The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-08-01 00:00:00

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taken back to the County Gaol at Plebeian, in a dy.
At noon the visiting justices held • meeting at the ge4
and the ordinary prison regulations relating to mew
demned prisoners were ordered to be carried me
stewards had an interview with the oonderanederie
and asked her several questions ordered by the roles
the prison to be put to persons under 4.411•048 Of ds
her answers being entered in a jewel kept fee=
purpose. Soon afterwards the prisoner's father.
brother, and sister had an interview with her, which
lasted about a quarter of an hour, and was 01l a mid
painful and affecting nature. All the parties were prow
trated with grief except the prisoner herself, who lee
up with the greatest fortitude. In the wane of the
afternoon the Rev. A. 1). Wagner and Mies Grooms
held separate interviews with her at the gaol, and a.
appeared very much pleased with the AMU, mem
especially with that of the Lady Superior. The reeve
in which she is confined is • very menfortabh one, awl
since her condemnation she appears exesecitty air
posed and resigned. She spent Friday a very
tranquilly, and slept remarkably well—in fact she kid
the governor of the gaol that she had never slept so wen
for the last five years. She says that now she has gives
herself up to justice she he performed bar duty, lad
that she deserves all the punishment that ean be in-
flicted upon her. We are officially informed that Ilse
unfortunate girl has written a detailed confusion of bet
guilt, but, of course, its exact nature eannot be ash:
public. It is mmqured, but we cannot touch for the
truth of the statement, that it exonerates eery sesedre
of the family from all participation or knowledge of the
crime' and adds that her confession was parlay
voluntary, and not the result of any form of coercion filt
persuasion. She he not been visited sines Friday, PIN
will any person be allowed to visit her atoss• the
members of her own family, and they only by as order
from the justices. Mach commiseration is exegete Per
her, and a strong belief prevails that the iginteme or th•
law will not be carried into effect.
LZITIR FROM INItPEOTOR WHICH=
The following letter, written by Mr. Whieher, the
detective officer, in November, 1860, to Mr. Haladtalit.
chief superintendent of the Bristol police, and formerly
an officer in the Metropolitan police, has bee se
thoroughly corroborated by recent events, that in jastles
to Mr. Whicher it should be published
"Bon Moroi&
"FRIEND JOHN,—I have been on several oecedsee
about addressing a few lines to you relative to the ahem
ease, as I have not had the pleasure of seeing you slam
the discharge of Miss Constance, for whose arrest I hid
such severe outietion from all quarters. Although I
admit that there was not sufficient evidence for her
further detention. still I believe that had there beau
counsel for the prosecution to have opened the ease sad
examined the witnesses properly, it would have asenmed
a somewhat different shape in public opinion. The
witness, Miss Moody, did not give the evidence la
reference to animus which I was given to understaal
she weld have done. Then as regards the nightdress
taken from the clothes' basket two days after the
murder, it was no part of my theory that that was the
one worn on the night of the murder, but the one pat
on afterwards and slept in for the remainder of the
night, and found in the morning by Superintendent*
Foley and Mr. Tenons, the surgeon. The latter 4.-
scribed it as being very clean, and says he drew Mr.
Foley's attention to the fee but it appears that he did
not take the hint, viz., that it had been changed dming
the nigbt. This was the dress abetzacted from the
clothes' basket, and which wu entered in the
book of the laundress, not with the view, as
supposed, of destroying it, but of taking it trek inks
use so as to have two in possession' and to make the
laundress blameable for the loss of the one that WY
deficient. Now, after all that Mei been mein referees
to this case, and the different theories that have bee
advanced, there is, in my humble opinion, but an.
solution to it, and if you had made the personal investi-
gations I did, I am certain you would have oonie to the
game conclusion. But possibly you like others, have
heard and adopted theories which I consider are us-
tenable, especially as regards the theory of Mr. Bent
and the nurse being concerned in the murder simply
upon the vague suspicion that he might have been in
her room, kc. Now, in my opinion, if there ever was
one man More to be pitied, or who has been mole
calumniated than another, that unfortunate man is Mr.
Kent. It was bad enough to have his darling shild
cruelly murdered, but to be branded as the murderer is
far worse, and according to the preset state of public
opinion he will be so branded to the day of his death
unless a corrosion is made by the person whom I firmly
believe committed the deed. I have little doubt bet
that that clonfeesion would have been made if Miss
Constance had been remanded for another week. Now,
my opinion is, in the first place, that the fact of there
being two families, or rather a step-mother and •
family by that step-mother, was the primary ease
of the murder, and that the motive was jealousy
towards the children by the second marriage. The
deceased was the favourite child, and spite towards the
parents—the mother in particular—l believe to have
been the acting motive of Constance Kent. The reasons
for my suspicions are as follow :--klies Constanoe pow
Kisses an extraordinary mind, which I think is proved
by what she and her brother did on a former amazes.
Tbe two medical men mixed up in the cue believe tot
to be a monomaniac. Now, nothing happens to the
child whilst she was at school, but on the fourteenth
night after her arrival in the house the child is ner.
dared, and by some one in the house. Now, who wee
there in the house likely to entertain any I:sid feeding
towards the deceased but the person in question?
whoever did the deed no doubt did it in tjleirt!
dress. When Constance Kent went to bed that night
she had three night-dresses belonging to ber in
house. After the murder she had but two. Whet,
then, became of the third? It was not lost at the wash
as it was so craftily endeavoured to make it appear, bet
was got rid of in some other way. Where is it, then,
and what became of it? I do not think that the knife
was intended to have been used in the find instance,
but that the plan was to have thrown the poor Mild
down the privy, believing that he would have trunk labo
the soil out of sight. The window was probably opened
previously to the murder, intending to make it appear
that the child was stolen, and when it was found that
the child would not pass down the privy the knife was
used with a view to making death certain. This is in
theory, and if a more reasonable one asn be adduced, I
will most willingly bow to it, but until then I canoe
alter it, although I am aware it is not the prevailing
one. • • " I want to draw your parteinlar et-
tention' to • most important fee which eased out the
other day at Mr. Saunders's inquiry, which was stifled
by the police concerned, or at least they attempted t 4
do so by pooh-poohing it. It now appears that on the
day of the 'murder, on searching the house, the pollee
found • blood-stained night-shift in the boiler-bole It
the back-kitchen. Now, up to the time of Mrs
Saunders's inquiry, this all-important fact had beet
kept a perfect secret, and it would not have come net
than had it not been for • Sergeant Watts, of Mg
Somerset constabulary, letting it out in some way, and
he does not appear to have been compromised in the
losing of it. The matter wan passed over very lightly
by Foley and Dallimore (of the Wiltshire polite), who
told Mr. Saunders that they did not take the trouble
to find out to whom it belonged, as they bad
shown it to a surgeon, Mr. Stapleton, who said
the stains were from natural causes and that
they put it back in the boiler-hole again, and
that was all they knew about it. As regards their
having shown this dress to Mr. Stapleton, it turns out
to be an untruth, she the one they showed him was the
one belonging to the elder Miss Kent, which was found
in her bedroom. Mr. Stapleton says they never showed
him the one found in the boiler-hole, nor did they ever
name the circumstance to me or any of the magistrates.
The real truth of the matter in, I have no doubt, that
by some carelessness they lost possession of it, either by
putting it out of their hinds, and Constance
possession of it again, or they put it back In thettg
getting
hole to try to catch the owner mining to take it away,
and it having been got away without their knowledge,
compact of secrecy was entered into in reference to it,
which was well kept, for, as I said before, not one word
was said to moor the mairistratee, or, in fact, to my
one about the finding of this dress or shift, and it would
not have come out now if it had not been for Served
Watts, who found it, but who was not comprombed Is
the losing of it. Whose it was must now, through this
bungling, like the other parts of the case. remain •
mystery. The magistrates, one of whom haa beam up to
see me about it, are making an investigation into the
matter, and I am told that on finding the statement that
the dress or shift was shown to Mr. Stapleton was denied
by him, the police said it had been found to belong to •
cook, but on inquiry this also turns eat to be ultra&
Now, just imagine a blood-stained garment being found
in a house where a murder had just been unmated by
five p.m. on the same day, supposing tb.aeoountfirsl
given to be true, to Rut it back into the hitliagidace
without further inquiry would hardly be believed. I
have, however, little doubt that it was let slip in the
way that I have described, and the would account for
what I never could get an explanation of, via, why the
en were secreted in the kitchen the same night. Mr.
Foley never mild explain it to as, but Mr. Ku* said
in his evidence that Foley told him that it was tease If
anyone got up to destroy anything; bets they did not
tell him what they had found.
Yours truly, J. WHICIIILL
Mr. Supt. Handoek.
The Tete says :—" It may be that natimme, con-
cealed under that calm demeanour which has
desonhed by who h A
drove Constance Kent
bee

have