The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-03 00:00:00

STOTTIRIIIDGE OBSERVItit

'position ; but In another instant the muzzles of her guns on
one side were pointed Sc the sky wed lief ins,,ts were almost
dipping into the raging waters. To stand ou the landing
pier was now impassible. The waves washed clean over it
and the spray drenched the hundreds of people who stood
on the second or promenade pier left. higher up. A
piercing shower of hail was deSCollliillg it the same time.
The word carried r r..,ts the pier laterally, and with such
force that those tato whose faces it was driven felt as a every
hailstone *ere a pellet.
The battle between the sea and the Ferret lay close at
, hand, but the whole of Dover Roads ant one scene of
struggle and excitement. Homeward and outward bound
steamers were being towel about 83 if made of cork
instead of iron, and the great turretahips, the Royal
Sovereign and the Scorpion, were only holding their
own by force of strain power. The smaller craft seemed to
be at the mercy of the sea, and of the Annie Sharp, tile
bark which went aground near Shakespeare's Cliff on Sunday
moruing, only the masts were visible above tvater.
The Ferret was still a ship up to 10 o'clock, though she
had over and over again been thrown with tremendous force
against the pier wall but at about lo o'clock her mainmast
smashed near the deck and went clean overboard with an
appalling crash, In a few minutes more about 20 feet of her
renmining mast were carried away, and portions of her huff
were slavered to atoms against the solid granite
with which it was every second coming into contact.
Uniting in under the lauding-stage, all that remained
of her seemed to be sinking, when the remnant
of the mast got fixed In a crane and extended for none
distance across the pier railway, just as a posit tiger
train was arriving at the sjiot. The crane, boo ever, 1.01.0
way, and carried all that was left of the too t with it with-
out doing damage to life or limb. This was the last struggle
of the Ferret. lier guns sank to the bottom, and her hull
was broken into fragments, most of which was not larger
than firewood. For tile next hour the waters all along the
Pier aid beach wore covered with spars and other por-
tions of the wench. Perhaps no shipwreck was ever ,
viewed by such manners of people, or under circumstances
more extraordinary. Not only was the upper pier covered
,utn men anti women, but men rtished out on the lower
ground near the Lord Warden Hotel in their anxiety to see
and secure bits of the wreck, and were not only wetted to
the skim toil sometimes washed off their legs by the waves
which constantly dashed in. By this time two long trains
were drawn up on the pier. Ladies and gentlemen
mitered thern and viewed the scene from the windows
of the carriages, while Volunteers at various corps and in
numerous varieties of utliform mounted the roofs and stood
011 this vantage ground to witness the scene Not only were
the windows of the Lord Warden tilled with spectators, but
numbers stood behind its lofty parapet, anti for the time it
really seemed 89 if all thoughts of the Volunteer Review bad
; given place to the interest which the fate of the Ferret hail
excited in the minds of the people of Dover and the thou-
sands of strangers then in the town. Indeed it was believed
that no more would be heard of the great Volunteer geld
day of 1.069.

A SENSATIONAL INCIDENT 1
Another sensational incident, too terrible to be ever
forgotten by its witnesses, occurred soon after the car-
rying out of the call for "Assembly." As it was my
part to be a spectator from beginning to end, I will
describe it fully, in the hope that it may act as a warn-
ing to the foolish, writes the correspondent of the
Daily News :
After the sinking of the brig's hull, all kinds of debris
boiled up from the wreck, to be raphily washed lido a small
artificial bay formed by the South pier and the Admiralty
pier. The latter was now—that is to say about one o'clock
invaded by the public who seized upon the absence of the
Admiralty officials to occupy it as a "coign of vantage."
Volunteers were the most numerous, although aides-
de-camp bad ridden down to ask them to fall in
to be inspected. They found more pleasure, however,
in trying to secure bits of the wreck, and for an hour
there was much amusement in getting close to the edge
of the pier wall to match a relic as it floated by. The amuse-
nit tit was of a double character, first to the active participa-
tors in it, then to the people on the raper pier, who were
kept in perpetual laughter by seeing the sea drench them.
So far there was no danger. When the tide ebbed the debris
floated down to the artificial bay I have just mentioned,and re-
mained there, ring out with the wave m 4 returning with it.
the waves were no longer huge, but still strong The shore
around the bend was a quick sloping well of smooth
stones. The edge was lined with truant Volunteers and
others—in all, a couple of hundred Idlers. Several riflemen
were still fishing for mementoes of the wreck, and acting with
a heedleisness that was amazing. By anti bye it was the
recognised thing to dessand the slippery slope, snatch up a
prize, and run back closely pursued by the wave. Passing
thst way I watched these operations and noted the strange
forms of wreck —a piece of the niaiunmst, squares of grating,
splinters of small span, boxes, cushions, cane Beatings, oars,
books, beakers, strips of sail, and pannikins, all seething
in a perpetually trouble! MOM Folli young Volunteers
in light uniforms were taken off their legs in succession
by the waves, and narrowly escaped being sucked back
Into the sea. And each freak provoked fresh laughter.
To others the danger was so apparent that a gentleman
near me said to a London policeman, "if you stay
here LAI minutes you'll see a man drowned !" Simul-
taneously a middle-aged Volunteer, felt his way down the
slope ; was, like the rest, thrown down was, unlike the
rest, unable to recover himself. Ile Blipped anti slipped
until he was immersed to his armpits, with a larger wave
than usual lifting the debrir behind. It came full upon him,
and bore him up to Ids starting place, only to carry loin hack
again, once, twiee, thrice. The spo tators were horn or stricken.
A couple of Sallolll and some volunteers rushed as near as they
dui st ; one threw out a plank, another bade him grasp a
boat-hook, another ventured into the water knee-deep to
clutch him. Each time, however, he slipped from the friendly
aid, each time was carried further out amongst the timber
fragments. After several desperate attempts to clam-
ber up the slope theeman began to show signs of
exhaustion, and the horror of the people ashore was
increased at perceiving a rougher series of waves. The man
sunk, came up with a gashed face, threw his hands implor-
ingly to the nieu ti-yin gto save bins, anti sunk again; reap-
located covered with blo eat A sailor, finding all other means
futile, dashed in and seized the volunteer, who gripped
him with what everybody halt to he the fatal grip or despair.
Both were carried off by the next wave, but soon thrown
in within a yard of the group who were exerting them-
selves to the utmost to reach them. The iailor caught a
boat-hook, anti four willing men kept it firm, but to i.o pur-
pose. It slid inch by inch to the end, Rini the two men went
back once more to be buffeted by the waves and wood. The
next wave washed the sailor ashore, and on its return
took with it the volunteer His face and crey head
were gashed and lonised, Isis strength had gone,
and he evidently gave lip in tic,pair. Once again
he sunk, nitric the terrified sp,,,,tators shrieked "Gone,"
" Drowite I." Strong men covet ul the ir faces and wept, anti
several women fainted. Then the grey uniform was seen
furs moment as the poor fellow curved has back to go down
head foremost, and at a short interval his hand was thrust
teddy out Meanwhile Mid poles were used in vain A
young volunteer boldly dashed in at a bound, and caught the
drowningnuin round the waist. floral least ten minutes the old
battle with death was reliewed, and it was terminated by the
young volu, teer's magnificent pluck. Once with a rope in
his hand hie never ',hexed his hold. The painfully-exciting
scene was terminabd by both fliers being dragged home
safe, but bloody and insensible. The gallant rescue
was loudly cheered, but the cheers changed to lamen-
tations when the two men were laid sole by side,
apparently dead, on the pavement. Some Loudon police
who were passing tie:Mentally kept oft the crowd, the sea-
faring men rigged up a shutter, and the c time of all the
anxiety was carried off to the S..ilora' Home. His pre-
server recovered sufficiently to walk to the same place
I followed the crowd, and watched the process of
restoration. A butcher who ran in with his steelyard
to his apron, two sailors, and an artisan quickly stripped
them, and promptly applied the simple restoratives reconi-
mended by the Royal Humane Society. No trained nurses
could have chafed more tenderly, talked more cheer-
ingly, or moved about more gently, than did these humble
attendants. I ani happy to mid that, before I left the Sailors'
Home I saw both Moll in a fair way towards ree,v,,ry
The volunteer snatched from the brink of the grave be-
longs to the at h Westminster ; the made comrade who saved
him is Sir. West, of the lath SI iddlesex, who deserves a So-
ciety's medal if any one ever did. The other persons to
whom the niember of the 405 Westminster c wps is indebted
for resuscitating him are Joseph Burton, carpenter Wm.
Clark, butcher; James Woodgate, sailor; and James Wood.
gate, an able seaman on board the St. George.

Were found in places which hail been thorringhly searched
before, aud the ghastly discolaries coutieued to he made for
weeks. The doctors considered that the !amidrts were those
et a young female between 10 and 26, and the most diligent
inquiries were made as to whether such a female was
missing Numbers of lost girls were asked alter IT anxious
iii q i..s at a distance, but none of the it:quirks
lb.'" any light on the•e remains, aid they were at last
buried by the officials. Even the theory that a murder hail
been comniitted got to have some doubt thrown upon it,
although the doctors knew that a body cut up for ills:he:ion
was never cut as clunislly as this one was, and the police
knew that deodorising and washing was the work of a min.-
derer, not of a medical student bent on • lark, nor of a
resurrectionist disappoieted in the di:posal of his prey,
and getting rid of it by this quaint and startling method.
Both the :lectors and the police retained their conviction that
a murder had been committed, but the a ictors thought that it
was a young woman, certainly uudertwenty-six, who had been
the victim and the police let the whole seusation pass into
oblivion with only one certainty as the result of all their in-
quiries; that certainty they declared to be that the body
woos toreign Importation, and not that of any person who
had been residing in Norwich up to the time of her murder
or her decease.
Vi hen the curtain fell upon this mystery— the second
act of the tragedy—it remained down for eighteen years,
and the old spectators had forgotten the scenes. On Saturday,
the second of January, in this year, it rose again ; and Longiou
Was a little startled by hearing that a man named William
Sheward had gone in a state of frightful depression to the
walworth Police-station on the night of New Year's Day, and
hail charged himself with the murder of his wife, at Norwich,
on the 15th of June, 1:,51. lie told the policeman in charge
that he had suffered so long and so horribly from the oppres-
sion of his dreadful secret, that be hail at last left home
with the resolve to throw away his life Ile had gone up and
down the river on two successive days with the intention
of throwing himself from the steamboat, but that his
courage had failed him, and at length, wan:bring into
the street where he hail first met the wife who after-
wards became his victim, the recollections of her as over-
came him that he was sure he had Men kept from suicide
by the hand of Providence, and hail now come to give
himself up to justice. "They would know all about it
at Norwich," he said. The body had been cut up, and
pieces had been found in various places round the town,
and the pieces were preserved in spirits by the autho-
rities there, on the next day he appeared in the Lambeth
Police-csurt and confirmed the confession of the previous
night. A telegram to Norwich revealed the fact that they
did know all about It there : but ShewariPs wife was an old
woman, and the body found was that of a young woman
and it seemed probable that after all Sheward's self-accusa-
tion was only the persecution of a morbid fancy, which had
dwelt on the details of the horrible seem till it had linked
his own personality and that of Ids lost wife into ; and re-
curring to his diseased imagiu ation year by year, at periods
of nervous weakness avid depression, had, at last. driven
hint mad. Ile was, however, remanded to Norwich, ex-
amined there, and then committed for trial to the Assizes
which have just been held.
The third scene of the tragedy closed on Sheward, before
the Norwich magistrates, withatae ine his CollfeESioll and
pleading not guilty to the charge he had made against Into-
self. The fourth scene opened at Norwich on Monday, with
Sheward on trial for his life. Ile still edhered to his plea of
not guilty, but his confession had revealed no new fact—it
had idniply led to the discernment of a hidden, but now self-
evident, connection between facts which had never been put
in juxtapoaition before, but which, when once seen together,
so evidently fitted to each other that no chain of circuit,
stautial evidence could possibly its more complete than
that which this unhappy man had wound around himself.
The finger of sespicion once pointed to him at once showed
a whole niultitude of the most damning facts pointing their
fatal lingers in the same direction. It was the key which
at once unlocked a double mystery. Two facts were keown
—that Mrs. Sheward had myateriously disappeared, 810 that
these horrible remains had been mysteriously found they
had but to be put together, and they were seen at once to
explain each other. Only two discrepancies and apparent
irreconcilal rill ties remained. The police had concluded that
the one thing certain was that the rem ins were not
those of a Norwich female; the doctors had guessed
them to be those of a young female Mrs Stu:ward was a
Norwich wont. and was old. But old al: she was, she was
singularly sprightly and ladylike; and the very fact of her
disappearance proved the pgilice theory to be wrong, while
the guess of the doctors was only a guess, and was good for
nothing. The whole history of her disappearance, of
Showard's after conduct, and of the discovery of these
reniains just when that disappearance was fresh, irresistibly
confirm Sheward's confesaion The Norwich jury had no
very difficult task After hearing the whole evidence,
they pronounced him Guilty, and no one who has read the
reports can doubt the justice of the verdict. Thus, after the
wonderfully near escape or discovery, when the Norwich
police 011 the one hand and Mrs. Stieward s friends on the
other seem to have been no marvellously blind after
eighteen years of balm° by the burning sscret he carried in
his bosom, this unhappy murderer has but proved another
Illustration of the old proverb which teaches us that justice,
battled for a time, daunt' its victim at length, and that
" murder will out."

The closing scene of the trial on Tuesday, is thus
given by the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph :
Erom the moment that Sir. Metcalfe rose to reply for the
defence it was clear that he was fighting a lost battle. Hap-
pily for him his back was turned to the prisoner, or else he
could hardly have preserved his perfect self-possession, if he
had been exposed to the glare of that intent, fixed gaze
which was bent upon him enceasinely from the commence-
ment to the close of his address. There was very little that
he could say ; but that little he said clearly and pleasantly.
lie dwelt upon the improbability of the prisoner's having been
able to commit the crime of which he stood self-accused
without attracting the attention of the neighbours.
lie explained away his confession by a theory, that the
prisoner might have been drinking about Christmas time,
and might have recovered his senses HA noon as he was pre-
cluded from resorting to intoxicating liquors by his confine-
ment in gaol. He suggested that the bones found near
Norwich might have been portions of a body dissected by
medical students he laid great stress upon the fact, that
though bheward haul quitted his house soon after the alleged
murder, no trace of blood was known to have been dis-
covered upon the walls or floors, and yet a woman's throat
could not have been cut and her body tarred into pieces
without blood stains being left ; he made a point of the fact
that the day of the murder happened to be a Sunday,
and urged that the streets would be unusually full of
people coming to and front church ; and he made the
most of the incidental discrepancies iii the evidence of the
witnesses for the prosecution. But of positive argument he
haul hardly anything to adduce. His assertion that the
medical met, hail first of all assigned twenty-sin as the pro-
bable age of the murdered woman, wsa contradicted by the
fact that two of these same doctors swore now that there
was nothing in the appearance of the body, or rather the
portions of the bouly, incoesistent with their having belonged
to a young-looking woman of 110'. Indeed, considering
how many of the persons connected with the original dis-
covery of the remains are slow dead, it is a curious coinei-
deuce that two of the three doctors who inspected the bones
should be still alive. Had Dr. Dalrymple and Dr. Nichols
not fires forthcoming to rxplain their declared °Mafia
&lout the presumable age I,f the murdered woman, it I,llmm
than doub,ful whether a conviction could have been obtained,
Again, Mr. Metcalfe started an ingenious hpothesis, that
the delay in entering on a legal marriage w iih the cowl
Mrs Sheward was due to a belief in Sheward's !Mud that his
that wife still lived. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, the
prisoner had st4ed that his wife might have been marrieul
long ago, if she had been so minded. The Vain truth is
that Mr. Metcalfe was bound to say something, and had
really nothing to say. All his ii priori arguments as to the
it probability of such a crime having been perpetrated
without detection broke down in presence of the established
facts that the crime hail been committed, and the pri-
soner haul acknowledged himself to be its guilty author.
Moreover, as soon as it was evident that Mr. Met-
calfe intended to call no witnesses, it was evitient
also that his client's case was well-nigh hopeless.
The theory on which the whole cross-examination bad been
based was, that Sirs. Sheward had left her hush del to go
and live with some other man, and that he was eognii -nit 01
the fact. Now, it was absolutely incredible that, during the
eighteen years which Mid elap:ed, the woman, if she had
quitted Norwich alive, should have left no trace or mark of
her existence. Sheward was well acquainted with her !List
history. He knew her friends and her haunts ill London ;
and yet, having had three months in which to warch for wit-
nesses, he could not bring forward one single person who bad
ever seen or heard of his silo from the day when, aeon ding
to his own statement, she said good-bye to him at the railway
station