The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-03 00:00:00

MURDER OF A FATHER-IN-LAW,

Yesterday Mr Best, magistrate of Bilston, near Wolver-
hampton, was engaged in investigating the facts connected
with a fearful outrage of a character for which the Black
country is unhappily too notorious.
The facts are as follows :—During some eight years past
a woman, who is apparently now about 35 years of age, and
is one of a respectable family, has been the fife of a collier
named Henry Christian, who lives at the Coppice., near
Sedgley, and is about her own age. By him she has had two
children. Previously to her marriage with Christian, she
was the wife of a man named Isaac Jones, who died shortly
before her marriage with Christian, leaving a daughter about
12 months old. With her first husband the woman lived a
life of happiness, but her second husband was in the con-
stant habit of gambling, drinking, and ill-using her. On
Sunday night last Christian had returned home from his
customary haunt, at a.-neighbouring beer-house, when his
wife, as she was preparing for bed, reminded him that
drinking and pigeon-flying on the Sunday would surely ter-
minate in disgrace, if not in his untimely death, and she
instanced the recent death of his brother, who, about a fort •
night or three weeks ago was found dead in the canal at
Tipton. Ho replied by declaring that he would hive the life
of both his wife and also the child Jones, who was sleeping
in the same room. He drew off the bed on which his wife
was lying, and placing the bed clothes round a lighted
candle, swore that he would " blaze them all up." His son
succeeded in getting the candle from his hand, and to escape
from her step-father's violence, the girl Jones ran in her
night-clothes out of the house, chased by Christian armed
with a heavy strap. Her mother, in a little better than a
nude condition followed, and at one o'clock on Monday
morning obtained shelter for her daughter in the dwelling
of Thomas Caddick, a shoemaker, aged 60, the father
of the ill-used woman Christian, and of course the grand•
father of the child. On Monday night Christian re-
turned home somewhat under the influence of drink, but
quite accountable for his conduct. His wife told him he
must change his mode of life or they must separate. He
said he would leave her, and was preparing to do so, when
the woman inter Leing to prevent him taking away some
of the boy's clothes, he kicked her with fearful violence,
One of her sisters interposed, and he was beating both of
them, when their father, attracted by their cries fur help,
came in. Christian instantly turned upon the old man,
pulled him to the ground, got upon him, and pressing his
thumbs as he held the sides of his face with his other fin-
gers, was thus strangling him when the women succeeded
in dragging Christian off their prostrate father. Caddick
had scarcely got up when, on getting outside, he fell dead,
showing to another son-in law as he fell how Christian bad
clutched him by the throat. The occurrence has occasioned
the utmost consternation in the neighbourhood in which it
happened, for deceased was much respected.
Christian was remanded by the Bilston magistrate, and
in the evening the inquest upon the murdered man was
opened at Conley.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,