The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-21 00:00:00

anb Volta.

Mr.s. Au.sor, whose case has excited so much
commiseration, appeared before Mr. Broughton, at
Marylebone Police-office, on Tuesday, and after re-
plying in a very unsatisfactory manner to several of
Mr. Broughton's questions, was addressed by the
magistrate in the following terms :
I believe that your story with regard to your five sons
having lost their lives in the service of their country is a
fable. If it be not so, it is a most extraordinary thing
that clergymen and others whose names you have made
use of in various ways, and who, as stated by you, have
known you for a long while, know nothing respecting your
children, the young men whom you state have perished in
battle. You told the guardians and directors of the poor
that you had three sons and two daughters only, and the
letter which I have by me, addressed by you to Colonel
Phipps, is dated March, 1850. When I received it from
you it bore the date 18;nt. The Prince caused inquiries to
be made, and they turned out to be unfavourable—hence
arose the letter declining assistance to the widow. I
(added Mr. Broughton) have also made the most diligent
inquiries, and they are equally unfavourable as regards
your claim for assistance. After a careful investigation
I come to no other conclusion than that you ( Mrs. Allsop)
had no sons killed either at Cahill or in the Crimea, and
that your story in your applications to Royalty was not
founded in fact.
Mrs. Allsop then left the court, saying, "I'll have
the whale of my case put into all the papers."

A VERDICT OF " WILFUL MtirtnEn" has been re-
turned against Beam by the coroner's jury engaged
at Stamford in the investigation of the causes of the
death of Mrs. Bacon, sen., on the 15th of May, 1855.
Bacon, it will be remembered, is now in gaol on sus-
picion of having cut the throats of both his children
and attempted to murder his wife at Walworth some
weeks since. During the investigation, certain
rumours rtached the authorities of the peculiar
symptoms attending old Mrs. Bacon's death in 1855,
and by which Bacon came into certain property. The
body of the deceased was promptly exhumed, and
the viscera submitted to Dr. Taylor for chemical
analysis. On Wednesday Dr. Taylor presented to
the coroner's jury his report, which may be summed
up in a few words. Three quarters of a grain of
arsenic were detected in the intestines, stomach,
liver, kidneys, and spleen. The evidence of several
witnesses proved that in March, '55, Mrs. Bacon had
suffered a sudden and severe attack of illness, falling
suddenly from her chair in a sort of fit. From this
she recovered, but in May of the same year she ex •
perienced a second and almost similar attack, exhi-
biting symptoms of extreme suffering, with great
thirst, paius in the abdomen, spasms, stiffness of
limbs, and purging, with sickness. The symptoms
in some sort resembled those of cerebral disease, and
at her death the local surgeon, bearing in mind the
illness in March, gave a ceitificate accordingly. The
prisoner's sister-in-law, Ann Bacon, swore that on
the 12th of May Mrs. Bacon was quite well ; that on
the 13th, while staying at her son's house, she was
first taken ill, and told witness, who was sent for,
that she (Mrs. Bacon) had been very well all the
morning, but had been seized with purging and sick-
ness while at dinner, after taking some broth. During
Monday Mrs. Bacon continued very ill. On Tuesday
she became worse:—

She had great pain in her body, and complained of being
stiff all over. Thomas Bacon was in the house when I got
there, and continued about all day. Daring the morning
I beard Thomas Bacon say to his wife, " Give mother
something out of that bottle now," pointing to one on a
dressing table in the bedroom. I said, " What is it?"
Thomas Bacon replied, Something that mother had yes-
terday that does her good." I observed that it was not an
ordinary• medicine bottle, but did not examine it particu-
larly at the time. I thought it was a little peppermint, or
something of that kind. It contained a whitish•colonred

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liquid. On the night Mrs. Bacon (lied, and immediately
after death, Thomas Bacon said, " This bottle belongs to
me ; I may as well take it away, as it will be of no further
use." 'Ms was the same bottle I had previously observed
on the dressing• table.
Professor Taylor, after hearing all
_the evidence,
said :

I am of opinion that the attack in March, as described
by Mr. Barber and Ann Bacon, is unlike the effects of
arsenic ; that the symptoms of pain, vomiting, purging,
and thirst on Sunday, May 1:1, occurring after dinner, are
such as wonld be and are commonly produced by arsenic ;
and, as arsenic was found in the body, in my opinion they
were occasioned by that poison. The symptoms observed
on Monday night and on Tuesday of spasms and delirium
with general depression, u described by Mr. Barber, are
such as may be produced by arsenic when a person has
survived two or three days. They are not so common in
cases of poisoning by arsenic as symptoms of vomiting and
purging, and they may Le produced by disease of the
brain. Looking to the description of the symptoms on
the attack in March, and their similarity to those ob-
served by Mr. Barber on Tuesday, May 15, it is possible
that death may have been caused by a sudden recurrence of
disease of the brain, and not by arsenic. At the same time
the symptoms of Sunday, Monday, and Tnesday, in the
month of May, taken together, as described by Mr. Barber
and the other witnesses, are, in my opinion, consistent
with death from arsenic.

The coroner then recapitulated the evidence, when
the jury returned a verdict of " Wilful murder."
On the same day Bacon and his wife were finally
examined before Mr. Elliott at Lambeth Police-court
on the charge of murdering their children, and both
prisoners remanded till the depositions of the wit-
nesses were prepared. The body of Bacon's father,
who died suddenly is 1854, is to be exhumed at once.