The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-08 00:00:00

rnE SUN,7 LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 8, 1860

subject, expressed a very strong opinion against
the scheme before the Chief Commissioner of Pub-
lic Works, on account of danger to the public, and
obstruction of traffic. The directors state that they
have, therefore, seen with surprise the favourable
reception given to the project of Mr. Train to lay
down an experimental line in Oxford-street, of
much greater extent than that formerly proposed
by the London General Omnibus Company in the
New-road. They, therefore, relied upon the jus-
tice of the vestry not to injure their commercial
enterprise by granting to another party the privi-
lege which had been refused to them, especially
after the expense they had been put to. The di-
rectors were in a position to enter upon the work
as soon as the required sanction should be granted
to them. They, therefore, requested the board to
defer their decision on the plan of Mr. Train until
the directors of the London General Omnibus Com-
pany had an opportunity of submitting their plans,
and trusted that some consideration would be ex-
tended to them as the first promoters of street
railways.
A letter was also read from the West Middlesex
Water Company, inquiring if the vestry had consi-
dered what damage was likely to accrue, or how
the company were to get at water mains requiring
repairs in the line of route of the proposed street
railways.
The CHAIRMAN said that a deputation from the
London General Omnibus Company, consisting of
Messrs. Law, Armani, and M'Namara, directors ;
Mr. Wilkinson, solicitor, and Mr. Church, secre-
tary, were in attendance.
The deputation were admitted, and having made
a statement as to their claims, embodying those
contained in their letter, and answered a number
of questions,
Mr. HODGES moved the adoption of the report.
Mt. GRIFFITHS seconded the adoption of the re-
port.
Mr. FILMER moved an amendment'to the effect,
" That this board does not consider it expedient at
present to give permission for a line of street rail-
way to be laid down on the proposed route, and
that the further consideration of the matter be
postponed until after the opening of the projected
railway in Victoria-street, Westminster."
Mr. HUTCHEONS seconded the amendment.
Mr. WINGFIELD supported the amendment, be-
cause he thought improvements upon Mr. Train's
plan might be brought forward.
After long discussion, the question was put, and
the amendment negatived. On which
Mr. HERRING moved, and Mr. WINGFIELD
seconded a further amendment—" That the report
be referred back to the committee, and that such
committee consider the other plans of street rail-
ways that may be brought before it, and report
thereon."
This amendment was carried by a large majority,
and the meeting adjourned after a long sitting.

bench under Mr. Rising's guidance, and come to
the facts, which, as he was instructed, were briefly
these :—A child of Mrs.:, Webster, of Horsey,
about three quarters of a year old, died. The me-
ther went to the clergyman and asked for burial,
but the clergymen refused, the child being unbap- '
tised. She then obtained leave for the grave to be
dug, and he was instructed positively that there
was no understanding at all as to not singing.
Whether that was so or not did not, however, enter
into the facts, for whatever understanding there was
could hardly govern the law of the case. The
grave was dug, and Mrs. Webster requested Mr.
Fish, one of the defendants, knowing him to be a
God-serving man, to attend at the church, that the
child might not be thrown into the grave as a dog,
but might have some funeral celebration as far as
could be done consistently with the feelings of Mr.
Neale. There was no wish on the part of his clients
in any way to annoy Mr. Neale. They were reli-
gious, God-serving people, and would just as little
wish to annoy Mr. Neale as Mr. Neale to annoy
them. They carried the child to the churchyard,
and feeling it hard that they should not be allowed
to go in, not understanding Mr. Neale's reasons,
they knelt down outside in the road and there
offered up prayer. They then rose and in orderly
procession walked to the grave, when they sang
this hymn:—_

Alas I how soon the body dies,
'Tis but an earthy clod ;
Each passing moment loudly crios—
" Prepare to meat thy God."
Behold he comes in yonder cloud,
All nature feels his nod ;
The whole creation cries aloud—
" Prepare to meet thy God."

And then the clergyman came and protested against
what was being done. Not a word was said by any
person present to annoy him. If there had been
any feeling in their breasts against him some word
would have escaped the bystanders ; but the occa-
sion was too solmn, there was nothing of the spirit
of annoyance, nothing there, one would think, to
vex a minister of Christ. Everything was solemn,
and yet this information, laid on the 29th August,
stated that these parties were guilty of " indecent
behaviour in the churchyard of the said parish, by
then and there singing on the way to and at the
grave of an unbaptised child." Really it almost
reminded one of the Popish days of Mary to hear
that people singing a hymn were guilty of indecent
behaviour. Words can scarcely express the indig-
nation one felt that the singing of a hymn like this,
which, to say the least, was done purely with reli-
gious emotion, should be accounted a crime, and
these parties branded as criminals. Persons singing
a hymn thought guilty of indecent behaviour ! One
could scarcely help feeling that to refuse to bury an
innocent babe was much more like indecent be-

haviour.
The Rev. Mr. Wilkins—l am no bigot in these
matters, but, according to the rubric, a Christian
clergyman cannot bury an unbaptised child. We
have no power.
Mr. Tillett—l merely give that as my feeling.
Mr. Wilkins—But if not contradicted it would
go forth as submitted to, and I wish therefore to
state that as a clergyman I have no earthly power
to- read the service over an unbaptised person.
Whatever feelings I may entertain, the rubric spe-
cially forbids such being done, and I have no option.
Mr. Tillett--Well, I simply urge that these par-
ties were not within the meaning of the act in sing-
ing that hymn, guilty of indecent behaviour. I leave
it in your hanas.
Before the court was cleared,
Mr. Neale said he wished to say that if there
should be a penalty, he asked that it might be the
smallest possible. Even now, if these parties would
promise that such a thing should never occur again,
he would quash the affair at once.
The Chairman asked the reverend gentleman
whether he was willing to do so at that moment,
but Mr. Neale declined.
After nearly an hour's deliberation, the court was
re-opened, and
The Chairman said—We consider an offence has
been committed against the law by these parties,
in singing a hymn in the churchyard, and the fine
we impose is merely nominal to show that it was
an offence. We fine the defendants ls., and ex-
penses 13s. in each case, or in default, three days,
imprisonment.
Mr. Tillett said he considered it his duty, under
the 4th section of the act, to appeal to the quarter
sessions.
The room was again cleared for deliberation, and
after a considerable interval, the bench announced
that they would require the parties to to give
sureties, themselves In £4O, and two sureties each
in £2O, to prosecute the appeal.
The sureties were then offered, and, after a
minute examination of the parties by the bench as
to their worldly possessions, were accepted, and
the proceedings then closed.

partial and dignified manner in which the onerous
daties of chairman were performed by Sir John
Awdry, who, although not a magistrate of the
county, undertook the office.
We are unable to learn that any further steps are,
at all events for the present, in contemplation.
Road hill House has been removed from more par-
ticular police surveillance.

As illustrating the curious reaction which so
commonly follows in the public mind, we may men-
tion that a Manchester paper states, and we believe
with truth, that since her discharge Miss Constance
Kent has received more than one offer of marriage.
We know also that invitations to visit all parts of
the country have been received from many total
strangers, and among them several of the aristocracy.
Doubtless a similar revulsion of feeling will follow
the release of Elizabeth Gough.

(Front Ins _Morning Post.)
Three days of searching public investigation
have added nothing to our previous information re-
specting the Road murder. The same mystery that
hung over it at first enshrouds it still, in spite of
indefatigable perseverance and accumulated efforts
to bring the truth to light. Our readers have by
this time sifted, with mingled curiosity and vexa-
tion, the extraordinary investigation before the
magistrates at the instance of Mr. Slack, with the
sanction of the Home-offioe, and they will have
shared with us an intense disappointment at the
impotence of the result. The nursemaid has been
arraigned, a barrister has been specially retained by
the Crown for the prosecution, counsel has been
heard for the defence, 24 witnesses have been exa-
mined and cross-examined, every member of Mr.
Kent's family and every servant of his household
have been produced ; but, in spite of all, the prose-
cution has entirely failed to bring home to her the
crime, or any participation in it, or guilty know-
ledge of it ; and she was very properly set at
liberty on nominal recognisances to appear when
she should be wanted. The result is that justice
is still baulked, and the perpetrator of that despe-
rate crime still walks undetected amongst honest
men.

And yet, however unsatisfactory in its results,
this examination is a contribution towards the ulti-
mate detection of the murderer. It helps to nar-
row the ground and limit the number of suspected
persons. We insist now, as we did from the first,
that the inmates of the house on the night of the
murder are responsible for the crime, and that it is
amongst them that the murderer will ultimately
be found. It will not do to throw dust in people's
eyes by saying that certain servants vowed ven-
geance against the children, or that some one must
have been concealed in the house, and the like.
There has not been a shadow of evidence that any-
body was concealed ; or would have any motive for
being concealed; while there is evidence to show
that the house was properly secured, and had not
been forcibly broken into. It is impossible to re-
lease the household from the responsibility. That
household consisted of nine persons, any of whom
might have committed the murder. The effect of
two public examinations—the first, however, a most
unsatisfactory one—has been to acquit two of the
family—viz., Constance Kent and Elizabeth Gough.
There now remain seven others,of whom one must be
presumed to be guilty ; while there are five out of the
seven, viz., Mrs,Kent, the two elder Misses Kent,and
the cook and housemaid, who may claim to be above
suspicion. It remains for the other two to clear
themselves ; for however legal evidence may for the
present be at fault, the public will not put aside its
suspicions in the face of certain probabilities which
must occur to every one who has weighed the case,
or has read what we have said about it in previous
articles.

In reviewing the whole of the circumstances,
who can help a feeling of astonishment at the course
it has taken, at the conduct and demeanour of the
family, and the unaccountable proceedings of some
of the lawyers ! The murder was committed
savagely on a helpless child in the dead of night.
In the morning he was missed as early as 5 o'clock,
and it was eight before he was discovered. Although
the household, including the outdoor servants, con-
sisted of 13 grown or nearly grown persons, not
one of then thought of going to the closet where
the child was found; and when it was found it was
by strangers ! There seems, indeed, to have been
no hearty search by anybody except by Bengal. and
Nutt. The nurse was standing on the lawn when
the child was brought in ; the other servants were
about their work. It is perfectly wonderful the
sang froid with which some of the parties con-
duoted themselves. The deadly deed of blood, that
ought to have filled 'every soul with horror, and
stirred up every feeling of indignation, and stimu-
lated every energy in the anxious search, seems to
have made but little disturbance in the ordinary
proceedings of the establishment. There is a ghastly
stolidity in the conduct of Mr. Kent. He was in
bed when the news of the child being missing was
brought to him. He did not get up. His distracted
wife was, to use her own words, " here, there, and
everywhere" looking for the little boy, but it was
not till he was told that the drawing-room windows
had been found open that he got up ; and when up,
his conduct was moat unaccountable. He does not
seem to have searched the house; he did not go and
scrutinise the very place where, if there had been foul
play, the child was most likely to be found, and where,
indeed, he was found ; but he started off to Trow-
bridge, assuming, without a moment's thought,
that his child had been stolen and had been carried
thither. When on his return he found out the
crushing truth, the same strangeness marked all
his conduct ; he gave the key of the laundry to the
doctor, but did not himself go to confer with him or
examine the child. He questioned the other ser-
vants ; but, strangest of all, according to his own
evidence, he did not question the nurse. He suffered
the -very person primarily responsible for the safe
custody of the child during the night to be ques-
tioned only by his wife. Afterwards he admits
that he asked a question now and then. When the
police came to his house at night he locked them in
the kitchen ; when they knocked he did not open
the door for 20 minutes. Is it too much to ask for
some evidence as to what he was doing all this
time ? The nurse, it seems, did not go to bed that
night at the same time as the other servants. Why
not ? What was she doing? Mr. Kent's conduct in
not attending the inquest is in keeping with all the
rest. Indeed, we have no words to describe our
astonishment at his proceedings throughout. He
could scarcely have done other than he did had he
been a party to the murder. In all the subsequent
stages he has rather obstructed than aided inquiry.
He is the real prosecutor, but he has acted as if he
wished to stifle rather than assist the prosecution.
The strong expressions of the chairman of the bench
of magistrates in regard to the locking up the po-
licemen, and the refusal to have a plan of the house
made, might with equal propriety be applied to
several other portions of Mr. Kent's conduct in this
harrowing business.
Passing from Mr. Kent to the nurse, it is true
that the evidence fails to establish the charge
against her, muc:i neglect of duty, much prevarica-
tion, much that is in every way the reverse of satis-
factory or reassuring. There can be little doubt
that she has a well founded suspicion who the
murderer is. Her answers to questions about
Constance Kent's night gown, as well as many
other observations all point to a determined
reserve, which indicates the possession of know-
ledge, or at least suspicion, which she does not wish
to show. _ We have intimated before, that in the

absence of any other motive the child's death might
have been sought with the design of preventing his
telling anything he might happen to know respect-
ing the behaviour of any persons in the household,
and this is supported by the evidence of Mrs. Dal-
limore, who declared the nurse to have said that
" the murder was done through jealousy; the little
boy goes into his mamma's room and tells every-
thing." Now, we ask again, was there anything
that it would be dangerous for him to tell : had lie
seen anything in the nurse's room that would bring
discredit on her or anyone else ? We ask the ques-
tion ; we cannot suggest an answer. The question
is forced upon us by the circumstances. If anything
took place in the nurse's room—if anyone were there
who ought not to have been there, then there may
have been a motive not otherwise presumable for
silencing the child. It is important that the child
is believed to have been smothered, or in some way
strangled. This rather strengthens than weakens
what we have said. However this may be, we ad-
here to the belief we have before expressed—that
the murder was committed by two persons, pro-
bably actively by one, with the knowledge and as-
sistance of the other. There are only four persons
who could be open to suspicion, Constance Kent and
her brother William, both of whom Lad acted
strangely before, and Mr. Kent and the nurse, both
of whom have acted so unaccountably since. Of
these four, Consthnce Kent and the nurse have been
examined and acquitted. Whether either of the
remaining two is guilty, God alone knows. A
lengthened inquiry has left us only where we were,
and we must for some time longer be patient under
the temporary suspension of justice ; but we may
hope that all clue is not vet lost, and that even out
of this depth of dark crime and mystery the truth
may be discovered, to the vindication of the inno-
cent before the world, and the just execution of the
guilty.

A MAD LEAP FROM A TRAlN.—Richard Buckle,
of Clifton, an ex-policeman of the Middlesborough force, a
f
ow mornings ago had a most miraculous escape for his life.
Ile was riding in the train of the Great Northern between
allington Station and Essendine junction, when ina state
jumped
out stupor with liquor he rose opened the door, and
out of the carriage into midnight darkness. The train was
running nearly 60 miles an hour at the time. He was a
little hurt when found. The passengers naturally expected
to hear next day of his being dashed to pieces.—.Nittvcast/f
Chrafif44,

THE WAKEFIFLO rorsoNING GASE.

TERMINATION OF THZ• INQUIRY.
AGBRIGG,
SATURDAY.
The adjourned inquiry into this myste.'ious affair
was resumed at one o'clock this afternoon,•„at the
Graziers' Arms, Agbrigg, before T. Taylor, E, sq"
Honorary Coroner. The following fresh evicts 9nce
was produced.—
The Rev. Father Young—l produce the followin, 9;
two letters written by me for Miss Adamson.
" Sandal, Aug. 14.
" Sir,—As Miss Francis Adamson may now be
considered to be on her death-bed, she desires me
to write and ask you if it would be ,onvenient to

send £5O immediately, and, in the remittance, to

_
state what money remains in your hands. She also
requests you, in case of her death, to send the re-
mainder to the Reformatory, Loughborough.
Mr. J. Golding, Liverpool."
The second letter referred to some family arrange-
ments.

Sarah Stringer, mother of the prisoner, exa-
mined—l am a widow, and reside at Dirtcar. My
daughter Emma resided with the deceased for above
two years in the capacity of domestic servant. On
the morning of Miss Adamson's death I went to her
house with a cart and box, containing clean clothes.
I occasionally washed for the deceased. The box in
question contained clean clothes for my daughters,
Emma and Matilda. Prior to it I had never been
at Miss Adamson's since last winter, with one single
exception, when I called at the door a fortnight
ago, but I only saw my daughters upon that occa-
sion. Upon the day of deceased's death both my
sons were at her house, but I saw neither of them
writing. William cannot write, but James can a
little. I heard no comments made respecting the
property of the deceased. I saw a written paper
lying on one of the tables, which I took up and
threw into the fire, upon learning from Emma that
she had been with it to the priest for his signa-
ture, which had been refused. I will swear that
I was never in aoy room any day when
Mrs. Bateson was requested to write her name
on any document whatever. All that went
away in the cart was our own property. I
do not remember telling Mr. Fernandes, the attor-
ney, that the deceased had left a will prepared by
proper attorneys.
Matilda Stringer, one of the sisters who were ac-
cused of aiding and abetting in the capital charge,
was next examined, but nothing particular elicited,
except the admissiou that she (the witness) drew
up the document purporting to he a will of Miss
Adamson's. It will be recollected that at a previous
examination a witness, named Hannah Bateson,
distinctly swore that one of the prisoner's brothers
drew up the document.
James Stringer, the brother alluded to, was also
examined, but he positively declared that he first
saw the document in his sister Emma's hands. He
did ask Bateson to sign it, but that was all.
Edward Hoyle, broker's assistant, proved remov-
ing all the goods from off the shelf in the kitchen
the day before the sale of Miss Adamson's effects,
but saw no packet of any kind. This is the shelf
on which a man found a packet of arsenic on the
first day of the sale.
The Coroner then briefly summed up the evidence,
pointing out the distinction between murderers of
the first and second degrees, and also between cir-
cumstantial and direct evidence In the present case
it was Blear that the deceased had been poisoned,
and the only question was who administered it ?
The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder.