The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-17 00:00:00

MURDER IN WOLVERHAMPTON.

In Bilston-street, Wolverhampton, there is a
wide court known as No. 4 Court, or the " bar-
racks," in which are about eight houses on either
side tenanted at 2s. 3d. a week. In one of these
there came to live some five weeks since a young
man and woman, who seemed to obtain a liveli-
hood by making and vending skewers of iron wire.
The woman appeared to be most active in the
calling, but she never made herself very sociable
with her neighbours, and was observed to be very
careful, when she desired only to go to the other
end of the court, to lock her door. On the evening
of Monday, now nearly a month ago, the woman
locked the house door, and told a next door neigh.
bour that she was going out, and if any one called
they were to be told that she was gone into the
country. A few days after her departure a re-
spectable-looking woman came from Willenhall, a
neighbouring township, and inquired for Mr. Wil-
liamson, her son, who was alleged to be the tenant
of the house, and who had passed fOr the husband
of the woman referred to. The message left by the
woman was delivered, and old Mrs. Williamaon's
desired that her son should be told to write to his
mother, as she wished to hear from him. Whether
or not the woman who made the inquiries was the
person she alleged herself to be has not yet tran-
spired. Since that time the shutters of the front
room of the house on the ground floor remained
closed, and the window of the front room upstairs
has been darkened by a thin muslin curtain and a
coarse petticoat. Very offensive odours have for
several days past annoyed the tenants right and
left of the closed house—bat this was in each cese
attributed to some local cause in the respective
houses arising oat of domestic arrangements, and
little suspicion seems to have been excited that the
cause was in the house which lay between the 'two
in which the annoyance was most experienced. The
landlord called for his rent, but notwithstanding
the long absence of his tenants did not take steps
to enter the house, believing from the appearance
of the woman (to whom, and not the man,
he let the house) that his tenants were
respectable people for their sphere, and that
they would be home after harvest time. Yesterday
morning, however, the neighbour with whom the
message had been delivered by the woman tenant
became uncomfortably inquisitive, and expressing
a wish to a neighbour named Mary Lee that she
should like to know what furniture was left in the
house, Lee procured a key and opened the door.
On entering, a strong stench seemed stirred by the
air. Accompanied by a neighbour, another woman
named Smith, she went upstairs. There the stench
became so strong that she exclaimed, " There is
some one dead in this house." Proceeding a step or
two further, she saw in the front room that which
made her call out, " Good God! come and see what-
ever it is." Mrs. Smith ran up stairs, but to do so
it required groat moral courage on her part, so ex-
ceedingly offensive was the effluvium. On the floor
of the room lay a mattress, and upon it there was
stretched, covered over with a sheet and coverlet,
what was evidently the corpse of an adult human
being. Mrs. Lees, approaching to the foot of the
bed, pulled off with some difficulty the quilt and
sheet, for a portion of them was wrapped round and
tucked under the head of the corpse. When the
coverlet was drawn off, a scene indescribably repul-
sive lay before the searchers. On the mattress lay
the blackened and decomposed body of a man
literally swarming with and partially eaten by
maggots. The body was blackened, not with decay
alone, and the sheets and mattress was discoloured,
not simply by the progress of decomposition, but by
what appeared to be hot gas tar poured upon it
during life. With this, upon the sheets, upon the
mattress, and upon the floor around, blood was in-
termixed, and it was also found apart from the tar.
One eye had been gouged out, and it lay upon the
cheek, only slightly connected with its former posi-
tion. The nose was broken, the jaw was supposed
to be broken, one lip was cut, a thumb was broken,
and there seemed to be an incised wound on the
thigh and upon another portion of the body near to
that limb. The murdered man wore, as he lay in bed,
only a shirt and waistcoat; and there is no doubt
that some hand must have tended him after he was
unable to do anything for himself. This is clear
from the manner in which his head was covered
with the bedclothes. These were fastened over the
face, tight enough to secure suffocation if death had
not previously taken place. To remove this cover-
ing so much force had to be applied by the woman
Lee that when the coverlet came off the face and
head, the hair of the corpse came away with it; and
its colour convinced the woman that the deceased
was the young man Williamson, who had passed
for the husband of the woman who lived with him,
but who left the house on the occasion and under
circumstances already described, and who had not
since been seen.

At the inquest which was held before the inquiry
commenced a woman present volunteered a state-
ment to the effect, that some time since she had
known the deceased by the name of Bill, and she
now remembered the name to be William Williams.
She was able to identify him by his trouseas, which
on one occasion she had mended. His mother lived
at Portobello, a small town near Wolverhampton.
A letter addressed to him had once been left at her
house, and she had known him when he lived in
Birmingham. He was not married, but he lived
with a woman known by the name of Rose. This
woman she had not seen for more than three weeks,
" but," she added, " she knows all about it. She is
a bad, good-for-nothing."
Mary Lee, the woman who first found the body,
was examined and said—l last saw Williams alive
on Monday three weeks at the bottom of the court,
and he then appeared to be in good haalth. On the
evening of the same day I saw a woman with whom
he lived go to the tap at the back of the building
for some water. After filling her kettle she returned
to the house, and I have not seen her since. The
witness then stated what the woman had said before
going to the country, and the manner in which the
body had been discovered.
Other evidence in corroboration of the above
statement having been given, the inquiry was ad-
journed until the last day of this month. Dr.
Gibbons, the surgeon, in the meantime, was in-
structed to make a careful post-mortem examination
of the body.

NEW HOPS.—The first pocket of new hops of the
growth of 1863, arrived in the Borough on Saturday morn-
ing, from Mr. Thos. Manwaring, Brenchley, consigned to
William Austen and Co. It was sold to Messrs. R. and
T. Collis, and by them resold to Messrs. H. Boddington
and Co., brewers, Manchester. They were fine in colour,
healthy. and well managed, and known as the Early
Brenchley Prolifics.

HIGHLAND ROADS.

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Among the papers presented to Parliament before
it rose is one that reads like a chapter of Scottish
history. It is the final report of the Commissioners
of,Highland Roads and Bridges, and reviews a period
of more than a century. Years before " the 1745"
the Government had found it necessary to construct
military roads in the Highlands for the movement
of the forces; but the rebellion having shown the
danger arising from fastnesses inaccessible to troops,
a more extensive system of communication was
undertaken, and at length no less than 800 miles of
military roads were completed, chiefly by military
labour. From the object being the military occu-
pation of a mountainous eountry, many were found
of little use for general commanication, and in more
settled times were abandoned; but 600 miles con-
tinued to be maintained for meny years at the
public expense for the traffic of the districts through
which they passed. At the commencement of the
present century the Highlands were at peace; but
in civilisation and industry these remote mountain
districts were at least 50 years behind the Low-
lands of Scotland and all parts of England. A
general scheme of roadmaking was not to be ex-
pected from the unaided efforts of local proprietors.
They were as yet unaccustomed to association for
public objects ; their moors and waste lands yielded
a scanty income ; and many were jealous of the in-
vasion of their fastnesses by the outer world. In
1803 Parliament determined to encourage local
enterprise, by contributing half the expense of
forming new lines of road; and to superintend the
work this commission was appointed, under the
presidency cf Mr. Speaker Abbot. Comprising Mini-
sters of the Crown, and eminent members of both
Houses connected with the Highlands, the Board
secured the confidence of Parliament and the good-
will of local proprietors; and in less than 20 years
875 miles of Parliamentary roads, planned by Mr.
Telford, were completed at an expense of £454,180,
of which £152,390 were granted by Parliament.
In 1814, Parliament reviewed the position of
the military roads, relinquished the maintenance
of more than half of them as unsuitable for traffic,
and transferred the remaining 255 to the charge of
the commissioners, to be maintained by tolls and
assessments, aided by a small Parliamentary grant.
From this period 1,194 miles of road were under the
superintendence of the Board ; and in 1819 the
grant was fixed at £5,000 a year, charged upon the
Consolidated Fund, to meet assessments and tolls
amounting to about £7,500 a year. The manage-
ment was economical, and various counties under-
took a large extension of independent roads com-
municating with the principal trunk lines of the
Parliamentary roads. But in 1854 the grant,
which in 1833 had been renewed for 31 years, was
transferred with many similar charges from the
Consolidated Fund to the annual estimates. In
this position it was soon objected to as a public
grant for a local object; and last year it was
suddenly extinguished by an adverse vote in Com-
mittee of Supply. The Board, therefore, have had
nothing left but to deliver over the 1,195 miles of
road to the several local authorities, and the har-
bours to the proprietors of the adjacent lands, to
submit to the Treasury the claims of the inspectors,
and to present to Pariiament, under the hand of
their secretary, Mr. T. Erskine May, this account
of their work and its results. Reviewing the whole,
they represent that they have watched the improve-
ment of the country with the deepest interest. They
" found it barren and uncultivated, inhabited by
heritors without capital or enterprise, and by a poor
and ill-employed peasantry, and destitute of trade,
shipping, and manufactures. They leave it with
wealthy proprietors, a profitable agriculture, a
thriving population, and active industry ; furnish-
ing now its fair proportion of taxes to the national
exchequer, helping by its improved agriculture to
meet the ever-increasing wants of the populous
south, and contributing largely to the general pros-
perity of the country."

COUNTRY MARKETS.

5,3..,

GRANTHAM—SATURDAY.
New white wheat, 49s to 54s ; red, 45s to 49s per 36st. ;
malting barley, —s to —s per qr ; grinding, 29s to 32s ;
oats, 24s to 26s ; beans, 38s to 40s ; peas, 375 to 395.

NORWICH—SATURDAY.
There was a fair supply of wheat at market to-day, and
consisted principally of the new crop.
White wheat. 46s to 499 Red wheat 43s to 48s
Malting barley ...38s to 40s I Chevalier barley 36s to 379
Distilling do 33s to 35s I Oats.. 249 to 28a
Flour, 32s 6d to 33s Od per sack from the miller.