The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-27 00:00:00

THE ROAD MYST.ERY.

No further direct clue has been discovered likely
to lead to the unravelment of the mystery which
hangs over this cruel child murder.
There is one point, and one alone, which, accord-
ing to the evidence already given, requires to be
cleared up, and that is with respect to the missing
night-dress of Miss Constance, the daughter, who
was charged with the commission of the murder,
but against whom the evidence broke down, and
who is now under the recognisance of her father to
appear whenever called upon. The facts of the
case, as far as they are already known, show an in-
nocent child of four years old, the idol of his father
and mother, taken out of his cot while sleeping in
the room with his nurse, murdered, and his
body thrown down the common privy or cess-
pool. No person could expect to derive any
pecuniary or other benefit from the death of the
child, and all motive of that kind may be at once
put out of consideration. The murder was no doubt
committed by some person or persons resident or
secreted in the house for the purpose, for the condi-
tion of the doors and windows clearly proved that
the house could not have been entered from outside
during the night. The window of the room on the
ground floor was found open, but the shutters inside
were closed, and if any person had gone out through
the window he clearly could not have closed the
shutters behind him. The window must have been
opened as a mere blind to throw off suspicion, but
the person who opened it from the inside strangely
enough closed the shutters afterwards. No
stranger would have entered the house to murder a
child whom he did mot know. The nurse and ser-
vants had apparently no object to serve by such
an act. The parents were fond to excess of the boy
and it is difficult to believe that any one short
of a sori or daughter of a Herod could have delibe-
rately and in the dead of the night taken a sleeping
child from his bed and murdered him. Neverthe-

less, it is perfectly clear that such a person inns t
have been under the roof at the time. All attempts

to fix the guilt upon any person have hitherto
failed, and some severe reflections have bsen made
upon the police officers entrusted with the investi-
gation of this extraordinary case. Sir G. Bowyer,
in the House of Commons, commented upon the
conduct of the poliee in causing Miss Constance
Kent to be arrested, merely, as he said, because
" one of her night-gowns happened to be missing."
The loss of a night-dress, per se, may be a very
trifling affair, but the circumstances under which
it disappeared might be of the very gravest cha-
racter. The Home Secretary, however, :in re-
ply to Sir George Bowyer, stated that he had
been " apprised of all the facts of the case," and
that in his opinion no ground existed for imputing
any misconduct to the police, and that there were
circumstances with regard to the young lady which,
in a case of such peculiar mystery and horror, jus-
tified her arrest. Moreover, he took it upon him-
self to say, from a knowledge of the facts of the
case, that the officer was justified in the course
which he adoplsed.
The story of the missing night-gown is a some-
what remarkable one, and is scarcely less myste-.
rious than the murder itself. So far as can be
gathered from the evidence, Miss Constance had in
her possession on the night of the murder three
night-dresses, one of which was in wear, and the
other two were clean in a chest of drawers in her
own room. After the murder she had but is o, and
she herself told Inspector Whicher " the other was
lost at the wash the week after the murder." It is
thus clearly established that the night-dress was
lost at a most critical period—namely, after the
murder. The housemaid states positively that a
night-dress of Miss Constance was put into the
clothes-basket on the Monday following the mur-
der, while the laundress and her two daughters both
positively swear that when they received the dirty
clothes on the same day there was no night-dress
of Miss Constance's among them. As regards the
statement of these persons there can be no mistake,
for in the small village there had been a rumour
spread that a night-dress had been taken away
by the police, and curiosity was therefore excited
to examine the clothes brought from Mr. Kent's,
to see if there was any truth in the report. They
heard that a night-dress was lost, and they opened
the basket within five minutes after they got home
and found that one was missing. The night-
dress which the gossips of the village had said
was missing was not, however, one of Miss Con-
stance's, but of the elder Miss Kent, arid it had been
taken away by the police, because it presented cer-
tain appearances which proved upon examination
to have no connection whatever with the murder.
The housemaid, it will be remembered, stated posi-
tively that the night-dress of Miss Constance was
put into the basket about 11 o'clock on Monday,
and the evidence of the laundress and her daughters
proves that it was not in the basket of clothes
brought to their house an hour after. How and
when was it removed ? The housemaid states that
she called the elder Miss Kent to enter the number
of the clothes in the washing book while she placed
them in the basket. When the clothes were col-
lected together and duly entered in the washing
book, Miss Constance made her appearance, and
asked the housemaid to look among the linen for
her " slip," to see if she had left her purse in the
pocket. The clothes were turned out of the
basket, and there was no purse found. Miss
Constance then asked her to fetch her a glass of
water, and followed her to the top of the back
stairs as she left the room, and in returning
the housemaid found her young mistress on the
spot she had left her. Miss Constance drank the
water and returned to her room. There is no
further evidence upon this part of the case. One
point in the evidence of Mr. Parsons, the surgeon,
deserves attention. He says that when he accom-
panied Inspecter Foley in his search through the
house on the morning after the murder he saw the
night-dress of Miss Constance lying on the bed,
that it was " very clean," and that he made a re-
mark to Foley. the nature of which was not stated
in court, as it was not made in the presence of
Miss Constance. He said he did not know
how long it had been worn, but in his cross-
examination by the counsel for the prisoner he
said that it might have been worn a week.
Had the impression of the surgeon that the
night-dress was "very clean" led to Miss Constance
being called upon to produce her three night-
dresses, it is probable that there might have been
no grounds for the subsequent arrest of that young
lady. As to the motive for the murder of an unof-
fending child, the only one which appears on the
face of the evidence, as given on the examination,
is that of jealousy on the part of Miss Constance of
the boy. Constance had complained, while at
school, of the partiality shown by hcir father