The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-17 00:00:00

THE LATE TRAGICAL AFFAIR

NEAR PRESTON.

An inquest was held last week, at Inglewhite, about eigh
miles from Preston, on the body of the woman, named San
Berson, who poisoned herself, and on the bodies of her five
children who were poisoned by her by means of a quantity of
arsenic mixed in a flour pudding. The particulars connected
with this tragical event have already appeared in The Sun.
The Jury, after an inquiry, which lasted from eleven o'clock in
the morning to half-past eight in the evening, returned the
following verdict :—" As to Anne Sanderson, lunacy ; and as
to the children, that 'Anne Sanderson, the mother, being an
insane person, did mix the arsenic in the pudding, and that the
children, not knowing of the poison, swallowed the puddtng
and arsenic, and were poisoned thereby."
The principal points in the evidence, as well as some inte-
resting particulars relative to the unhappy woman will be
gathered from the following account, which we abridge from
the Preston Pilot :
" Those of our readers who perused the brief account of the
painful transaction, as given in our last, would learn from it
that Edward Sanderson, the husband of Ann Sanderson and
father of the deceased children, is in the humble situation
of a day labourer ; lowly, however, as his situation in life may
appear in the view of some, the reader will find from the evi-
dence at the inquest, and especially from the testimony of
the Rev. T. Bonn, the minister of White Chapel, that his
character for honesty and integrity, and parental and congugal
affection, is without reproach. His deceased wife, we under-
stand, was born in a rural district a few miles north of Lan-
caster, of parents rather above the working class, and when
at school was always considered a girl- of somewhat su-
perior intelligence, but excessively fond of indulging in
fancies of greatness and self-importance far beyond any
scale that the probable events of her life would ever enable
her to attain. After leaving school she took a situation in the
Station Hotel, at Bowness, then kept by Mr. Lad) man, and
she subsequently became a domestic at Quernmore-park, near
Lancaster, the residence of the late Charles Gibson, Esq., and
from the latter place she was married to Edward Sanderson.
After this union, and during the lifetime of her mother, from
whom she was in the habit of receiving admittances of money,
it seems that she contrived to maintain a character of rather
higher standing than that which is generally possessed b;, the
wives of labouring men. This passion, however, for supe-
riority of appearance over those around her was destined to
receive a severe check in the death of her mother, and happy
had it Leen it she had improved it to make it a salutary one,
in being taught by it to restrain her habits of inconsiderate ex-
travagance, and to have thenceforth depended on the more re-
stricted resources which her husband and herself were enabled
to obtain iu the station of life in which they moved. But she did
not so improve the event, for it seems that she adopted, instead,
a system of cunning and contrivance from which she ex-
pected to he still enabled to assume a character of importance
in the neighbourhood". These resources, then, which she
had been in the habit of receiving from her mother, having
been stopped, she next persuaded herself, or perhaps we should
say, made it her endeavour to persuade others, that she was
entitled to property of considerable amount, left to her by a
relative, which she was to receive in London, and by this arti-
fice she succeeded in obtaining the loans of sums of money
from numerous credulous persons. In one of her imaginings,
at least so report says, she made her appearance at Kirkland
Hall, and detailed a fabricated account of having been directed
by some supernatural agency to apply to Mr. Butler Cole for
the loan of 100/., for which she was prepared to give the most
undeniable security. Of course the attempt failed ; but with
persons of less sagacity her statements had too often the desired
effect. Truth requires it to be made known, that her house
was kept at all times distinguished for order and cleanliness,
and her children for neatness in their appearance, and in
gentility of manners, much beyond their play-fellows, the
children of the other farm labourers in their neighbourhood.
The arsenic, it will be seen, was purchased at Garstang, about
two months ago, and as it was not used for so long a period,
the providing it seems to have been an act of a very painfully
deliberate character. With respect to the assertion of the wo-
man, that she used a part of the poison on the Wednesday, it
is quite unsupported by any other testimony. She does not
seem to have made any complaints of its effects upon herself,
neither did any of the five children appear to have portaken
of any poisoned food before Thursday. The Rev. Mr. Bonn
speaks to a conversation he had with her in March last, when
she stated that she had before that time determined upon de-
stroying herself and two children, but had been deterred
from doing so by a warning given to her in a dream ; well had
it been if this admonition had continued to be regarded with
the attention she then gave it. We may properly mention
here, that there is little doubt entertained that the horrifying
project of destruction included a greater sacrifice of life than
was actually made. Her husband was confidently expected
to have been at his own house on that day at dinner, but was
most providentially kept, by the state of the weather, at the
farm-house where he was working. But even the addition of
his life did not comprise the appalling catalogue of contem-
plated victims—a young woman residing near had been in-
vited to the feast of death, but she also was unavoidably kept
away, and thus mercifully preserved from a premature grave.
With respect to the quantity of poison mixed with the pudding
there would be little danger in affirming that the whole of
the two ounces purchased had been used. No remains of
any were found in the house afterwards ; and the medical
gentlemen, in their examinations and tests, found it so
palpably present, as to leave no doubt on their minds of
the quantity having been great. On the day on which the
inquest was held, and the post mortem examinations of the
bodies made, the quiet village of Inglewhite was an unvaried
scene of crowded animation and bustle. On this, as on all
such distressing occasions, the number of persons who flocked
to get a sight of the shocking spectacle was very great indeed;
and on the following day, Sunday, when the interment of the
mother and children took place at Goosnargh Church, the
quantity of persons in attendance almost exceeds the power of
belief—it being ascertained by a moderate computation that
there were from 2,000 to 3,000 present. The mournful pro..
cession was rendered most seriously imposing by the judicious
regulations that had been adopted. The coffin of the mother,
covered with a black pall, was borne first; and then followed
those of the poor slaughtered innocents, covered with white
sheets, in the precedency of their respective years. The last
resting place of the mother and five children was one large
grave, eight feet wide, six feet long, and five feet deep, the
coffins being placed alongside of eachother.

FATAL OCCURRENCE IN ST. PANCRAS-ROAD
On Thursday a very lengthened inquiry took place, at the
Two Brewers, St. Pancras-road, before Mr. Stirling and a
moat respectable Jury, on view of the body of James Wooley,
Esq., aged 39, a stock-broker of high respectability, who was
killed under circumstances of a most appalling and lamentable
nature. The Jury having been sworn, viewed the body of the
deceased gentleman, which lay at the above house. A more
appalling spectacle the imagination cannot conceive--the head
of the unfortunate man was literally cleft asunder, and exhi-
bited a most heart-rending sight to all present. Edward
Withen, of No. 8, Little Randolph-street, Camden-town, dc,
posed that about ten o'clock on Wednesday evening ho ayes
passing near the Old Church, in the St. Pancras-road, when
he heard the voice of a person in a chaise, which was driving
at a furious rate, call out " Steady, steady." Only one gen-
tleman was in the chaise. The horse appeared to iiitness to
be quite unmanageable. On the chaise approaching the turn-
pike.gate in the road, witness observed the near wheel come
in violent contact with Vle post of the gate, and the gentle-
man was instantly pitched cut, falling on his head against the
post, and then fell to the ground. The horse and chaise after
passing through the gate fell. Witneas ran to the gentleman,
who was lying on the ground, and was horror-struck at ilia-
covering that his head was dashed to pieces, his brains being
scattered around in every direction. Af;aistance was imme.
diately obtained, and the body of the deceased was renteved to
the above house. Thomas 'Reynolds, the Vail keeper, and
others, were examined, but their evidf!noa merely went to prove
the rapid rate the horse Wil,q g‘oia,gat at the time of the catas-
trophe. Yerdiet,,-Aceitiontal Death.
ErFICIENCY OP TIE
sicn of the business of the Greirad .jury at the late Surre-
Sessions, the scives3,il the QouNt, and saiel..:nat
10): blo i)Fe:,;4 their eLtire up_
probation of the F.e.al and activi:: eiaplaied by the Metropoli-
tan police in the 7,l.l,i\ri:LelisiGli ofF,•!.ders, and also with the
means, in which diffurent policemen examined bad given
Ehir eViSence.

AN AN,U',IITOAN JURY'S, 'METHOD n RETURN-
- A VERDICT.—It i 3 tile practice almost all over our
try. for tl:c jury to chalk., that is, every- man chalks doll,' 9n
Cle wall Lis vote, one man 10!., a at:ther 20. k., another col.,
and anotherbl., and so on, and then they a,.:(1 them all ty and
divide by 12, and that makes the yardict.—Sum