The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-02-02 00:00:00

SERIOUS STABBING CASE.

In London, at the Mansion House, Alfred Darcey,
18 years of age, underwent a final examination before
the Lord Mayor, charged with maliciously wounding
James Fletcher, with intent to do him grievous bodily
harm. The prosecutor, James Fletcher, it will be re-
membered, was the night hall-porter at The Times
office, and the prisoner had been a labourer employed
in the electric light department. The occurrence
took place on the night of Sanday, December
2nd, when, in consequence of the prisoner in-
suiting one of the overseers, the prosecutor was in-
structed to order him to leave the office, The pri-
Boner asked the prosecutor several times whether he
would allow him to go or send for his character, but the
complainant refused to allow him to do so, and said
that he had better call again the next morning. The
prisoner thereupon told him that he was no man, and
as he uttered these words the prosecutor felt himself
stabbed in the groin, and he received two other wounds
in the lett arm, and a fourth in the back, the prisoner
being alleged to have inflicted them with a steel
instrument called a "rimer," used for the machinery
In the engineers' shop in the department in which he
was employed. The prosecutor fell prostrate, and
was removed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, being
still under medical care. A police•constable named
Perrin, who was on duty in Printing-house-lane on
the night of the occurrence, proved finding a steel
"rimer " about ten yards from the door of The Times
office. Mr. Charles Arthur Morris, house surgeon at
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, deposed that the wounds
inflicted on Fletcher were small, punctured wounds,
half an inch deep, and were not of a dangerous
character. In consequence of the wounds and
the shock to the nervous system it was thought
advisable that the prosecutor should remain in the
hospital, which he accordingly did until December 18.
The prisoner, on being asked whether he had any
questions to put., said that he should like the doctor
to look where the prosecutor, as he asserted, struck
h,m with the instrument. The prosecutor denied that
he struck the prisoner, and the Lord Mayor said that
as the aoctor had not seen it he could not give any
evidence as to it. Henry Taylor, detective, deposed
to apprehending the prisoner at Birmingham on the
21st inst. In reply to the warrant prisoner replied
that he thought the prosecutor ought to be charged
and not himself; he (Fletcher) stabbed him first, and
he somehow took the instillment away from him and
used it. The Lord Mayor committed the prisoner,
who said he had nothing to say, for trial at the Central
Criminal Court upon two charges of wounding with
Intent to do grievous bodily harm, and unlawfully
wounding.

QUITE SO.—Annt Towzer is not at all surprised to
bear that there are them sapphires. "Why, they're
Brumma•gems on the very face of 'em" exclaimed the
dear old lady. "Who'd ever expeck truth in a Sap.
phira I"—Funny Folks.
GAMBLING AT MONTE CARrio.—The MCC Journal
continues to report further tragedies both at Nice and
Monte Carlo. In a recent is no it stated that a rich
stranger had blown out his brains at the 116 tel de
Paris, after having lost all his fortune at play. On
January 13th it records the case .of a commercial
clerk at Nice who, from a similar cause, put an end to
his life by shooting himself through the head. On the
same day a man committed suicide behind the Hotel
de Londres at Monte Carlo. In the night a successful
gamester was assassinated by poignard stabs in the
gardens of the Casino d 35 Sp4lugues. He had won
during the evening six or seven thousand francs at
roulette, and when the doors of the casino were about
to he closed he OA It Into his head to take a solitary
7.71.1 k.