The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

BOVLOGNE-SIIII-MER., Nov. 9.
The supposed murderer, Leduc, arrived here about nine
o'clock last night. An immense crowd received him with
loud groans and hootrngs he was, however, taken to the
prison in the Haute Ville in safety.
On entering the prison
he appeared very composed, and remarked that he fancied
the people who were looking at hint might suppose he was
a criminal.
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the dead bodies of the children. The examination was in
on seeing the bodies. No sign of feeling or regret was
visible. He examined the bodies, and in reply to questions
said, “Yes ; these are the children I brought with me, and
the brigand who has done away with them, I shall have his
use ee ha shall have Leine." He was taken to the hospital
gates to return to the prison.
lam compelled to deal with rumour as an authority, be-
cause police proceedings are not conducted here as in Eng-
land. I have nevertheless endeavoured to sift out of the
many reports what appears to me to approximate to the
truth. Report says
Leduc has stated that ho does not know
the names of the persons to whom the children belong ;
that he was requested to bring them over to Boulogne, and
a person would meet them on landing ; that he waited at
the room at the Chambre de Commerce until he was tired,
and then proceeded towards the railway station ; that he
met a tall dark man with a long black beard, who claimed
the children and to whom he delivered them up. I also
hear that a short time ago Leduc wrote to his wife in
Boulogne asking her to receive his mistress from London
and her children, which she indignantly refused to do. On
his arrival on Sunday, at 8.30 p.m., she inquired after his
children and what he had done with them. His answer
was that he had left them in an hospital in England. His
wife was then aware that his trousers were wet, as I have
previously stated. During his absence, between 9 p.m.
and 10.30 p.m., he unsuccessfully endeavoured to get
lodgings in the Rue Thurot. lie then returned to his wife,
and she at length agreed to make him a bed in the garret.
Much quarrelling took place between the couple, and
frequent reference was made to the English mistress and
children. His wife was then aware that his coat was
wet up to the elbows, and she reiterated her charge of
his having made away' with the children, which he still
denied. He at last wont to bed, leaving his clothes
to be dried. In examining
his pockets his wife found a
child's cap, and immediately rushed upstairs to the garret,
where she found her husband on his knees, apparently
praying. She disturbed him, and again charged him with
destroying the children, and produced the cap
He still persisted in his innocence and prevous tale. He
as evidence.
i
did not rise in the morning till very late, and then he was
compelled to get up by his wife, she having heard that, a
child had been found in the river, which she conele
was his. He is stated at last to have partially admitted the
truth of this, and his wife insisted, upon his leaving.
her house immediately, as she wouldnot have the dis•
grace of his being arrested there imposed
having
her. He ac-
cordingly left, as before narrated,. she given him sf.
by M. le Docteur Gros, and I learn that no appearance of
poison was discovered in them nor any marks of external
A post-mortem examination of the bodies has been made
ing was evident,
violence; but that the usuil symptoms of death by drown-

pity.
The question naturally arises, how did Professor Gregy
come into this company ? What induced the well-educated
man, the polished gentleman, for such undoubtedly he was,
who during his whole life had enjoyed an irreproachable
reputation, who possessed connexions and friends in the
highest classes of society—what induced him to risk his
reputation by seeking persons with whom the wildest young
man of 20 would not like to be seen? M. Romberg, who
appeared for the prosecution, as well as Dr I)obbelin, a re-
lation of the deceased, are of opinion that Gregy visited the
widow Quinche and Marie Fischer out of mere kindness, in
order to perform some work of humanity. lam the last to
wish to lay blame on the deceased, yet I must confess that,
after considering various points, such as familiarly speaking
and drinking beer in the cellar, I come to the conclusion
that the deceased visited the cellar in a moment when he
forgot himself, with a purpose entirely different. I think
that to affirm that Gregy went to the place merely because
he wanted to do a work of humanity is almost the same as
to affirm that a man who in a dark night jumps from Lon-
don-bridge does so because he is thirsty and wants to drink.
However that may be, certain it is that Gregy went to the
dwelling of the prisoners, From the declaration of nume-
rous witnesses one collects the following :
The relation in which Marie Fischer stood to Louis Grothe
is one which is by no means uncommon among such people.
Grothe called himself the lover of the young woman, yet
suffered her to prostitute herself. He did more. He had re-
peatedly induced her to attract men, to decoy them into the
cellar, and at a fitting moment rob them of their money and
watches. When she was on her walks through the streets he
used to keep a little behind her and observe the men she met.
If these appeared to be persons having money about them
he would give a cough as a sign for her to take them home.
Oa the evening of the 17th April, in consequence of an
arrangement made by the deceased with the widow Quinche
exactly a week previous to this date, Gregy appeared in the
cellar. Grothe, Marie Fischer, and the widow Quinche were
there to receive him. Entering the largest of the apartments
he seated himself on a sofa between the t wo dissolute women
and bid the boy Hermann fetch something to eat and drink.
Gregy opened his portmonnale and gave the lad some money.
According to the declarations of Herrmann, which bear the
stamp of truth, Louis Grothe now left the room and sta-
tioned himself in the adjoining chamber, which was dark.
Here he ordered his brother to bring some schnaps. On
Hermann's return Louis Grothe asked," Has the gentleman
much moneyabout him?' " Yes,a great deal," was the reply.
" Weil, go into the street and play," added Louis Grothe,
and locked the door as soon as the boy had left. This wit.
ness also stated that there had been a talk between Louis
Grothe and Marie Fischer of taking away Gregy's watch.
Marie Fischer promised Louis Grothe to do so as soon as
the proper moment arrived. The wretches were now alone
with Oren'. To give an exact account of all that now
happened is impossible. One can go only by what the
defendants related themselves, and these not seldom con-
tradicted each other.
Marie Fischer states that after she and the widow Quinche
had been some time with Gregy in the sitting-room (if one
may call it so) the deceased rose from the sofa, and saying
that he had business to transact that evening was about to
leave. At this moment Louis Grothe rushed into the cham-
ber and struck Gregy on the chest with an instrument
called a spanring. (Grothe owns this himself.) A struggle
ensued. Stunned by the blows, Gregy fell b ick on one of
the beds, while Grothe, with a sort of axe, now levelled
blows at Gregy's head, as if he were chopping wood.
"Well, Louis, is he dead ?" asked the widow Quinche.
" Yes, mother." "Then it's well. If he rises we are be-
trayed."
That the wounds with the knife as well as the bruises on
the chest were made by Grothe is known. His mother, as
well as Mario Fischer, agreed in this, the only difference
in the evidence of these two persons being that the one
charged the other with having handed the chopping-knife
to Grothe. Marie Fischer's evidence is undoubtedly correct.
With regard to the wounding only one point remains to be
cleared—who dealt the stabs? This question it has been
impossible to answer.
Let us now sea in how far the two women were guilty of
having taken part in the murder. Marie Fischer herself
owned that she laid hold of Gregy. She adds that she did
so in order to assist deceased and• draw him away from
Grothe. 0 ther objections of more weight can also be brought
forward. When Marie Fischer was led to prison she for a long
time denied altogether being present on the occasion of the
murder. Why, if she was innocent—why, if she had only
assisted Gregy, did she not immediately own to having
been present ? Why did she not call for help ; or why, at
least, did she not the next day give notice of the deed to the
police ? And what did she mean by the words she said to
one Renter, "I have a deep secret with Grothe, and would
betray him, did I not fear to bring misfortune upon my-
self ?" Marie Fischer laid hold of Gregy, not to assist him,
i but to assist Louis Grothe.
The picture of the horrid deed, therefore, is :—Grothe,
out of the adjoining dark chamber, watches the three per-
sons. He sees Gregy rise. No more time is to be lost.
Grothe rushes into the room ; he attacks the deceased with
the spanring. Gregy, stunned, falls back upon the bed.
Grothe and Marie Fischer both being occupied with the
professor, Widow Quinche is the only one whose hands are
free, She hands the knife to her son. The deed is done.
In a moment the dark figures are'bending over their spoil.
The clothes are stripped off the bleeding body. Marie
Fischer takes the wedding ring from the corpse's finger, and
soon after makes a grim joke that " she is married now 1"
The last article of value is taken off, the corpse is shoved
under cne of the beds, and covered with a cloth, With an
energy inspired by the dreadful necessity of great haste, but
also with great coolness, Widow Quinche scrubbs the floor
and washes the wall. Her eye falls on one of the fingers
chopped off from Gregy's hand, She takes it up, and wrap-
ping it up, sticks it in her pocket. The room is again in
tolerable order. The murderers have only to get rid of the
body. The streets are all still, the corpse is shoved into a
sack, and transported by Marie Fischer and Louis Grothe
to the Spree. With shaking knees, trembling arms, beat-
ing bosoms, oppressed souls, and hasty side looks of fear,
they drop the burden into the water. The last act of the
night's drama is performed.
Mr. Meier, who appeared in defence of Grothe, drew the
attention of the Court to the two points—that Grothe had
taken spirits, and that he was irritated at the familiarity
which Gregy showed in his behaviour to Marie Fischer. I
need scarcely point out the weakness of these arguments.
That Grothe had not been drunk could be seen from the
wounds in Gregy's head ; a drunken man could never have
aimed so well, and struck so regularly ; that Grothe could
not have been jealous for a woman likeMarieFischer is clear.
Various circumstances, some of which I have already stated,
showed that Grothe intended to obtain money at all risks,
Before the day of the murder, or a day or two before it, he
must have taken considerable trouble to sharpen a blunt
and notched chopping-knife. The knife must have been
sharpened for the deed ; at least no other reason was men-
tioned. Whether Grothe had already selected Gregy for a
victim it is impossible to say with certainty. But that a
murder to be eommitted in case of resistance was on Grothe's
part premeditated beyond a doubt. The jury returned the
verdict of guilty. The Widow Quinche and Marie Fischer
bad been made acquainted with the plan formed by Grothe
of killing GI egy is not probable ; nevertheless, they were
_;uilty of having assisted Grothe in the performance of that
act of murder, Moreover, it has not been proved that their
participation was not an essential one.
' The sentence of death was pronounced upon all the three
6 prisoners.
ed

WEST INDIA ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACTS.—
By an order of her Majesty in Council, dated the Ist inst.,
the West Indian Encumbered Estates Acts are extended
to the colony of Antigua, in compliance with an address of
the local Legislature. Up to the present time six colonies
have availed themselves of the facilities afforded by these
acts—namely, Jamaica, St, Vincent, St, Kitt's Tobago, the
Virgin Islands, and Antigua,

TIMES.—A case resembling in many respects the
famous Douglas case of the last century was yester-
day decided in the Rolls Court, after an investiga-
tion occupying judge and jury for three successive
days, In was not, indeed, a question of the devolu-
tion of an estate large enough to be styled a Princi-
pality, nor did the contest, like its great forerunner,
involve the purity of blood of a family which bad
more than once usurped kingly power and kingly
function, if not the kingly name ; bat the fact to be
determined was of the same kind, and the contradic-
tion of improbabilities was almost as embarrassing.
A child which had for years been accepted as the issue
of a Lincolnshire gentleman and his wife, was de-
clared to have no claim to the title. The ease pre-
sented to the Court was that the supposed mother,
who has been dead for seven years, had deceived her
husband and her family by imposing upon them a
chid which was not her own ; but, unable to carry
her secret to the grave, she had confessed the fraud
to two or three persons, one of whom was her
father. The family of the wife had a direct pecu-
niary interest in negativing the legitimacy of the
child, and the natural improbability of a deceit,
which it was confessed would have been completely
successful but for the weakness of the wife, was
increased by the years which they had allowed to
elapse since her death without taking any measures
to obtain a judicial exposure of the fraud, The
evidence brought forward was, however, so strong
that the jury found it impossible to arrive at any
other conclusion than that the child was supposi-
tious. It seems that in May, 1851, a Mr. Gedney,
of Cendlesby-hall, in Lincolnshire, was married to
a Miss Smith, of the same county, but up to Feb-
ruary, 1854, there had been no issue of the marriage.
Miscarriages had indeed happened two or three
times, and in September, 1853, the lady had told
her husband and her friends that she was again
pregnant. In February, 1854, she was in ill health,
and went alone to London to consult a physician,
taking lodgings in Park-street, Grosvenoresquare,
but she had only been in the metropolis two or three
days when she wrote to her husband announcing
that she had been prematurely confined. He hur.
ried up to town by the next train, when his
wife presented him with a little fair-haired girl
as their daughter. A day or two afterwards a
cousin of his wife, who was a chemist and drug-
gist, warned him that a Mr Goss, the person
attending his wife, was a very improper charac-
tat to have about her, whereupon Mr Goss was
immediately dismissed, and Dr Farre was called in.
Dr Farre, relying mainly, it would seem, upon his
memoranda, declared at the trial he had no doubt
but that the lady had been confined, and the child
appeared to have been born only a few days when
he was summoned, and he treated the case without
any suspicion of fraud. There was no suggestion
that the husband had at this time or till long after
any reason to doubt that the child was his own, and
a female cousin of the lady declared that the mother
when living had always treated the baby with mo.
therly kindness. The mother on her recovery was
churched at the nearest church, and her brother was
one of the sponsors at the christening of the child.
So far it must be confessed the case for the legiti-
macy of the child was sufficiently strong. On the
other hand, it was clearly proved that the husband
and wife did not live happily together, and, indeed,
he had been guilty of conduct towards her which
comes under the legal definition of cruelty. In the
ill feeling between the husband and wife the family
of the latter discovered the motive for her fraud. A
desire to win back an alienated husband was, it
would seem from the evidence of one of her friends,
the reason which prompted her to carry out a de-
sign which was so nearly successful. She was,
however, evidently a weak impulsive woman, and
the statements she made, even in confession, do not
seem consistent with themselves, and are certainly
not altogether consistent with the truth. She told
her cousin, a clergyman, that she had been confined
in Feb., 1854, of a stillborn child, and she had there-
upon got a changeling to supply the place of the
deadsborn infant. The lady's-maid to whom she
confessed the deceit said nothing of any dead birth,
and a medical man, who examined her body after
death, declared she had never been confined at ell.
Dr Farre was positive that she must have been con-
fined two or three days before he was called in.
Ile further evidence of the deceit made it unneces-
sary to decide that point. The landlady of the
lodging-house in Park-street assisted in putting
Mrs Gedney to bed on the night of her alleged con-
finement, and observed no signs of pregnancy ;
Goss and his wife arrived a little later, the latter
concealing a bundle under her cloak, and after three
or. four hours, during which there was no noise or
symptom of excitement in the sick-room, the land-
lady was called in ; was told that Mrs. Gedney had
been confined, and a little female infant was pro-
duced which looked as if it had been born a week.
The monthly nurse who was summoned the same
night deposed that she saw enough to be satisfied
that the baby was not newly born. In fact, the
child was born on the 4th of February. On that
day a single woman named Lucy Fletcher was con-
fined in the York-road Lying-in Hospital of a
daughter, which she parted with a few days after
to a gentleman who promised that it should be
adopted by a lady. This child was a little fair blue-
eyed girl. She had never seen the baby or the
gentleman since, and was apparently ignorant even
of his name; but a nurse in the same hospital who
was a party to the transaction, knew him as a Dr.
Goss, and identified him with a Dr. GOES now living
in Pimlico, who was identified as the Dr.Goss who
attended Mrs. Gedney in Park-street. This iden-
tification was, perhaps, the weakest part of the
case, and @neither side called the very irregular
practitioner himself to prove or disprove his parti-
cipation in the fraud ; but the jury were satisfied
of his identity, and the case was then practically
complete. The confessions of the lady herself,
made in one instance, at least, when in a very
hysterical condition, might be open to suspicion,
[ but the evidence of the landlady and the nurse in
Parkestreet excluding the possibility of a regular
accouchement, coupled with the actual sale of an
infant a few hours before the supposed event to a
man, who, with his wife, were the sole witneses of
the alleged birth, precluded all doubt, and the jury
therefore arrived at the conclusion that the little
girl who has hitherto passed as Miss Gedney was
in reality the child of Lucy Fletcher. The
remarkable simplicity of the stratagem in the
Gedaey case is perhaps not so extraordinary as
the success which it so nearly achieved. If Mrs.
Gedney had been as firm as she was daring, it
seems probable that the deceit would never have
been discovered. Nurses and landlady might
have had their suspicions, but it would have
been almost impossible to have got at the truth
unless the man and his wife who were the active
agents in procuring the infant had turned traitors.
The actual mother was as ignorant of the fate of
her child as the child was of the existence of her
mother. It is indeed often said that there are negli-
gences in every conspiracy which expose them to
detection ; but the observation is made after an
analysis of the frauds which have been exposed,
while undetected deceit is left out of the account,
We believe that such impostures as that which has
been unravelled in the Rolls Court are rare in Eng-
lish society, bat the conviction is based on the
natural morality of the country rather than on the
fewness of the cases which are brought before our
notice.

HERALD.—The guests of the Guildhall banque
must have been very much astounded when Lord
Palmerston told them as his excuse for not " excit-
ing their interest, or telling them something un-
known to them," as had been the wont of previous
Prime Ministers—and he might have added of him-
self—upon such occasions, that everthing was per-
fectly quiet both at home and abroad, that affairs,
foreign and domestic, were decidedly satisfactory,
and consequently desperately dull. The readers of
modern novels do indeed get so habituated to sen-
sations that even a story with some harrowing in-
cident in every chapter now excites in them only a
languid interest. But political questions—the pros-
pects of peace or war, the prosperity or m'sfortunes
of neighbouring States, the perils which affect them,
and, still more, the difficulties they have themselves
to contend with—never become dull by use to Eng-
lishmen; and although the nation may have seen
for some years war and revolution around it, and
become habituated to commercial crises, it has too
deep an interest in them all to look upon them with
Indifference. Few Ministers who have excited the
interest of a Lord Mayor's guests have had such im-
portant themes upon which to speak as were offered
to Lord Palmerston on Wednesday evening. The
peace between Denmark and Germany has just
been concluded. A State which for centuries played
an important part in Europe, has been reduced
to absolute insignificance. On the other hand, a
territory containing a million of inhabitants, and
from its geographical position of the utmost im-
portance, is left without an owner, and Europe
waits with anxiety to know whether another is to
be added to the number of its sovereign states, or
Prussia is to be rewarded for the most brutal and
wanton war which ever she has waged, or which
Europe has ever known—the terms are convertible
--by obtaining a position which will give her the
command of the Baltic and assure her the ultimate
possession of Jutland. That is a question of some
interest, and if its present stage is satisfactory to
Lord Palmerston, who is certainly chiefly respon-
sible for bringing it to that stage, it assuredly is
not to Englishmen generally, or to any men who
have a regard for justice and honour. The Franco-
Italian convention, again, is exciting very great
interest throughout Europe, and may involve the
most serious disturbance of its peace. The condi-
tion of Italy is most critical ; she is on the verge of
financial ruin, and will probably be driven to sonic