The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 2, 1864

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

THE TRAGEDY IN HATTON GARDEN.

ADJOURNED INQUEST-THIS DAY.

The adjourned inquest on the body of Mrs Wilkinson was
resumed this day at the Three Tuns Tavern, Cross-stieet,
Hatton-garden.

The inquiry, it will be recollected, was adjourned in order
to enable the coroner to communicate with Sir Grey to ob-
tain the attendance of the prisoner. The application had
been successful, and the accused man this morning was in
attendance, in custody of an inspector of the S division.
The first witness examined was Mrs Turnbull, the aunt
of the witness Collier, who gave her evidence before the
magistrate, She merely repeated the statement as to the
prisoner entering her bedroom and pulling his wife out
of her bed and kicking her violently.

Ann Chadwick said she had known Mrs Wilkinson for
two years. The deceased often told her of her husband's
illusage, but that he always was anxious to make it up
with her. She saw her last Sunday about 8 o'clock, when
she told her what had occurred at the railway station. She
said she and her husband had quarrelled, and that he had
struck her in the eye. She left witness's place at 10 o'clock
and went home, but she said she should not go into her own
room until her husband was asleep, as he was sure to be
quarrelling with her, and she was afraid of him when tipsy,
but that he was always kind to her when sober.
By a Juror--The bruise on the eye was not visible when
she saw her. She appeared quite well when she left her.
Police-constable 116 G said he took the prisoner into cue.
tody. He asked him how he accounted for the marks on
the deceased. He said, " Well, there was some blows on
Friday last, but none since.

Police constable 1 G said, the prisoner was brought to
the police station at Clerkenwell about half-past one on
Sunday morning. He informed the prisoner he was charged
with a serious offence, and, having cautioned him, he said,
"It's not what I've done to-night, it's what I did on
Friday."
Mrs Collier recalled—She had never heard the prisoner
threaten the life of his wife,

The Coroner, in summing up the evidence, said it was
for them to consider the charge, which was a very serious
one against Henry Wilkinson, who was supposed to have
murdered his wife, It would be for them to consider
whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain an accusation
of wilful murder. The coroner went through the evidence,
and stated that, according to the testimony of the medical
gentleman, the injury which caueed the death of the unfor•
tunate woman did not arise from any violence she might
have sustained on the Friday, but from a rupture of the
spleen, which, however, was in a diseased state. The kick
which it had been proved the prisoner had inflicted on
the deceased appeared to have caused that rupture,
and, under all the circumstances, they would have to
show whether the blow was inflicted with the malicious
intention of killing the woman. If they should be of that
opinion, then it would be their duty to return a verdict of
wilful murder against the prisoner, but if they thought that
he had been guilty of unintentionally causing her death,
they would return a verdict of manslaughter.
The jury then returned ti consider their verdict, and
after about hulfnan-hour's absence, returned to the inquest
room.
In answer to the questions of the Coroner,

The foreman of the jury said they were opinion that the
prisoner did not contemplate killing his wife, and they
therefore returned a verdict of manslaughter against him.
The prisoner, a man about 30 years of age, of the middle
height, with sharp features, and deeply pitted by small-pox,
during the time the jury were in deliberation seemed to
suffer the greatest anxiety, Immediately the verdict was
pronounced he seemed for the moment entirely prostrate,
but ho quickly recovered himself and burst into tears. He
was then taken from the room, and on making his appear-
ance in the street on his way to the Clerkenwell Police-
Court, to which he was conveyed in a cab, the crowd made
some little attempt at hissing, but it qaickly subsided as an
immense number of idlers followed to the cab with a view
of:gettin,g another glimpse of the prisoner.
The final examination of the prisoner took place at
Clerkenwell Police Court shortly after the termination of
the inquest. The same witnesses were examined, and a simi-
lar conclusion was the result.

Position of Affairs in the South.

The following letter from General Seymour de-
scribes the present position of affairs in the South.
General Seymour was one of the prisoners of war
who were placed under fire at Charleston, and has
just been released. The letter is addressed to Mr.
Dodge, of New York :
" Williamstown, Massachusetts, Aug. 15.

" My dear Sir,—You ask for my impressions of the pre-
sent condition of the Southern Confederacy, and you shall
have them, For the benefit of our cause I wish they
might be impressed upon every soul in the land, that the
confidence begotten of my three months' observations in
the interior of the South might be shared by every man
who has the least connection with the responsibilities of this
struggle, and I am sure that these opinions are not peculiar
to myself. Every one of the 50 officers just exchanged will
express the same; every one of our men, whether from the
gaols of Charleston, or the pens of Macon and Anderson-
ville, will confidently tell the same story. The rebel cause
is fast failing from exhaustion. Their two grand armies
have been reinforced this summer from the last resources of
the South. From every corner of the land every old man
and every boy capable of bearing a rifle has been impressed,
willingly or unwillingly, and hurried to the front. Lee's
army was the first so strengthened, it was at the expense of
Hood's. Governor Brown told the truth with a plainness
that was very bitter, but it was none the less truth. Let me
extract a few prominent statements from his proclamation
of July 9, addressed to the reserved militia of Georgia :
A late correspondence with the President of the Confede-
rate States satisfies my mind that Georgia is to be left to
our own resources to supply the reinforcements to General
Johnston's army, which are indispensable to the protection
of Atlanta, and to prevent the State being overrun by the
overwhelming numbers now under the command of the
Federal General upon our soil. But there is need of farther
reinforcements, as will be seen by the accompanying letter
of General Johnston ; . . and it becomes my duty to call
out every man in the State able to bear arms, as fast as they
can be armed, to aid in the defence of our homes and altars
and the graves of our ancestors. If the Confederate Go-
vernment will not send the large cavalry force (now engaged
in raiding and repelling raids) to destroy the long line of
railroads over which General Sherman brings his supplies
from Nashville, and thus compel him to retreat with the
loss of most of his army, the people of Georgia, who have
already been drawn upon more heavily in proportion to
population than those of any other States in the Confederacy,
must, at all hazards and at any sacrifice, rush to the front.
If General Johnson's army is destroyed, the Gulf States
are thrown open to the enemy, and we are rained.' There
must, indeed, have been desperate weakness when Georgia,
and the Southern cause with it, were so neglected that Lee's
army might be made equal to the task of holding Grant to
the Potomac or the James ; and the people of the South are
intelligent enough to understand and to appreciate the fact,
and they have lost heart accordingly. The following is from
a letter written by one rebel to another, that accidentally
fell into the hands of ono of my fellow prisoners, and for the
authenticity of which I vouch —' Very few persons are
preparing to obey the late call of the Governor. His sum-
mons will meet with no response here. The people are soul-
sick and heartily tired of this hateful, hopeless strife. They
would end it if they could, but our would-be rulers will take
good care that no opportunity be given the people to vote
against it. By lies, by fraud, and by chicanery his revolu-
tion was inaugurated ; by force, by tyranny, and by the
suppression of truth it is sustained. It is nearly time that
it should end ; and of sheer depletion it must end before
long. We have had enough of want and of woe, enough of
cruelty and carnage, enough of cripples and corpses. There
is an abundance of bereaved parents, weeping widows, and
orphaned children in the land. If we can, let us not increase
the number. The men who, to aggrandise themselves, or to
gratify their own ambition, brought this cruel war upon a
peaceful and prosperous country, will have to render a
tearful account of their misdeeds to a wronged, robbed, and
outraged people. Earth has no punishment sufficiently meet
for their villany here, and hell will hardly be hot enough to
scathe them hereafter.' There is certainly no small propor-
tion of the Southern people—despite the lying declarations
of their generals, as we had good reason to learn—that not
only favours the progress of our arms, but that daily prays
that this exterminating war may soon be brought to a
finality by our complete and perfect success. They have had
too much of despotism, not enoughof the triumph promised
them. Many intelligent Southern gentlemen do indeed ex-
press strong hopes of their ultimate independence; but such
hope is not shared by the masses. Disappointed from the
first in not being acknowledged by foreign Powers, more
bitterly disappointed in their general expectations that
Northern cowardice or dissension would secure their ends,
but a single chance remains, and that is the result of our
next election for President. If a Democrat succeeds to Mr
Lincoln, they profess to feel sure of negotiations and their
Confederacy. They believe a Democrat will be elected. In
Mr Lincoln's re-election they see only subjugation, anni-
hilation; for the war must then continue, and c ontieuance
is their failure and ruin. In military affairs it is an excel-
lent rule never to tic, what tho enemy cl.,Arwo ; it is not
equally true in politics ? Certain it is that the remaining
hope of the South lies in Mr Lincoln's defeat. Now, I am
not enough of a politician to know whether the election of
a Democrat can result as favourably to the South as it an-
ticipates. Their wish alone may be the parent of their
belief. But I assured all who expressed that belief
that the North, as a mass, is as united as the South—
that no Democrat could be elected on a peace platform,
and that any President who would inaugurate any mea-
sure leading to peace, on the basis of Southern indepen-
dence, would be promptly hung, by loyal acclamation, to
the lamp post in front of his own presidential mansion.
However that may be, if we are but true to ourselves, there
can be but one result. What we now need is men, only
men. No substitutes or hirelings, who go forth with any
motive but their country's good, and produce but little
beyond depreciating our armies ; but men, such as really
constitute the State, and boast of being freemen and sons of
freemen. If these fail to support their country's cause in
her hour of peril, they are unworthy of continuing freemen,
and should blush ever to exercise a freeman's privileges.
But if bounties be paid let it be in Southern land, not in
Northern gold, and armies of emigrants, whose sons may
aspire to win the rule of the nation, will cross the seas4o
win the broad acres that disloyalty has forfeited to the State.
To every intelligent soldier who has fought through all
these indecisive campaigns, on almost numberless indecisive
fields, the question ccntinuelly wises, with touching force,
why do we not overwhelm our enemies ? Tens of thousands
of lives are lost because our array of strength is so dispro-
portionately less than that against which we battle. Every-
where we meet on nearly equal terms, when we might well
have four to one. The cost to us in blood and treasure of a
prolonged war can hardly be foreseen—the economy is in-
finite of such an effort as the glorious North should put
forth. The South will fight as long as the struggle is
equal, it will submit to such preponderance as we should
show in every field. Glance at the summer's campaigns.
If Sherman had but 50,000 or 75,000 more men the South
would be lost, because Hood would be annihilated. If
Meade had moved in the spring with reserves of 75,000 or
100,000 men Lee would have been hoplessly crushed, Even
at this moment a third column of 40,000 or 50,000 men,
rightly moved would give unopposed blows to the Confede-
racy from which she could never rise. What folly, then,
to struggle on in this way, when we could send to the field
five times the force already there. What weakness to think
we cannot conquer the South. Behind the James only
boys and old men are to be seen, while here men buy
and sell as in the olden days of quiet, and regiments of
able-bodied citizens crowd the streets of our cities, There
is but (see course consistent with Northern safety and
honour. Let the people awake to a sense of their dignity
and strength, and a few months of comparatively trifling
exertion of such effort as alone is worthy of the great North,
and the rebellion will crumble before us. Fill this draught
promptly and willingly with good and true men, send a few
spare thotsands over rather than under the call, and the
summer sun of 1665 will shine upon a regenerated land.
There are same who speak of peace. Of all Yankees the
Southern most scorns those who de not fight, but are glad
enough to employ them, as they do their slaves, to perform
their dirty work. Peace for the South would be sweet indeed
—for us, except through Southern subjugation, but anarchy
and war for ever, The Pacific the Western, the Eastern
States would at once fall asunder. The South would be
dominant, and the people of the North would deserve to be
driven afield, under negro owners, to hoe corn and cotton
for Southern masters. But no faint-hearted or short-sighted
policy can set aside the eternal decrees of the Almighty, who
has planted no line of division between the Atlantic and the
Western deserts, between the great lakes and the Gulf of
Mexico, that signifies His will that we should be separated ;
and unless so separated peace is a delusion, and its advocacy
a treason against the wisest and holiests interests of our
country. It has been with a trust that renewed hope and
vigour might be given, when vigour and hope are needful,
that I have written, and you have my consent to using this
as you please, and I am very truly yours,

TRUMAN SEYmoult.
Brigadier-General United Staten' Volunteers."

FEARFUL EPIDEMIC AT BERMUDA AND NASSAU.
—By the arrival of the Canadian mail steamer
Hibernian, we have been placed in possession of intelligence
respecting an epidemic which is now decimating the islands
of Bermuda and Nassau. To such a fearful extent has the
epidemic spread in these two islands that the resident medi-
cal practitioners are quite unable to cope with this terrible
emergency, and all the principal army surgeons of the
British troops in Canada have gone to assist them. A gen-
tleman writing from headquarters says:—l regret to learn
that the yellow fever has this season broken out with great
virulence at Bermuda, and has made a groat deal of havoc
among the troops and civilians stationed there, numbers of
whom, both officers and men, have fallen victims to the dis-
ease. The consequence has been a call for medical aisstance
from all the military surgeons now in Canada, and a num-
ber of them have left for Portland, en ront3 for Halifax,
from whence they will proceed to Bermuda." "Not only
is the yellow fever devastating Bermuda, but Nassau was
never in such a frightful state as at present." The fever,
it tippers, was first brought to Nassau by a steamer from
Havana or Wilmington about three months ago, and since
then the number of deaths, especially amongst the Euro-
peans and those engaged in the blockade running business,
has been envxmous,