The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-14 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE-(TIIIS DAY.

COURT OF CHANCERY.
(Before the Lord Chancellor.)
His Lordship was this morning occupied with lunatic
petitions, but no case of importance occurred. His
lordship will to-morrow sit in appeal, with the Lord
Justices.

The other courts were occupied with unimportant
motions.

MARLBOROUGH-ST.REPT-(THIS DAY,

IMPUDENT ROBBERY.—Jane Wigmore was brought
before Mr. Hardwick, charged with having stolen 26
yards of cotton print, value 14s. 6d:, the property of Mr.
Edward Lawson, draper, 119, Oxford-street.
Thorne, 39 D, stated that about five o'clock yesterday
afternoon he was on duty in Oxford-street, when he saw
the prisoner go into Mr. Lawson's shop, and having hie
suspicions he watched her. In about a minute after-
wards she came out in a hurry, with something bulky
underneath her shawl. He followed her and stopped
her, and asked her what she had gOt under her shawl.
She replied a dress, but refused to tell him how she came
by it. He then took her back to the shop, when Mr.
Lawson identified the property produced as having been
stolen from his shop.
The prisoner, who admitted her guilt, was committed
for trial.

AWFULLY SUDDENDEATH.-BROKEN HEART.

Mr. Bedford, the Coroner, held an inquest yesterday
at the Royal Standard, Vauxhall-bridge-road, Pimlico,
touching the death of Rebecca Baker, aged 51, residing
at No. 7, Eaton-lane, Victoria-road, in the same locality
which occurred in the following awful manner. On re-
turning from viewing the body, both the coroner and the
medical officer described the place as in a most awfully
filthy condition, almost equal to anything in the worst
part of Westminster. It appeared that the deceased was
the widow of a late recruiting sergeant, and had lived
for some tine on the best of terms with a milkman
named Morrell, passing as his wife, who had been laid
up for a considerable period, suffering from dangerous
inflammatory disease, and was attended by Mr. Beckett,
surgeon, of 12, Shaftesbury-terrace. On Saturday
night last deceased was ironing, Morrell being in bed
with his illness. The conversation was about his ulti-
mate recovery, when he told her he did not think he
should ever get over it; just at the moment, whilst these
words were being pronounced, she was hanging the smooth-
ing iron on a nail in the wall, her arm being at its full
stretch above her head, and her face turned on Morrell,
when she instantly quivered and dropped down lifeless
on the floor. Medical assistance was immediately pro-
cured, but the vital spark had become extinct. On a
post-mortem examination of the body being made by Mr.
Beckett, a large transverse rupture was found in the
heart—a most unusual circumstance—and between six
and seven ounces of serous blood was found in the peri-
cardium. There were also two large clots of blood,
weighing seven ounces, found in one of the membranes
of the aorta. The rupture of the heart was the cause of
death, and that was produced by the position of the body
at the time, the strong mental emotion suddenly acting
on the deceased. Morrell has since been removed by
Mr. Beckett to the hospital. A paper which had been
found, carefully folded up in one of her dresses, bearing
the mysterious words, " Liq. Potass. one pennyworth,"
has caused a great excitement in the neighbourhood of
the lane, occupied as it is by a large number of the lower
class of the population, who have been driven there
by the late clearances for the Westminster improve-
ments. It was consequently believed that thd de-
ceased had committed suicide, but Mr. Beckett said that
the words only meant two drachms for a prescription for
Morrell.

The Coroner said that this was just one of those cases
which he did not like to leave as a blind case, and which,
for the satisfaction of the public, ought to be thoroughly
sifted. He was no great advocate for troubling a jury
unnecessarily at any time, but things of this kind gave
rise so often to many strange and groundless conjectures,
and this was just the case which ought to be strictly
investigated, and he hoped the result of the inquiry
would quiet the public mind of the neighbourhood,
which was sometimes fanned into a flame for nothing
at all ; besides it acted as a check on the evil dis-
posed, by showing them that their wickedness would
not escape detection. Under these circumstances he
hoped the jury did not mind the trouble and loss of time,
for without it no one would be safe.

A verdict of " Natural death from Juptum of aorta'
was then returned.