The Express.
London, England, 1861-10-01 00:00:00

rms MURbER, BURGLARY, AND ARSON, IN
tiTAPFURDSHIRB.

BILSTON, MONDAY.
To-dad', the public excitement throughout the
Thole district was considerably increend. Them have
recently beau nunierons burglaries in this part et Stafford•
shire, and a feeliug of col.lilerehle insecurity has begun to
be felt

The inquest was opened this afternoon, before Mr. W. H.
Phillips, deputy coroner.
ileH. Mtirea, suptaintxudent of police, identified the
ceusd.

Elise Rowan deposed that she worked as tailorem for the
deceased and also acted as his servant. She went to the
house every morning and every evening, leaving the house at
nine on moat nights and at 11 on Satunlay nights. Last
Saturday she went there at S in the morning. A com-
mercial traveller came in and invited the deceased to go
out to drink. His name was Richards, of Bristol. When
the deceased went out she came in out of the bock yard to
mind the shop, SO o'clock, and the traveller's samples of
goods were seen by her in the shop. Near 4 o'clock, a
porter came for the cases of samples, and said he was taking
them to the King's Arms. About half-last six the de-
ceased came beck to a state of intoxication with the tra-
veller. The deceased went into the sitting-room sad fell
down. Witness went into the room, to see if he had hurt him-
self, and he told her that he bad not. At the same time,
he ordered her to mind the shop and never mind him.
Afterwards he served in the shop, and a largo number of
people came in. Subsequently she fetched him a bottle of
wine and two gum terns of whisky. When ~he left at night
he lucked the fluor leading into Shifford-street. Witness
closed the back door herself. He always kept all the keys
belonging to the house upon him. Before she left he said
he was very sorry for putting her about so much during the
day. By,that tinie he seemed much recovered, and told her
where be had been and what he had had to drink. At
eight or nine on SuniLty morning one of her neighbours
came into the house and told her that she had heard that
Mr. Bagott had been murdered. A policeman fetched her
down to the house, and witness saw the deceased lying with
bis head towards the door. Remarked a bruise on his chin,
and that his neck was as if It had been pressed by some one.
The bottle of port wine was in his bed-room upstairs in a
drawer. AU the shelves and drawers in the shop seemed to
have been ransacked. Sawa window broken belonging to the
back kitchen. The cellar grating had been raised, which is
immediately under the sitting-room.
The Coroner suggested that the other portions of the pre-
mises should be examined.

Colonel Hogg, the chief constable, said that he was
going to have a map and model of the premises made.
Witness continued—A large quantity of property was
stolen from the house on the night in question. Had seen
several articles in the hands of the police which she
could own. The hammer produced was the hammer with
which she used to bevel( the coal, and she used it last on
Saturday. Was quite sure that the deceased was sober
enough to understand what he was about when she left the
house. He had drunk during the night only a pint of ale
and • quarters of whisky.
Police-sergeant Smith deposed that be was the first person
who received information of the murder. He received itat
about 4 o'clock on Sunday morning. Found a quantity of
cloth and men's wearing apparel in Mr. Beard's entry, and
observed that the deceased's house had been broken open.
When trite's' entered the sitting-room the gas was burning
a glimmering light, and was not sufficient to show the con-
tents of the room. Ou going to the other side witness found
the deceased on the ground with his shoulder reclining on
the left side of the body. The bead lay over the fender,
which supported his left shoulder. Both his bands
were under him. The fire poker was left across hie
neck in • slanting position, the square end tipper
most but at the time witness did not observe
any mark ma his neck. Raised him up and took the stock
from his stack, but his head fell upon hia chest. Deceased
was quite warm. On placing bin (witness's) bead over his
heart be thought he felt a little twitching or moving ; he
therefore sent for • surgeon, and Mr. Larkin cams, but
pronounced the deceased to be quite dead. Witness sent
for Superintendent M'Crea, and the dour and premises were
broken open, and found ransacked as the other witness had
described. On entering decemed's bedroom with Mr. M'Urea
they found the carpet on fire. Them was burning on the
carpet a piece of new cloth. In his opinion it bad been
purposely tired. The furniture in the room was much dim-
arranged, the bed being turned up, the drawers broken open,
and their contents, with the cash-boo, on the bed. Mr.
M'Cresi found the hammer produced at the foot of the
bed. The hammer in question was entirely of iron. It
was, in fact, • hatchet, • hammer, and • small crow-
bar, all in one--a tool similar to that which
grocers were accustomed to use to epee hogshead,. of
sugar. An instrument better suited to the purposes
of a burglar is was scarcely possible to imagine. The store-
room had also been broken open ; the shop had been
entered, and the property from some of the shelves taken
down.

Camel Hogg, the chief constable, now asked that the
ioquest might be adjourned for at least a week.
The inquest was then adjourned as requested.
This is the third murder that has taken place in the Ra-
don district within a twelvemonth.

The deceased was respectably connected. He had four
brothers, who are tradesmen iu Dudley, and three of them
were present at the inyuest. They were also represented by
a solicitor.

THE MIAMI IN BIRMINGHAM.

The BirnalighatriDeily Post of yesterday gives the
following details of a horrible case of murder which occurred
in that town on Sunday afternoon :—" About half-put
three o'clock yesterday afternoon • murder was perpetrated
in a notorious brothel in Tenter-street, Stafford-street,
under peculiarly horrible circumstances, a man named
John Thomson, 42, wiredrawer, said to work in Aston-
road, and to live at Sutton, having killed Ann Walker, with
whom he had cohabited for some three months past. The
history either poor woman is in every respect aged one. Uotil
some live rears ago she lived happily with her husband,
William Walker, a wiredrawer, living in Manchester, but
laving unfortunately acquired a taste fur drink, and being
perfectly unable to resist the temptation of getting
intoxicated whenever the opportunity was given her, all
domestic peace was anon gone. Some three yearn ago •
formal separation took place, and she left her husband, who
retained the three children she had borne to him. Since
then the had cohabited with various men in and about Sir.
miughain, first with • navvy at Sutton, then
with • grinder, and afterwards with a man em-
ployed as • labourer at the Gas Works, who left
bee about six mouths ago. At intervals she had been on
the town, and bad micasionally stopped for a short time at
the house in which she was yester&T murdered. About
three mouths ago she made the acquaintance of Thomson,
and soon afterwards west to live with him at Sutton as his
mistress. On Saturday last the two came together from
Sutton, in order to visit the fair, and having delayed until
it was too late to return, they went to the house, No. 8,
in Tanteratreet, which is kept by a woman named Beres-
ford, and is inhabited by several prostitutes, and there got
• bed. Yesterday morning they hail breakfast in the house
at about eleven o'clock, and about noon they went out
together. The woman returned by herself at three o'clock,
and was at that time visibly the worse for liquor indeed
so marked WIN her intoxication that she had been bustled
in the street in consequence. She ashed permission to go
upstairs and lie down on • bed for a few minutea, and this
being granted, she immediately went up. Soon afterwards
Mimeo° came in, and went upstairs to her. It should be
stated that while out Mrs. Walker had met in the street a
ma with whom she had formerly cohabited, and that he
had threatened to ill-use her, and thus gathered a crowd
around them. Thomson and Walker had tot been long
together upstairs before the women who were down below
heard • noise of quarrelling, and Beresford, the keeper of
the house, went up and found that Mrs. Walker had
knocked bee ami against the wall in some way, and that
, Theron was rubbing it. She beard him say, " Will you
'go home to Sutton now?' to which Mrs. Welker replied,
" No, I will sot." Seeing that the two were moderately
quirk Beemford west downstairs, but no sooner had she
sat down again, than she beard • stiffed scream. A young
woman named Elisabeth Green, an uufortu.:ate, living in
the house, went this time, and was honified by seeing
Thomson, who was then leaning over Mrs. Walker on the
bed, stab the unfortunate woman in the peek with an open
pocket knife, and then drug her off the bed. Green run
downstairs screaming violently, while Ilernaford ran up
and SW. Thomson, who seemed to be quite 0001,
liberatisly cutting the throat of his miserable mistress re
she lay on the Hoer. Two men followed her upstairs, and
are of them collared Thome!' aod took the knife out of his
hand. Beresford asked him what be had murdered the
woman for, and he said, " It's all through drink." He
Deemed to be at that time quite *ober, and was calm and
collected in appearance. Information was at once given to
the police, and police-constables Copeatedre and Fallon appre-
hended Thomsen. who was at that time standing before the
bleeding co tae of the woman he had murdered. When
charged- with the murder, and cautioned that he need
not say anything, and that any statement he might make
would be used iu initiat:A against him, he merely said,
" It's all right." As he was being conveyed to the
Duke-street Police-station a mob gathered round the
officers and their prisoner, and hooted and hissed the latter.
On the way he threatened Fallon, saying he would make it
hot for him, When searched two new pocket-knives that
he had apparently bought in the fair, and two handkerchiefs,
were found in hie possession. The knife with which the
murder was committed is a common pocket-knife with one
large blade, such as is used by persons of the prisoner's class
for cutting their victuals. Within ten minutes of the time
of the dreadful recurrence Masers. Harrison and Dawson,
assistants to Dr. Heyworth, Masshouse•lane, were in athen•
dance, but at the time they arrived the murdered woman
was dead. Thee declared death to have been instantaneom,
the jugular vein having been cut by • stab of the knife, and
the windpipe completely severed by two transverse cuta."
The prisoner was brought up before the magistrates at Bir-
mingham yesterday morning, but was remanded until after
the inquest, which takes place this day.

THE FATAL ACCIDICNT ON THI NORTH KENT
RAILWAT.—Yest•Tdily Mr. C. J. Cartier held lilt inquest on
the young man who waa so frightfully mutilated near the
Arsenal Station on the previous Thursday night. Ilia Danis
was George Purdow. A verdict of "Accidental death"
was returned,

ROYAL FRI6II HORIPITAL, GRAY'S-INN-ROAD.
7126 number of patients relieved et this hospital during the
week outline, Sept. 28, wee 2,904, GI which 786 were new
%Wel