The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-29 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Stn,—Permit me to make a few.remaiks on the re-
ply to my letter in your paper of December 19, and I
promise to intrude on your columns no further. The
flippancy and ill-breeding of your correspondent,slan-
guage, and his charge of " falsehood," " pestilent
heresy," &c., 1 pass by as the mere outpouring of sec-
tarian bile ; and, inasmuch as I do not feel called upon
to deny the validity of my own baptism, or to concede a
monopoly of that ordinance to any body of religionists,
I shall still take the liberty of using the term " Ana-
baptists," in describing the sect to which that designa.-
Lion belongs. I happen to know, that, during the•
nistry of the late Robert Hall at Bristol, certain respect-
able.
Dissenters, baptised in infancy, were thrust out et
his meeting house (but against his own Wisliet,) by his
flock, and were not permitted to remain during the cele-
bration by their bigoted fellow-seetariaaJ of we. it they
deemed to be the Holy Sacrament of the I/:rd's
Supper ! So much for " religious :diet t y." Your
correspondent bears testimony to my accuracy in one
point : I wish I could return the compliment. .It would
ill become me, to retort upon him the charge of false-
hood; but I will convince you that he is ignorant of
the subject upon which he volunteers to et-die-hien yon:.
So far from " the entire Church (Kirk) of Scoff:rid"
being opposed to Apostolical Succession, the most di.-
tinguished minister of that body in London, Mr. Com•
ming, has recently published a volume upon that very
subject, to prove that a quasi episcopal power remains
in their General Assembly ; and has publicly declared,
in the Christian Observer, that, unless he believed that
the sueLession remained in the Kirk, he would renounce
its communion. Moreover, by your correspondent's
leave, I will add, that, being well acquainted with the
elder divines of the Kirk, as well as of the Church, I
can add my testimony to Mr. Cumming's, that they all
take very high•ground on this point.
In taking leave of the subject, I cannot but express
the gratification which I feel at the good which such
opponents as your correspondent. are unwittingly confer-
ring upon the reformed Catholic Church in this country.
They have roused us to a sense of the value of our
well-nigh forgotten privileges. We had dwindled into
a mere Establishment—a sort of moral police to keep
order throughout the land. But destroy, if you will,
this establishment—the Church you cannot touch
" merses profundo, pulehrior cvenit," Throughout
England, (and I may add, America), there has' long
been a spring of true Church feeling, which bursts forth
the moment the surface is touched ; and it has been
touched in so many places, that the springs are now
becomes mighty rivers, and are swelling irresistibly.
May the divine head of the Church overrule all for good !
I am quite as much a friend to " civil and religious
liberty" as your corresimedent can be, who seems, how-
ever, desirous of keeping it all to hie-I'sdt. • Where
charges of " pestilent heresy," and simile 11-3wers of
theological rhetoric, arc so freely used, I always suspect
the writer to be a bigot at heart, and only not a perse-
cutor, from want of power.
I am, Sir, your obediont servant.
AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC.
Festival of St. Thomas, 1840.

THE POISONING CASE AT

HEYFORD.

(From the Northampton Afercury.)
The inquest closed on Tuesday.
The deceased, Martha West, purchased A stone of
flour of a baker named Shortland, residing at Floore,
the day before Heyford feast—the 17th of October.
It was taken to Heyford by Shortland's son, and was
by him tipped into a stone jar which was placed in a
recess on the staircase. It does not appear when any
portion of the flour was first used, but on the 6th of
November a pudding was made, of which the deceased
and her husband partook. Immediately after they
were both taken ill ; they sent for no doctor, but after
several days recovered. On Monday, the 16th of No-
vember, the eldest son, Isaac West, went to the house
to clean a clock ; on that day the mother made an-
other pudding., and after dinner all were taken ill with
extreme sickness. On the 18th a grand-daughter of
the deceased, having made and partaken of a small
pudding of the same flour, was taken ill, with precisely
the same symptoms. The child of a woman named Pin-
noels, who bad eaten part of the remainder, also fell ill..
Oa the '2lst Mrs. West died. On the 22. a a woman
named Charlotte Townsend came to assist in the manage-
ment of the house for the widower, and made some
broth, which she thickened with flour from the same
jar. The old man having eaten of the broth, was
again extremely sick. Still no suspicion seems to have
attached to the flour ; and on the 25th Charlotte
Townsend made some more broth, which she thickened
in the same way, and of which nine persons partook,
every one of whom suffered precisely as the others had
done. Some suspicion was now excited, and Mr.
Elston, the surgeon, of Bugbrook, was called in, who
confirmed them. Portions of the floor were analyzed
by Mr. Elston and Messrs. Greville, and were found
,to be strongly impregnated with arsenic. It was now
deemed requisite to institute an inquiry into the es•
cumstances, and, by the direction of G. Abbey, Esq.,
presencet
othf eb
o December.d);oof Martha
examination
stomachnwataiso disinterredtwo oaks distinctlyp l,lceo, n thea aad,
cstcht
The.
tained. The connection between the flour and the*
death of the deceased seemed now to be proved, but, -
the presence of the arsenic in the flour was still unac•
counted for. George West, a son of the deceased, and
the keeper of a general, shop in the same village, pur-
chased a pound of arsenic in August last. On Monday
week he had 14 ounces left ; the remainder he repre-
sented as having been sold. The next day, when the
constable made inquiry about the 14 ounces, West at
first said the constable had taken it away with him the
previous day, and afterwards that it must have been-
stolen during the night. He had been to Wee-
don on the Monday night, and on his return he was,
he said, taken very poorly, and in piPting up the shutter
he had fallen forward, and had broken the window.
Through the opening he presumed the drawer contain-
ing the arsenic to have been abstracted. Oa W &eines-
day, Superintendent Young found linsi in bed ill. Young
took him into custody, and under the mattrass disco-
vered a bottle of laudanum, which was missing from the
shop. At the close of the third day's inquest he was
brought to this town and kept in custody until Tuesday
last, when he was taken to Heyford, and the inquiry
was resumed. It appeared from the evidence of Mrs.
Blackwell, one of the daughters of deceased, that on
the Sunday following the death of Martha West, George
was asked to stay and dine at the house. He said he
would, and proposed to go and order some flour of a
person named Claridge. Mrs. Blackwell then reminded
him that there was flour in the house, upon which he
begged her not to use that flour, his,mother was so set
against it that he should never forgive himself if any-
thing happened to them. He told her she had better
give it to the pigs. Ultimately, at the close of an in-
quiry which lasted till between twelve and one, the
, jury returned a verdict of " Wilful Murder" against
George West.