The Sun.
London, England, 1858-03-25 00:00:00

[Ptuox 4D. S rAMPILD d

THE ATTEMPTED MEIRDRIZ AND SOF

CI DID AT ISLIN2TON.
-maw

INQUEST.
Yesterday afternoon Mr. Wakley, the coroner for
the western division of Middlesex, opened au in-
quest at the Marquis of Salisbury, Pembroke-street,
Islington, upon the body of Gorge Osborne, whose
melancholy death we have already reported ; the
inquiry being held closely adjacent to the house ,
which the lanientable occurrences took place, ex-
cited great interest amongst the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood. The jury, in viewing the body,
were accompanied by a large concourse of persons,
who had assembled in the immediate vicinity of the
inquest room and in front of the house, which was
in charge of two police constables.
The first witness was Ann Smith, who stated
t hat she was a lodger in the house where the tragedy
occurred, and had been so for the last seven or eigh'
months. Weness ;ease mat ried woman, the wife of
Wm. Smith, a collector of goodsfor wholesale houSes.
She had known thUdeceased during that time. He
was a gas worker, and lived with his wife They had
no children, but were bringing one up. She slaw the
deee-sed Mille, the wound. It was on Sunday even-
ing, at about a qoat ter oa 7 o'clock. e was with i
wit, in the back kitchen. Witeessll beard tesie
quart...Hine, an l toe deo- ased said to his wife,
" No, sem shan't, old girl," hut witness did not
know what it was about. She then went indoors,
and had scarcely got into her room when she heard
the screams and cies sof Mrs. Osborne. Witnes-
rail down and saw the mail cutting and choppin,
her about the head. (The chopper was here pro-
duced. It is a large hand billhook, such as is used
for chopping up wool. It was abotit 12 inches
long.) He continued stoking her as long as she
stood up, and when she fell the-continued striking
her. Witness ran to the front door and veiled for
assistance, but no one came. She returned to the
kitchen, when he threw the chopper out of his
hand and commenced cutting his throat with a large
black-handled table-knife. He continued cutting
for a few minutes when he fell on the floor, over
his wife, in a pool ef blood. Mr. Richardson,
.the
surgeon, anon a-ter arrived. His wife had nothing
in her hand. During the ime that witness had
lodged in ,he house she never saw the deceased
the worse for liquor but twice. She saw him twice
on the Sunday. On Saturday evening she let him
in about half-past six, and went and teld his wife
that he had come, when the latter replied that she
was glad of it. They had no quarrel that witness
heard of, but in the morning the wife told witness
that they had had a little quarrelling diving tie--
night, and that he had taken a razor to cut her
threat. She said that if he meant to do so. he
might as well do so at first as last. He then
toll her that he was only joking, and wanted to
frighten her, when she said that she was not
frightened at anything. He had complained of
her conduct. There were other lodgers
in the house—a widow named Jones, a
widower named East, (the man who is said
to be the cause of the deceased's jea-
loul), and a woman named Bromwich. Deceased
had Dever threatened to injure his wife, nor did he
ever strike her. Witness had no positive proof
that Mrs. Osborne gave him reason to believe that
her conduct was improper. From what witness
knew, she had seen Esst and Mrs. Osborne go out
very often. It was East's child that they were
keeping, and it died last Friday. East and Mrs.
Osborne used to take their meals together, and she
bad said that she was fonder of him than her own
hushand. On the night when the affair happened
East had not gone out more than two minutes.
Osborne bad told his wife that if she did not live
with him no other man should have her. He was
very little at home—on Saturdays coming at five
o'clock and going back at ten, and scarcely at all
on Sundays. He.worked at the gas works, Bow,
and hiS wife refused to live there.
Mary East the sister of East, said that she lodged
at 15, Pembroke-street, and her brother occupied
a room on the second floor beck. She was at home
on Sunday evening la 4, and saw the commence-
ment of the attack upon Mrs. o=borne by her hue-
baud. Witness was sitting iu toe kit chen, and bad
been all day. He cleaned himaelf, and said he was
going to Somers-to an. He lead his breakfast, and
went to Somers-town, returning at a quarter to
four. He then had his dinner, but. he was not
sober ; his wile was in iha kitchen at the time, but
he laid asleep on the sofa. Af er dinner he laid
dowil his head ou the tab.e and, went to sleep ; he
the tea, and she replied she would get it soon. He got
up then, and went out of the house ; there was no
quarrellieg between them at thattime. He returned
about a quar er to six, and wen- to a cupboard, his
wile being in the kitchen, after which he too came
into the kitcsen. He said to her, " Have you
had your tea, Nance'?" and she said " Yes, I have."_
He teen said " That shall be the last you shall ever
have," and sbe said " The sante to you." He had
no hire; in his hand at the time ; he spoke very
angrily. Witness said, " Pray, Smith (ene of his
aliases), don't talk like that," and he said "I'm
if I don't do for her before I go back to
Bow to-night." His wife made no remark. She
was perfectly sober, but he was net quite sob re •
Witness nese r saw him worse in liquor. She asked
him why he went out before he had any tea I and •
he said he could see that she did not want him to •
have any tea. She made no reply, and he left the
kitchen. Witness was afraid that here was going to I
be a qua rel, and begged his wife to say nothing ;
to him. The latter replied, "Oh, if he is going to
do it, let him do it if he likes." Witness arose and
met him at the kitchen door—he had the chopper
in his hand. She said, " Oh, pray don't, Smith ;"
and parlourook her up iu his arms and threw her against
the p door saying," You have nothing to do
with it."
(,'he witness here swooned away, and had to be
removed from the table, attended by a medical
gentleman.)
Mr. Richardson, surgeon, sail he was called in
about a quarter to 7 o'clock, and found the man
quite dead. He had examined the body of the de
ceased, and found a wound about six inches in
length, which included the carotid artery, and was
quite sufficieet to cause death.
Mary Oswald, the wife of John Oswald, a black-
smith, residing near Leighton Buzzard—The de-
ceased was her son. When be Was a little boy be
had the brain fever and had never been since what
he was bElere. When he was grown up he had the
fever again, which affected his head very bal. He
was in hospital for it some weeks. He was suddenly
taken, when at work at Farringdon, in the country,
as if not right in his mind, and was moved to the
infirmary. He complained of noises in the head.
She never saw him intoxicated. He had bean mar-
lied nine years. Ile had never been confined in a
lunatic asylum f•tr the complaint.
The witne-s East, having recovered from the
swoon, continued her evidence—She said when
Osborne threw her against the parlour do r
she fell on the floor. On getting up he held
the billho, k over tie r saying, "'Tisut.thing to you."
He thsn took Mild oi his wife sty the halt of the
herd and stru,k h r with the chopper. Witness
then ran out of tie ftout door to call assistance,
and did not see him cut his throat. There was 110-
thing whatever th at happened either on Saturday
night or Sunday to provoke lien. Witness was with
them up to 11 o'clock on Saturday. They had some
quarrelling. Isle said he heel heard a great deal about
her. He did not threaten her ; he told her that
she had been "great" with East, and she owned
that she had. He then asked for a reason why she
waited to have East instead of himself. Her
answer was, " B. cause she liked him better." She
exasperated him very much, and said that as soon
as the child was buried sbe would go and live wish
East altegetber. (This was East's child, that bad
died on the previous Friday). He did nut threaten
her in witness's presence, but he threatened her on
the Saturday night.
The Coroner here opped the case, and said there
really svasano use in pushing the matter further, as
they were not trying a questit n of adultery, but
whether the man was labouring under a delusion
respecteig his wife's immorality, end it appeared he
was labouring wider no delusion at all, for the wife
His mother had shown that he was
confessed it•
affec ed to hie head from sally childhood, and was
just such a mail as an affair of hist kind would be
likely to drive insane. It was his opinion that the
poor fellow had become irresponsible for bisections,
on account of the rumours he had heard about his
wife, and her open declaration to him that she in-
tended as soon as she could to leave him and go
and live with East ; the woman, in an unblushing
manner, acknowledged her guilt to him, thereby
leaving no doubt at all about the matter. Mary
East had given her evidence very fairly, consider-
ing the parties involved ; and it appeared to him
one of the clearest cases he ever knew.
The jury immediately returned a verdict that the
deceased had destroyed himself while in au unsound
state of mind, and the proceedings terminated.
There is every probability of the recovery of Mrs.
Osborne, notwithltanding the severe injuries she
has received.

THE LOST MAIL STEAM:TA 7z\
f:,
Some nn 41, write the hietery of 01,x ere
. , ,
packs-tie:, :No nee' .e. •.er'aieeatic.: could .
iut rest the eeco eet .ef . Le Ve•t S
end preperty i o cor-e'ectal'i with tss se.peeketee7ed
thit her don, surfer eg, ail es&.-pels of
some of their crews and eessengets. Withiu the
iast twelve years about twenty large mail packets
have been lost. , Seven of these have gone down
in the North Atlantic, three in the Gulf of Mexico,
three in the China and Indian seas, one in the Bay
of Biscay, and three on the Port ugue,,e and.Span;sll.
ceeet, The veins of the seven packets lost iu the
North. Atlantic., with their cargoes,. isiestimeted at
two millions sterling. ',Since 1853, 2,000 persons
have perished, -and 10,000,000 dollars' worth of
property has been destroyed, in the wreck of United
States coasting maiLpackets. Out of the twenty
ocean mail packets Tost during the last dozen years,
three will, all thelicre:va•and passengers, were
lost.. .1,1 heir fate ece e. heard of. One, however
oilrr t .e full speed, and a great
iy on blare p -co ;a the flames. Another
was run down in the Chinese sea by a packet going
in the same direetion, the lights of the former_ hav-
ing been seen from the latter when miles a-head.
The most dreadfulof all these shipwrecks, perhaps,
were the foundering in the Atlantic Ocean of the
President, the Pacific, and the City of Glasgow,
from which not a soul survived to tell the tale.
Months elapsed before all hope was extinguished.
in the breasts of relatives that some, at least,
tf the —passengers and crew might somewhere
turn up alive. A most harrowing story, too, is
t at of the burning of tee Ainaz .n. and also that
of the striking of the Tweed on ii:e Alacranee. The
eegiueer of the Amazon creed not eture off the
rtee n, and the ship went beunding -rnd blazing
to on f:e ocean, whil :
lose who escaped were
tirneed woh the nose of the peddlew eels and
he WaVe.S, together with the nearing Of the wind
,ncl flames, and the shrieks of :he dying ou board.
In case of th:l Tweed, scores of pe sons were
devoured by sharks as they jumped fiom the sink-
' ner,seip. Last year a mail picket was wrecked in
Ate: Indian Sea, and an offerer and troops were on
h d her coming from :he Persian war. As soon
is they escaped from the wreck and were landed,
the officer and soldiers fell down on their knees,
and the former revereirly gave thanks to Heaven
for their pr• servation. A few months afterwards be
gained au immortal name in avenging the atroci-
ties, of Cewnpore and relieving Luckuow. It is
uneecessary t i say that this was Henry Havelock.
We have just heard of the wreck if the .mail
packet Ave in the Bay of Bengal, having on board
the la ties and children who had escaped a fright-
ful death in Lucknow, and whose sufferings and
daugars, it appeals, were not to cease even after
hey left India, and were under British protection
on the sea. Power, the eminent English comedian
es well as a metuber of one of ducal families, perished
in the President. Eliot Warburton, the author of
" The Cresce it and the Cross," whose graphic pen
was about to be :tipped in the gorgeous hues of
Central American scenery, was lost in the Amazon.
A. rich passenger on beard the Arctic offered 30,0001.
to whoever could save his life, and there is no doubt
that any one who could have done so would have
rec3ivee the reward, but no one was able to earn
it. A passenger on board the Brazil mail packet,
whiph went ashore at St. Albau's Head, last year,
offered
.5001. to a coastguard-man if he took him
safely ashore, which was done, and the man received
a cheque for the amount. The sufferings of some
of the survivors of the lost mail packets have been
terrible. It is feared that one or two of the survi-
vorS of a mail steamer, which was wrecked a short
time since, were saved from starvation only by re-
course to cannibalism. The mail packet Tay went
ashore many years ago in the West Indies, and the
captain and crew abandoned her ; an engineer,
however, stuck to her and saved her, to be wrecked
afterwards in the Gulf of Mexico. For seven years
the Peninsular and Oriental Company never lose a
snip; they then lest seven ships in 12 years, and
during the last of those years they have lest three
ships. The Royal Merl Company tegan their career
by losing ships, but latterly they have had better
luckt. How thei Pacific, the President, and the
City of Glasgow went to the bottom is a gni scion no
one ;can answer. They may have struck against
icebtrgs, those marine glaciers which glide down
from the Pole towards the Equator, and from their
immense Biz rare as dangerous to come in contact
with as grani:e rocks, whilst they cannot be laid.
dewp in charts, and are often enveeopeil in f.,gs
and peers, so that t: e only intimation e commander
has of their whereabouts is from their causing a
lowering 'if the tempereture in the neigebeurhood
in which they arc. Some have believed that the
Pacific, the President, and the Coy of Glasgow
broke their backs and then foundered. When a
long ehip is resting its centre on the edge of an emir.
in, u Atlantic wave her stem and stern are entirely
unsupported, and heavily laden fora and aft, the
leverege there is immense, and. the vessel msy break
in two just at the fulcrum. Again, a long ship
may haves ec stem and stern supper, ed by the edges
of Ogee:tee - -'ee and the centre may be ensue
ee, ; the weneee aeeeeoee tuere 1S
enormous, and etas ship nisei break in two midway
between the two fulcrums and be doubled up. Ships
are now built in such a. manner as to avoid all these
diseete re The Peninsular and Oriental Company's
new mad packet Nein, sis is of enormous strength,
so that it would be difficult to knock her to pieces.
Iron mail packets are now in use la'cau-e they are
less likely to break up after striking than wooden
ones.: The mail packet Tyne, which struck on a
rocky coast last year, was got off after being
knocked about there a couple of months, and no
lives:were lost in her. Every one remembers the
iron steamer Sarah Sands, troop vessel, which took
fire in :he In lien Ocean a few months since. =By
the most masterly skill she was kept under control
wh:le she was gutted 11 the flames, which could
not- be git -under, and then the troops got on
board ot her again, and were saved in the bare
hull. Sh:ps are now built with strength propor-
tioned to their length. Tile distribution of the
heed of a ship is b -tier understood, so that founder-
ing through a broken back will be less likely to
happen, ant probably before long mad packets will
carry an elec•ric light at the mast head, so that the
dangers of collisions in the dark and in fogs will
case. The loss of a mail packet with a number of
lives must be very trying to the feelings of a com-
mander ; but the captains of our lost mail packets
often displayed a noble presence of mind and.
helo'sm, which have been the means of saving
many. Many captains have perished in attempting
to save their crews and passengers. In the
Amizou all but one c f the officers were burnt on
board. The inferior officers refused to leave their
captain. They assisted to save others, but they
preferred being burnt in their ship, because every
one on board could not leave her, One or two
commanders of the lost partkets have committed
suicide after the excitement of the wreck was over.
The commander of the Tweed lived half a mile
from Southampton, the port from which his ship
hailed, but he never was seen in that town after
the wreck, although he lived in its vicinity for
years. The commander of the lost packet Arctic
has displayed great heroism, and when he reached
New York the me, chants and shippers went to the
railway station to welcome and sympathise with
hire. But he was unable to receive their greeting,
and he passed sorrowing with downcast looks
through a late formed of the chief commercial
citizens of New York, who stood mute and un-
covered to receive him. When the American
steamer Atlantic was supposed to be lost. a British
packet was the first to caery the news of
b ef her
ore she
sat ter
to America. She kept fir ng guus miles
arrived in earbour, and hid every flag on board
Tens of thousands of New York people
turned out to leer n the news she brought, and when
tile hoarse v: ice of the captain sounded through a
trumpet, "The Atlantic is safe," the whole city
was terewn into an ecstacy, and one p-or woman
who had a brother on board the missing ship went
mad wi:h joy. Half the packets that have gone
,0 the bottom hive been wrecked iu consequence
of too daringly shaving the land and cutting off
corners. Some undoubtedly have been lost by in-
competent commanders who had. e twined their ape
pointeients through interest rather Than from merit.
Canard's company have been the most fortunate of
all tee mail packet companies as far as the loss of
ships is concerned. The Peninsular and Oriental
and the Roy
eolnpauies. have each lost about
the same number of ships. It is curious that almost
every commander of a lost mail packet has been
blamed by landsmen for not using the lead, and
yet every sailor declares that it is almost impossible
for a commander of a mail packet, compelled to
travel bight and day at a racing speed, to use the lead
in the manner laid down in all steam-packet com-
panies' instructions. This matter ought to be rigidly
qtrred into by the government. During the last
twelveyears six or seven millions' worth of property
has been des royed and hundreds of lives have been
lost in mail packets. The misery there losses have
caused is incalculable. But a new era is dawning.
Ships like the Leviathan cannot be trifled with,
and if she is successful
'he present mail packets will
soon be superseded, and life and property on board
Leviathan steamers carrying mails will be far safer
than they have hitherto been.—. Daily News.

GI Polk
I) AND CAILIRIDGI AT RAC! --The ITnivere
strogle for the championship of the Thames, which i•
to come off on Saturday next, is exciting great interest,
All the entries are completed, all the men are in London
ar.d in active practice. Tile betting appears to be nearly
equal, iianytking, slightly in favour of Oxford. It is
expected to be one of the finest races ever witnessed on
the Thames . The Oxford wen will pull in one of act
II Ulf fashioned class boats built by Searle for Ezettr Col-
lege, but lately in
poosession of Brasenose College.