The Express.
London, England, 1863-07-08 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 8, 1863.

TRIPLE MURDER AND SUICIDE.

The pprpses of three children and their mother,
who have joie met their deaths under most melancholy dr.
cumatanosa, now lie at the George Inn, Bathampton, a
village about three miles from Bath. The deceased woman,
who was about 36 years of age, was the wife of a man
named Coles, who was about twenty years her senior, and
they lived with their five children in apartments at No. 2,
Galloway-buildings, in Bath. Formerly they were in
good circumstanne, and about four years ago they resided
at Larkhall, a suburb of Bath, but thence, about four years
ago, they went to Bristol and took the Ring of Bells public-
house, 1 homasatreet, which turned out an unfortunate 1
speculation, and three or four months since they returned to
Bath, and have since subsided upon the sale and pawning
of their wearing apparel and other property. This reverie
of circumstances appears to have affected the mind of the
wife, who was a good-looking and sensitive woman, and she
on several occasions has said to her neighbours that she
could not endure their state of penury, and should drown
herself and children. On Sunday morning a district visitor
who called at the home maw her forlorn condition, and ad-
vised her to go with her family to the workhouse, as her
husband is incapacitated from infirmity from following his
trade as a carver and gilder. Mrs. Coles, however, who
we. remarkable for her fondness for her children, replied
that she would rather jump into the river with her baby
than go there. Later in the day she said to • person in the
house that she thought her husband could support himself
and the two eldeet children, but that she would take charge
of the other three. Even then the unhappy woman seems to
have formed her sad design, for en Monday, about half-past
12, she left her home, Wring with her the three younger
children, two boys and a girl. John, the eldest of the three,
was six years of age, the next, datilda, was about three,
and the other au infant in arms. All were very fine
children. They called at the Folly public-house, on the
tanks of the Kennet and Avon Canal, and having rested a
short time, during which the mother partook of halfa-pint
of beer, they proceeded along the towing path towards
Bathamptoo. On reaching a occluded spot, where the canal
is spanned by a stone bridge, it is supposed she first threw
the children into the water and then jumped in herself.
Indeed a milkman in the meadows adjoining heard a cry of
" Don't, mother," and then " Murder," and a lady in •
villa at some distance beard the same sounds, acid Saw •
child running from a woman on the towing path, but they
tecame hid behind a clump of trees, and she thought it was
merely a mother chastising her child. It is now supposed
that she had thrown the two youngest children into the
water, and was pursuing the eldest for the ammo purpose, as,
on the milkman reaching the canal • few minutes after, he
maw the woman in the water, and an alarm being raised and
drag poles procured, she was drawn out quite dead. The
canal warn dinged for some distance farther, and ultimately
the bodies of the three children were recovered, but life was
quite extinct. The bodies are awaiting an inquest.