing so when
Madame Bat-rand opened the door of the room. On
seeing the thief she started beck, shut the door, and
lockectit. Being thus taken ins trap, the fellow seized
the linen and endeavoured to escape by the window.
The blinds of the window on the floor below happened
to be partially open. He set his foot on the top, and
was preparing to slip down between the blind end the
window, when his trousers caught in a hook, and lie
remained suspended. The window happened to be that
of the commissary of police, who, hearing the noise of
his unexpected visitor, jumped out of bed, and, to pre-
vent him from escaping while he dressed himself, tied
his legs fast to the blind. A crowd of people soon col-
lected to gaze at this strange sight, and among them
were some gendarines, whom the commissary ordered
to take charge of the prisoner. . .

The POIEZNING or CHILDREN.—The coroner's jury
who have been inquiring into the cause of death of the
fonr children sttpposed to have been poisoned by
arsenical paperliangings at Liinshouse have returned a
verdict of natural death. The coroner expressed his
entire dissent from this conclusion' which was received
with surprise by everybody present.
LAMENTABLE SUICIDE OF A YOUNG MARRIED LADY.
—On Wednesday forenoon information was forwarded
to Mr. Humphrey, the Middlesex coroner, of the
death by drowning, of Mrs. Clara Bateman, a recently
married lady reeiding at No. 58, Shrubland Grove,
Halaton, who committed suicide by throwing herself
into the waters of the Regent's Canal at an early hour
on Wednesday morning, under peculiarly distressing
circumstances. It appears that the unfortunate lahy
spent Tuesday evening at It party at a friends house in
company with her husband, Mr. Henry W. Batman,
managing clerk to a wealthy firm in the City. While
there she appeared to be in low spirits, but little
attention was paid to the circumstance, as it was attri-
buted to weak health, and no idea was entertained that
she meditated self-destruction. Upon proceeding home
shortly after midnight, with her husband and a friend,
she, apparently from • wish to be alone, separated her-
self from them, and after a little time quickened her
pace and walked briskly down the Queen's Road,
Daliton, at the bottom of which rune the Regent's
Canal. Almost immediately afterwards Mt. Bateman
and his friend were alarriiel to hear piercing screams,
and upon rushing to the bank of the canal they were
horrified to see the unhappy lady struggling in the
middle of it. They immediately raised an alarm, but
before assistance could be procured Mrs. Bateinan sank,
and an hour elapsed before the body was recovered,
when it was, of course, quite dead. Mr. Bateman, who
was almost distracted at the sudden calamity, was
totally unable to account for the rash act, as the un-
fortunate deceased had never given the least intik tion
of a disposition to commit suicide.
. . .

A fire more destructive than has occurred in the
town daring the last forty years, broke out on Wed;
needs, morning in Devizes, by which three houses,
occupied by respectable tradesmen, have hism totally
destroyed, and a fourth rendered uninhabitable.
The origin of the fire was not known, and it appears
that a considerable portion of the property destroyed is
uncovered by insurance.
The arrival of the Shannon from St. Thomas has
confirmed the rumour of the great fire at King•ton,
Jamaica, reported some time since. A large portion of
the business part of the city hns been reduced to ashes,
the loss being estimated at £200,000, only a email
amount of which was insured. The fire seems to have
been kindled by incendiary hands, for it is said that
since its occurrence attempts have been discovered to
fire the city on three different occasions. Trade is said
to be mach depressed.
Gardener, the murderer of the unfortunate girl Sarah
Kirby, at Oulliill Farm, near Henly-in-Arden, has
been committed to the Warwick assizes for trial. The
inquest was held on the body ef the poet woman
on the evening of Friday, and while the inquiry
was proceeding4great excitement was manifested by the
populace.
EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT TO A CHILD WITHOUT ILL
EFFECTS. —M. Josat gives an account of the miraculous
escape of p child from the consequence of a frightful ac-
cident. This infant, aged twenty-nine Monthe, pleying
at a window of house, No. 30, Roads la Pais, Paris,
lost its balance and fell out from • height of five stories,
striking& hat from the hand of a hatter, who was carrying
it home. He lifted the child gently from the pavement
and carried it into the house, when after a few minutes
the infant heaved a sigh, and then uttered a small
doleful cry. All the functions were gradually re-
eat Wished, and it was found that there was neit,ler
I fracture nor dislocation. A week after the child *as
found playing and Merty, as well as ever, the only traces
of any accident being three broken incisors of the upper
jaw, and much echyanosis of the eyelide.—Medical
Times and Gazette.

TRAGICAL OCCURRILTICZ AT WoncEsren.—There is
every reason to believe that a dreadful murder has been
perpetrated in the vicinity of the city of Worcester. A
young man, named Timothy Grundy. aged about 27,
the son of a blacksmith, living in the Tything, has lately
been released from the County Lunatio Asylum, as cured
of his insanity and as of sound mind. His conduct,
however, since has been somewhat eccentric, and on
Tuesday, from threats which he held out of committing
suicide, he was taken into custody, when a phial of
laudanum was found in his possession. He was taken
before the magistrates, who liberated him on condition
of his appearing again before them next day. It seems
that on Tuesday evening, he and a young woman named
Emily Jones, living in Spa Place, with whom be had
kept company for some time, were seen walking in the
vicinity of the Shrub Hill Railway Station, and during
the evening, between six and ten o'clock, they remained
at the Gun public-house, New Town. While there they
seemed to have had a slight quarrel, and the woman ex-
pressed her intention of going home, when he induced
her to stay a little longer, and they ultimately left
, together about a quarter past ten. About one o'clock
they entered the hut of a night watchman, near the
railway bridge at New Town, where a viaduct is in
course of construction, and there they rem-tined till
four in the morning, They then took their departure
as if for a walk across the fields in the direction of
Perry Wood, and nothing further transpired till Grundy
returned home about nine o'clock on Wednesday morn-
ing. His boots and stockings were wet, and Its then
deliberately stated that he bad murdered the girL In
consequence of this he was again taken into custody,
and WAS ordered by the stipendiary magistrates to be
detained for inquiry to be made. The girl did not
return, and her friends began to fear that some ill had
befallen her. Search was made in the fields, and about
eleven o'clock her body was discovered in a pond near
Perry Wood. She was quite dead, and there were
marks of blows on her left temple. The body was re-
moved to the Gun Inn. The affair has created a great
amount of sensation, and numbers of people visited the
pond during the day.
_ FALL OF A RAILWAY BRIDGE AT HARROGATE.—OR
_ _

Tuesday afternoon a large stone bridge on the new line
of railway now in the course of construction through
Harrogate by the North-Eastern Railway Company,
fell with a fearful crash and without • moment's
warning, causing most serious, if not fatal, injurica to
workmen engaged apon and beneath it. The contractor
for the new line is Mr. M'Cormiok, M. P. At tits moment
of the accident a dozen or fifteen men were working
tinder the arch and iteverel were employed on the top

of it. These beneath, warned by the falling of pieces
of brick, rushed out in time to save their liver, though
most of them had hairbreadth escapes, and some were
severely cut and bruised by the falling stones and bricks.
Those upon the bridge, who were unable to leap from
the fallug mass to terra firma, were sadly injured—one
or two, it was at first believed, fatally. One man who fell
with the arch was shockingly cut about the head, as
well as severely crushed by the debris which fell upon
him ; another sustained a number of scalp wounds and
lacerations, another's wrist was dislocated, others were
injured about the arms and legs, 'and one had a very
narrow escape. He was working several yards in the
arch, when be saw a piece of mortar fill, and made a
desperate leap for the outside. It was a leap for life,
and be won it; for as he sprang into the open air an
immense block of stone, sufficient to have crushed him
to a mass, fell, grazing Lis shoulder and arim—Eastern
Counties Herald.