The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-16 00:00:00

A ItORRIBLE TRAGEDY IN NEW YORK.

The New York journals are filled with the details of the
horrible and mysterious murder which took place in New •
York on the 31st of January. We condense the following
account of the tragedy. A. very dreadful tragedy was enacted
at the house No. 31, Bond street, either on Friday night or
very early on Saturday morning, which resulted in the death
of Dr. Harvey Burdell, a dentist who practised there. The
boy who attended to the workroom of the deceased, on going
to the hon;e, found, at a little after eight o'clock, the body of
his employer lying on the floor of his bedroom, dead, and
surrounded with clots of congealed blood. Much alarm
naturally existed, and Dr. Rands was called in to make a
put mortem examination. lie found that Dr. Burdall had
been strangled by a ligature applied around the throat, and
that the • tun derer bad inflicted, besides, fifteen deep
wounds with a sharp instrument on his person, any
one of which was almost sufficient to cause death. On
searching the house last night, a sheet and a night shirt,
both sullied with blood, were found in a room near the
gairet, but great caution will be required in fixing the sus-

picioa of such a diabolical crime on any person. liorever.
the officers should not, and wo hope will not, rest until thi',/
perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed are made amenable to
justice. Coroner Connery is now investigating this horrid
afftir. It has already appeared that deceased had some
squabbles about money matters with his landlady, which was
confirmed at the inquest by Mr. Allen T. Smith, a dentist, a
friend of the deceased. John J. Jackson, a person residing in
the house, said that he heard no noise on the night of the
murder. Dr. Francis, the medical man who was called in to
examine the body, gave a horrible account of the mutilation
to which it had been subjected, there being no less than fifteen
deepiy incised wounds. The evidence given by Mrs. Cun-
ningham (the landlady) was of an extraordinary character, as[
she produced the certiticate of marriage between herself and
the murdered man. It appeared that some time previously
she sustained a miscarriage, since which her husband and herself
had been on unfriendly terms. Marks of blood can be
traced from tho roam wherein the murder was committed
to the stairway leading to the hall ; but here all further
efforts at following the trail of the murderer are unavailing..
At present no correct theory can be raised as to who the
perpetrator of the horrid decd was. Certain parties are sd.
pected, but these suspicions may be without any fotindatiod
whatever, when the case is properly sifted. Dr. Borden was;'
we understand, quite a wealthy man, being possessed of XBo,6oti
itt stocks and real estate. He has been married twice. Hid
first wife had been divorced from him, while the second one is
the lady referred to as Mrs. Cunningham by several of the
witnesses. From a post mortoot examination of the body
made by Dr. Weltje and others, it appears that the lungs were
found highly inflated with air, which would go to show that
strangulation had been used as a means of destroying the life of
the deceased. His tongue was also found to be protruding some
distance from. his mouth, which also proved that the deceased
had been suffocated. In the heart were found two wounds;
one in the ventricle and the other in the auricle. The lungs,
were also cut ; also the carotid artery and first vertebra. Ttiere
were fifeen incised wounds upan the body, all of which were
deep, and appeared to have been made with a very narrow
bladed instrument. There did not appear to be any injuries
on the head. Around the neck there was a slight discoloura-
tion of the skin, as though the deceased had been seized by
the.throat while the murderer was plunging ere knife with fatal
dexterity into the body of the victim. The room wherein
the murder was committed was the reception room and office
of the deceased. The death struggle appears to have taken •
place in the corner of the room nearest the door, for here thei
walls are stained with streaks and spots of blood. It was beret
too, that the jugular vein was severed, for there is a perfect
stream of gore upon the wall in this corner of the room. Mrs. ,
Burc'ell mays that her husband never kept any money in the
house ; that he always deposited it in the bank, so there does
not appear to have been any incentive to robbery in the cow-
mission of this most foul and cruel murder. Moreover none
of the deceased's papers were discovered to have been touched.
Everything was in order, so that the presumption that he might
[two been murdered by burglars is entirely out of the question;