The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-03-12 00:00:00

DEATH OF WARD BREMER.

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher died at half-past
nine o'clock on Tuesday morning.
A telegram published on Monday that the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, the brother of Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, so long known in Europe, as well as
in America, as a popular preacher, had been taken
and subsequently stricken with apoplexy, was fol-
lowed by further intelligence that his left side was
completely paralysed, and that he was rapidly sink-
ing. The public have therefore been prepared for
the message of death, which will be a cause of
mourning to large numbers of friends and admirers,
his third visit to Europe in the past year having
revived much of the personal regal d for him which
had been so strongly evidenced in the year 18133.
Mr. Beecher was the fourth son of Lyman Beecher
and Rosana Foote Beecher, and brother of Mrs.
Beecher Stowe. He was born at Litchfield, Con-
necticut, June 24, 1813. He studied in public Latin
Schools at Boston, graduated at Amherst College,
Mass., 1834, and studied theology under his father at
the Lane Seminary, near Cincinnatti, Ohio. He first
settled a! a Presbyterian minister at Laurenceburg,
Indiana, in 1837, removed in 18-39 to Indianapolis,
and becaine pastor of the Plymouth Congregational
Church at Brooklyn, New York, in 1847. His church
edifice has seating capacity for nearly 3000 persons,
and his church has a membership of over 2000.
During hi; whole career, says "Men of the Time,"
he mingled to a greater extent than almost any
other preacher and pastor of his denomination
in 'matters not directly professional, For nearly
a year, during his theological course, he
edited the Cincinnatti Journal, a religious
weekly. In Indiana he was editor of the Farmer and
Gardener. In Brooklyn he was soon known as an
earnest opponent of slavery, and an advocate of tem-
perance, peace, and other reforms, and very early be-
came prominent as a platform orator and lecturer.
He has always been a strong Republican, has preached
a number of political sermons from his pulpit, and
has addressed &number of political meetings. From
the date of the establishment of the Independent news-
paper in 1858, he was a constant contributor to its
columns, and from 1861 to 1863 its chief editor. In
1870 he became the editor-in-chief of the Christian
Union, a weekly religious paper, a position he re-
tained for about 10 years, when he resigned it to Mr.
Lyman Abbott, his associate editor. Mr. Beecher three
times. visited Europe, in 1863 addressing large audi-
ences in the principal cities of Great Britain on the qnes-
tionsevolved by the civil war then raging in the United
Stater. In 1871, Henry W. Sage, a parishioner of
Mr. Beecher's, founded a lectureship of Preaching,
the "Lyman Beecher Lectureship," in the Yale Col-
lege Divinity School, and the first three annual courses
were delivered by Mr. Beecher. His regular weekly
sermons, as taken down by stenoeraphie reporters,
have been printed annually since 1859, and a number
of the more important ones have also been issued in
pamphlet form. Besides these lie published
" Lectures to Young Alen," 1l50; "Star Papers,"
1855; "Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes,"
1855; "Life Thoughts" 1858; " Pleasant Talks Abont
Fruits, Flowers, and Farming," 1859 ; "Eyes and
Ears," 1832; "Freedom and War," 1863; "Royal
Truths," 1864; '' Aida to Prayer,' 1864; "Pulpit
Pungencies," 1866; "Prayers horn Plymouth Pulpit,"
1867; "Norwood," a novel, 1867; "Overture of
Angels," 1869; "Lecture-room Talks," 1870; "Morn-
ing and Evening Exercises," 1870; "hue of Christ"
(of which only the first volume has ever been issued),
1871; "Yale Lectures on Preaching," 3 vols, 1872-74;
•" A Summer Parish," 1874; and a selection from his
writings entitled "Comfortable Thoughts," 1884. In
1882 he formally withdrew from the Association of
Congregational Churches on account of a change in
belief on the subjetsi., ef eternal punishment.
A c!oucl eaine over the great preacher's later life
by reason of a grave charge of immorality. brought
against him by his friend Tilton, a charge which, how-
e-ver, Mr. Beecher's admirers -.sere glad to find him
declared innocent of by a committee of ministers
appointed to investigate the mattar The rev, gentle-
man arrived in London on the 28th of June last, and
up to the time of his departure for IsTew York, on the
23rd of October, was fully engaged. in London, the
provinces, and Rutland in delivering to crorded
bodiences eries eserreoto and leetureo,

COLONEL FENDALLS DEATIL
COI N 1 VERDICT.
On Tuesday inethe adjourned invest into
me46*the circu attending
_the death of Colonel
Fendall wasfiesurned, 'at Birmiugha*, berme the
Coronet, Mr Henry Hawkes. ' The inquiry, which '
was herd in the second court of the police, created
great interest, the court and its precincts being
crowded long before the hour for opening the inquiry:,
The brother of the deceased, the Rev. Charles Bag- i
shot Fendall, was present. 1
The first witness called was a waitress a% one of
the restaurants in the Arcade, who depcsed that on
Saturday, the 26th ult., the deceased bad dinner at
the restaurant. I

The waiter .at Redpath's Wine and Spirit -Vaults,
Bull-street, deposed to the fact that the deceased and
Rooney had some drink on the same night in the
place, and that Col:".nel Feudal] appeared to be under
the influence of drink. They were joined by Lester
and another man. _ _

In reply to the coroner, the witness said that he.
knew Lester and Rooney. At first he refused to
serve them, but Rooney pressed witliesß, and he served
the deceased, who .accidentally knocked a glass of
wine over. Half a minute afterwards Lester and
the othf-r man followed the deceased and Rooney out
of the place.
Redall, jeweller. Whitmore-sti( et, Hockley,
stated that. he was in company with Lester at the Dol-
phin Inn, Steelhouse-lane, on the night in question.
"Whilst there Theresa Rooney came and called
Letter out. [Superintendent Black here handed a pho-
tograph of the deceased to witness, but he said he
could not tell it, he only saw him two minutes.] Pro-
ceeding, the witness said we did not speak to Rooney.
We passed on. I had a glass of ale; Lester had
whisky. Rooney and the gentleman went out. Two
or three minutes after Lester said, "I'm going home."
Lester lives in Farm-street. We went up Bull-street
together to Steelhouse-lane ; but, in order to go to
Farm-street, he should have gone down Snow-hill.
He said, "I will go home," and I said, "I will go
back to the Dolphin." So witness went; but, there
being no one in, he returned to Redpath's, and stopped
there till eleven o'clock, _ _ _ _ _

Thomas Gramwich, Cabdriver, deposed to the de-
ceased and Rooney getting into his cab on the night
in question opposite to Redpath's. Rooney ordered
witness to stop at Fox's, a wine and spirit vaults in
Corporation-street,„which he did. The deceased ap-
peared intoxicated. Rooney and the deceased stayed
three or four minutes, and then he drove towards
Bagot-stre-et, the gentleman paying the fare.
Lucy Cotterill, barmaid at Fox's, stated that
Rooney ordered a bottle of champagne, which was
supplied. It was wrapped up and taken away. She
thought the deceased was not sober.
Sarah Perkins said about half-past ten on the
Saturday night she saw Rooney and a gentleman in
Lancaster-street. Rooney had hold of the gentle-
man's arm, and was singing "Sweet Violets."
Susannah Jones the back of whose house adjoins
the tenement occupied by Rooney in Bagot-street,
said that on Saturday night week she also heard
some singing, but soon afterwards there were the
sounds of quarreliing and as if someone were trying
to get out of th 3 room. There was the sound also
of the pushing about of the furniture. Suddenly
in the midst of this witness heard someone ex-
claim, "Oh, my God !" It was the voice of a
man. After that there was quiet. The next thing
she heard was of some persons running down the
entry and coming back again. She heard nobody fall
downstairs. _

William Reda, recalled, admitted in reply to the
Coroner that Rooney had said she had pushed a man
dowmtAirs. He noticed blood on her hands, and she
seemed put about.
A witness named Emma Hill, who lived in a house
opposite to that occupied by Rooney, said she knew
Lester very well, she was sorry to say.
John Hardiker, brother-in-law of Lester, stated
that the latter last Saturday night week came to his
house. Rooney was outside with a coat in her hands,
which she asked witness to take care cf, giving him
£2 at the same time. He kept it until last Tuesday,
when, seeing in the papers that the coat belonging to
Colonel Fendall was missing, he believed it was the
OLIO.

Detective-sergeant Dobbs proved going to Rooney's
house after the decPase had been taken to the General
Hospital. Rooney at first denied that any man had
•b.?eti tagen from her house to the hospital. On going
-upstairs into the bedroom, the officer found Lester in
bed. Rooney subsequently said she saw the deceased
lying in Lichfielil-road, Aston, in a insensible state,
and that she hailed a cab and caused him to be taken
to he hospital.
Medical evidence having baen given as to the
wounds found *on ttrhe head and body of Colonel
Anthill, the coroner summed up, and the jury re-
turned a verdict of "Wilful murder" against Rooney
and Lester.