The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-08 00:00:00

The Wolverhampton and Dudley Mysteries.

Yesterday a further attempt was made to throw some
light upon the deaths of two persons, which occurred under
extraordinary circumstances at Wolverhampton and'Dudley
respectively. It will be remembered that the woman who
was found a worm-eaten corpse in an empty house at Dudley,
and who was supposed to be the woman who lived with the
deceased man Cheenery as his wife, and who was the last
person seen in the house where his murdered body was
found, was, after the coroner's inquest, buried without any
post-mortem examination having been made of her body.
Capt. Segrave, the chief constable of Wolverhampton, and
Mr. T. M. Phillips, the coroner for that borough, both de-
sired that she might be exhumed, and they applied to Mr.
Robinson, the coroner for Dudley, to issue his order for the
exhumation. That gentleman, however, having completed
the inquest, could not comply with the request.
At the inquest on the body of Cheenery, which was
further adjourned last week, the evidence still left a
doubt on Mr. Phillips's mind that the woman found at
Dudley was the woman Steadman, who must undoubtedly
have had a hand in the murder of her paramour. That
gentleman therefore made an application to the Secretary of
State for the Home Department for his order to exhume the
body and to submit it to a post-mortem examination. That
order was received yesterday, and witnesses were sent over
to Dudley from Wolverhampton, including the mother of
Cheenery, to endeavour to speak to the body being that of
Steadman or not; and surgeons also went over to make the
post-mortem examination. When the Van was opened
identification from the features was utterly impossible, but
the height and build of the corpse were quite those which
characterised Steadman. The identification of the clothes,
was however, complete, most of the garments which were
upon the woman when she was found, and in which she was
interred, being sworn to as those which Steadman had been
accustomed to wear. The surgeons, who were Moor'
Nesbit and Mr. Keogh, the latter the senior house slug!:
of the South Staffordshire Hospital at Wolverhser
thtf)
then commenced their examination. This was dene. was
charnel-house of the Dudley Cemetery, and theinil
Dudley.
being proceeded with when our correspondent left

The Drought and Heat of the Season.

so hot a'summer on the
For many years there has:nasot been
inst
ended ; and both there
Continent as that which
di:Tight has been very great. It
and in this country Lbetia error had been committed in the
almost looks as if a "': a site for a barrack town ; for, the
selection of Aldershot
oo.reat this summer as to compel the
drought has been a•
„th plßace altogether from want of water. In
troops to quit eiiiity no such drought and heat have been
Paris and its vl°
suffered for
many years as during the past summer, In-
deed, as regards heat. during the last 158 years it has pro-
bably only once been warmer than it lately was on certain
days. The thermometer last month reached 39 degrees
i 62 degrees Fahrenheit) in the shade, which implies
something like the scorching heat of 65 degrees in the sunl
In Paris it is very rare for the thermometer to rise above I
36 degrees in the shade. The river Seine fell to the level of
the great drought of 1719, which forms the zero line of the
metrical ladder on the Pont Royal for measuring the depth
of the river. This is only the second time of such an occur-
rence for nearly 150 years, and the first since the year before
the ()rand of 1811. The waters of the. Loire, too, have never
been known to be so low as in the season just past. This
great river, which has so often ravaged the country for
leagues by its excesses, was lately crossed* where it meets
the Nievre and Cher, both on foot and in carriages without
either difficulty or danger. The drought and heat in Aus-
tria have been extrer4se ; as also in Italy, especially at Rome.
In Germany, too, water became both scarce and dear. The
drought at Aix la Chapelle was such that water sold at 15
groschen, or ls. 6d. a barrel. Some few pears ago there
t
was a considerable drought for sucinssive seasons, n
but
to so great
it an extent, it wow' the p
fears th ~ay be remembered, there _
resent year.
At that
—u seem, as
in
were serious
...ab the rainfall was permanently
_,
diminish
then, however, there have been very wet seasons which
have tended greatly
to restcre
the average
recurrence of the like
verage ; and doubtless
sooner or later we may look outfor
compensatory process.—Bur.