The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-25 00:00:00

THE MURDER AND SUICIDE AT BA.TII.

The following full particulars of the tragedy at Bath
have reached us. The scene of the melancholy affair was
No 1, Spencer's Bellevue, Bath—a house which for
some little time past has been occupied by a
person named Prankard as a collegiate school
for junior boys. It appeared that some little time ago
Mr. Prankard lost his wife, which greatly affected
him, and it is currently stated that in consequence he had
greatly given way to intemperate habits. On Monday he
appears to have reached the climax of his mental depres-
sion. Miss Minnie Prankard, one of the daughters of
Mr. Prankard, was about to leave home for a situation
on the Continent ; the packing incidental to the removal
was being proceeded with on Monday, and in the course
of the afternoon the servant overheard some high words
between Mr. Prankard and this daughter in the school-
room, a younger daughter being also present. The sub-
ject of the quarrel was the young lady's journey, to which
her father strongly objected. About three o'clock in the
afternoon the unfortunate man went into the schoolroom,
in which were his two daughters, with a revolver concealed
under a pocket-handkerchief which he carried in his hand,
and instantly fired twice at his elder daughter a hand-
some young lady of 21 years of age, striking 'her in the
right ear with one bullet, and in the left temple with the
other, and causing her instantaneous death. He then
seems to have turned round on his younger daughter,
and also fired two shots at her, wounding her
in such a dreadful manner that she was left by
him for dead. Having satisfied himself that
his deadly work was done, he immediately locked
the door on them and rushed upstairs to his own bedroom,
where, after securely bolting himself in, he destroyed him-
self by a dose of prussic acid. Shortly af: er being left the
youngest daughter recovered her consciousness, and
gathering up her strength as well as she could, hastened
to the window, which overlooked the garden, and by
means of the roofs of some outhouses succeeded in
getting from the parlour floor into the erden, and thence
into the adjoining house, which is occupied by the Rev. J.
H. Way, minister of Christ Church, Montpelier. The poor
girl left sad traces of the way by which she made her
escape, the window frame, window sill, and the roofs of
the outhouses being covered with blood. The room in
which the tragic scene occurred presented a fearful spec-
tacle, the long school desk on which the younger girl had
fallen being literally- surrounded with blood. On reaching
, the next house she was instantly. attended to, and medi-
cal assistance was promptly obtained ; but she was so ex-
hausted by loss of blood as to be unable to give any leng-
thened account of the transaction. The house where the
tragedy occurred was at once taken possession of by the
police, who were unable, however, for a long time to find
the revolver h which
body of the murd
father the erous work had
been d wit
th e
one. On
found over £5 in cash, but he seems to have
left no statement as to the cause of his rash act. An
inquest was held on the bodies on Tuesday evening, when
the above facts were deposed to, and the younger girl,
though not well enough to be present, was enabled to
make a statement to the medical attendant, Mr. Mason.
The verdict of the jury was that the deceased man had
committed the murder while in a temporary state of
A later dispatch says that a third daughter is
insanity.
missing.

It is reported at Constantinople that immediately
after the outbreak of the Sultan offered to conclude an
offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor
Napoleon, but the proposal was declined.—Eastern
Budget.
The Church Herald expresses much satisfaction
that Bishop Harris, of Gibraltar, has refused in any way
to help a party of Spaniards who wished to leave the
Church of Rome and become Anglicans. The .Record
deplores the circumstance.
There is reason to believe that a compromise will
shortly be effected between the Austrian Government
and the opponents of the new Constitution. A conference
with this object has been held between the President of
the Vienna Ministry and the leaders of the opposition in
Bohemia, Moravia, S tyria, and the Tyrol.—Eastern
Budget.

On Tuesday, at Leeds, four persons were summoned
before the magistrates for refusing to have their children
vaccinated. One of the defendants, a chemist, named
Toulson, was summoned for the thirteenth time. All
the defendants were ordered to comply with the Act, and
to pay costs.

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.—Last week the rate o
mortality in London and nineteen other large towns in
the United Kingdom was 27 in every thousand of the
population. It varied from 17 in Portsmouth to 41 in
Bradford and Liverpool. In the metropolis, 2,112
births and 1398 deaths were registered, the former
having been 31 above and the latter 103 below the
estimated number. Zyrriotic diseases caused 538
deaths, includiny 10 from small-pox, 15 from measles, 126
from scarlet fever, 2 from diphtheria, 9 from croup, 17
from whooping cough, 7 from typhus, 31 from enteric (or
typhoid) fever, 12 from simple continued fever, 5 from
erysipelas, and 248 from diarrhoea. Thirty-eight deaths
resulted from violence, and four fatal accidents caused by
horses or vehicles in the streets were returned. The mean
temperature during the week was 609 or 0.3 below the
average
At the half-yearly meeting of the Submarine Tele-
graph Company on Tuesday, the chairman, Sir J. Car-
michael, said that there had been an increase on the
working of the company's own Belgian and French lines
of 15 per cent. He congratulated the shareholders upon
the completion of the new Havre cable. It was one of the
finest heavy cables ever made in this country, and the
landing-places for the shore ends had been selected
with the greatest care, so as not to be interfered with by
anchorage. There were six wires in this cable, and this
work now completed all the company had undertaken.
Sir J. Carmichael added that he was sorry to say that
there had been some well-founded complaints as to delays
in the transmission of messages, but the cause did not
rest with the company. ll the best clerks on the
other side had been draughted off to take part in the
gigantic war, and the great want was effi-
cient French clerks to transmit the messages.
He said that the company had thirty-two wires to the
Continent, exclusive of the Channel Islands wire and the
Brest wire, used for the transmission of American mes-
sages. With the new Government wires there were
twelve more, making forty-four wires, besides those he
bad mentioned. The report was adopted.