The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-04 00:00:00

which she was entitled. The life was pre-eminently
good, and the proposal was accepted. On the 20th
of April Mrs. Wainewright and Miss Abercrombie
went to the office to pay the first year's premium,
and receive the policy. On or about the same day,
a similar insurance for three thousand pounds, but
this for two years only, was effected with the Eagle
Insurance Office, and the premium for one year and
the stamp duty duly paid by Miss Abercrombie in
her young sister's presence.
In the following October four more policies were
effected : with tha Provident for one thousand
pounds, with the Hope for two thousand pounds,
with the Imperial for three thousand pounds, and
with the Pelican for the largest amount usually per-
mitted—namely, five thousand pounds—each for
the period of two years; making altogether insur-
ances to the amount of eighteen thousand pounds.
The premiums paid,together with the stamps,amount-
ed to more than two hundred and twenty pound; and
yet, in case of Miss Abercrombie living more than
three years, all these payments would be lost.
Loss they would be, who could doubt. The ac-
tuary at the Provident described her as " a remark-
ably healthy, cheerful, beautiful young woman,
whose life was one of a thousand." Old secretaries,
smiling over their spectacles, must have felt as if a
sunbeam had glanced across the room, and have
sighed to think that if a full insurance had been
effected fifty years hence, that same Miss Aber-
crombie might enter the room still hearty and
vigorous to pay her annual interest, when they were
long ago gone, and their very tombstones were
effaced by rain and wind.
Still all this insuring was odd, too, for Mr.
Wainewright was deeply in debt. Shabby, trucu-
lent men behind grated doors in Cursitor-street
were speaking irreverently of him ; dirty Jew-faced
men at the bar of the Hole-in-the-Wall in Chan-
cery-lane discussed him, and were eager to claw his
shoulder. He spent more than ever, and earned
less. His literary friends, Lamb and Reynolds,
seldom saw him now. His artist friends, Fuseli the
fiery and Stothard the gentle, Westall and Lawrence,
seldom met him. A crisis was coming to the man
with elegant tastes. In August he had given a
warrant of attorney and a bill of sale of his furni-
ture at Linden House ; both of these had become
absolute, and seizure was impending. " The Jew
fellows" could only be scared away (from the ele-
gant gilt lamp, the books, and prints) till the 20th
or 21st of December.

Early in that month Wainewright left the house
with the leaf-stripped trees, the very unhealthy
house, and took furnished lodgings at Mr. Nicoll's,
a tailor, in Conduit-street, to which he went accom-
panied by his wife, his child, and those two beautiful
affectionate girls, his half-sisters, Phoebe and Made-
leine Abercrombie. Books, sabre, elegant French
lamp, portfolios, and desk with the mysterious little
eccentric drawer with the especial salt for filberts.
There was still a little more law business for'
Phoebe ; the artistic mind remarked one morning in
his playful, delightful way, " Would the dear girl
be kind enough to keep in profile for one moment ?
Exquisite! Yes, there was a will to be made to
benefit dear Madeleine iu case of any unforeseen
circumstance." Phoebe no doubt carolled out a
laugh, and expressed a horror " of those dusty old
lawyers." On that same day, the 13 th, Miss Aber-
crombie called on a solicitor named Lys, to whom
she was a stranger, to attest the execution of a will
she desired to make, as she was going abroad ; he
complied, and she executed a will in favour of her
sister Madeleine, making Mr. Wainewright its exe-
cutor.

That same evening (as a reward, perhaps) the
two sisters went to the play, as they bad done the
evening before, accompanying their kind relations,
Mr. and Mrs. Wainewright. Whatever bailiffs may
be watching the gay and volatile creature in the
befrogged coat, he has no idea of stinting his amuse-
ments. Providence is hard on your delightful and
fashionable men, who earn little and spend much.
The play is delightful, the pathos pierces, the

farce convulses the pleasant party of four. After
the play they have an oyster supper, and Mr. Waine-
wright is gayer and wittier than ever. In the night,
however, Miss Phoebe is taken ill, evidently having
caught cold from walking home that long way from
Drury-lane or Covent-garden two nights in the wet
and wind. There is great regret in the house, and
frequent kind inquiries at her door from Mr. Waine-
wright. She gets up to dinner, but in a day or two,
the cold not lifting, Dr. Locock is sent for. Mrs.
Wainewright and Madeleine are with her constantly.
Mr. Wainewright, who is clever in these things, as
in everything else, prescribes her a black draught
before the doctor is sent for. The doctor is kind
and sympathising, thinks little of the slight derange-
ment, and prescribes the simplest remedies. On the
seventh day of her indisposition, Mr. Wainewright,
impatient of the doctor's remedies, prescribed her a
powder, which she took willingly in jelly. She was
decidedly better, and was no longer wandering ; she
was so much better, in fact, that Mr. Wainewright,
great in spirits, and full of sentiment, sympathy, and
artistic feeling, told his wife to put on her bonnet
and come for a walk sketching, while dear Phoebe
had some sleep. That was about twelve o'clock.
At two Phoebe; was taken violently ill with convul-
sions. She appeared in great agony, became deli-
rious, and struggled violently. Dr. Locock, who
had been previously consulted about insurance cer-
tificates, was instantly sent for, and came. The fit
bad then subsided, but there was pressure on the
brain. She said, " Oh, doctor, lam dying. These
are the pains of death. I feel I am. lam sure
so!" The doctor said, " You'll be better by and
by." She cried, "My poor mother ; oh, my poor
mother !" Dr. Locock left, and she had a fit, and
grasped the hand of oue of the servants. When Dr.
Locock left she lay quiet, and said she thought she
heard a little boy coming along the room, and that
he ought not to be there, and she burst into tears
and convulsions.
A servant who had lived twenty years with Dr.
Griffiths, and had known Mr. Wainewright since he
was a child, instantly sent for Messrs. King and
Nicholson, apothecaries. A Mr. Hanks came and
saw Mies Abercrombie in the convulsion fit. She
had said to Dr. Locock, " Doctor, I was gone to
heaven, but you have brought me back to earth."
Hanks gave her some medicine while Dr. Locock
was there. The convulsions got better, and the
doctors went away. Soon after they were gone,
the convulsions came on again, and at four o'clock
she died.
Who can paint the horror and agony of Mr. and

Mrs. Wainewright when they returned and found

the beautiful girl, with the exquisite profile, only a
day or two ago so bright and full of life, so arch,
80 graceful—dead.
Unchristian suspicious soon arose, degrading, as

Mr. Wainewright remarked, only to those who en-
tertained them. Exasperated by the loss which, by
the dear girl's distressing death, they had incurred,
all the insurance offices meanlyanbdutcirvimaiinneawllryigrhei
re-
fused payment, The crisis came,
was too poor to stay and press his legal claims, and
therefore stealthily retired to the friendly asylum of
France, where urbanity always reigns, andclaretnids
delightfully cheap ; where the air is ever sunny, a
meat is lean, but not dear. He there resided, gay as
ever for several years.
After many delays, occasioned chiefly by pro-
ceedings in equity, the question of the vali-
dity of the policies was tried in the Court of
Exchequer, before Lord Abinger, on the 29th of
June, 1835, in an action by Mr. Wainewright, as
the executor of Miss Abercrombie, on the Imperial
policy of three thousand pounds.
Sir William Follett appeared for the plaintiff, and
the Attorney-General, Sir F. Pollock, and Mr.
Thesiger for the defendant. The real plaintiff was
not Mr.Wainewright, but Mr. Wheatley, a respect-
able bookseller, who bad married the sister of the
deceased. The jury, partaking of the judge's dis-
inclination to attribute the most dreadful guilt to
a plaintiff on a nisi prius record, and, perhaps,
scarcely perceiving how they could discover for the
imputed fraud an intelligible motive without it,
were unable to agree, and were discharge) without
giving a verdict. It was clear to every one there
bad been foul play. The cause was tried again,
before the same judge, on the 3d of December fol-
lowing, when the counsel fo: the defence, following
the obvious inclination of the bench, avoided the
fearful charge, and obtained a verdict for the office

without hesitation, sanctioned by Lord Abinwer's
proffered approval to the jury. In the meanti me,
says Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, Mr. Wainewri; ;ht,
leaving his wife and child in London, had acqu fired
the confidence and enjoyed the hospitality of the
members of an English family residing in I 3ou-
logne. While he was thus associated, a proposal
was made to the Pelican office to insure the life of
his host for five thousand pounds ; which, act the
medical inquiries were satisfactorily answered, was
accepted. The office, however, received only. one
premium, for the life survived the completion of the
insurance only a few months; falling after a very
short illness, and singularly enough,with symptoms
not unlike those of Dr. Griffiths, Mrs. Abercrombie
and poor Phoebe. The world is full of coincidences.
And here we feel compelled to throw off our
mask, to turn suddenly on the delight of the bou-
doirs and salons of May Fair, and, shaking him by
the throat, proclaim him a poisoner—one of the
most cruel, subtle, and successful secret murderers
since the time of the Borgias. It is now well known
that he wore a ring in which he always carried
strychnine, crystals of the Indian nux vomica, half
a grain of which blown into the throat of a rabbit
kills it dead in two minutes ; a poison almost taste-
less, difficult of discovery, and capable of almost
infinite ;dilution. On the night the Norfolk gen-
tleman in difficulties at Boulogne died,Wainewright
had insisted on making his friend's coffee, and
passed the poison into the sugar. The poisoner
had succeeded before this in winning the affections
of his friend's daughter, and gaining a supreme
influence in the house.

Wainewright, obtaining the insurance, left Bou-
logne, and became a needy wanderer in France, but
being brought under the notice of the correctional
police for passing under a feigned name, was ar-
rested. In his possession was found the vegetable
poison called strychnine—a fact which, though un-
connected with any specific charge, increased his
liability to temporary restraint, and led to a six
months' incarceration in Paris. After 1116 release
he ventured to visit London, when, in June, 1837,
soon after his arrival, be was met in the street by
Forester, the police-officer, who had identified him
in France, and was committed for trial for forgery.
July 5, 1837 (seven years after the death of Miss
Abercrombie), Wainewright, then forty-two years
old, " a man of gentlemanly appearance, wearing
moustachios," was tried at the Central Criminal
Court for forging certain powers of attorney to sell
out two thousand two hundred and fifty-nine pounds'
worth of bank stock, which had been settled on him
and his wife at their marriage. This was a capital
offence at that time, but the bank not wishing to
shed blood, Wainewright at first declared himself
not guilty, but eventually pleaded guilty, by advice
of his lawyer, to two of the minor indictments out
of the five, and was therefore only transported for
life.

The moment the chief insurance offices found
that Wainewright was under sentence of transpor-
tation for forgery, they determined to open nego-
tiations with the villain, and get from him certain
confessions necessary to their interests; little doubt-
ing that he would make them " for a considera-
tion." lle made them readily enough when he had
struck his bargain. At this time, he was confined
in Newgate (modern prison discipline had not then
found its way into that gaol) in a cell with a brick-
layer and a sweep : in which polite company he
was actually recognised, through a strange chance,
by ➢lr. Procter and Mr. Macready, visiting the pri-
son with the Conductor of this Journal. When the
agent of the insurance offices had extracted from the
ruffian all that he wanted to know, that gentleman
said, in conclusion :—" It would be quite useless,
Mr. Wainewright, to speak to you of humanity, or
tenderness, or laws human or Divine ; but does it
not occur to you, after all, that, merely
regarded as a speculation, Crime is a bad
one ? See where it ends. I talk to you in a shame-

ful prison, and I talk to :a degraded convict."
Wainewright returned, twirling his moustache :
" Sir, you City men enter on your speculations, and

take the chances of them. Some of your specula-
tions succeed, some fail. Mine happen to have
failed ; yours happen to have succeeded ; that is the
difference, sir, between my visitor and me. But
I'll tell you one thing iu which I have succeeded to
the last. I have been determined through life to
hold the position of a gentleman. I have always
done so. Ido so, still. It is the custom of this
pl.tee that each of the inmates of a cell shall take
his morning turn of sweeping it out. I occupy a
cell with a bricklayer and a sweep. But by G—
they never offer me the broom !"

On the same occasion, or on another similar oc-
casion in the same place, being asked how he could
find it iu his heart to murder the trusting girl who
had so confided in him (Miss Abercrombie), he re-
flected for a moment, and then returned, with a cool
laugh : " Upon my soul I don't know—unless it
was that her legs were too thick."
In Newgate the gay-hearted creature was
sublime. He asserted himself as a poet, a philo-
sopher, and a martyr. He claimed for himself "a
soul whose nutriment is love, and its offspring art,
music, divine song, and still holier philosophy."
When writing even from the hold of the convict-
ship to complain of his being placed in irons, he
said : " They think me a desperado. Me! the com-
panion of poets, philosophers, artists, and musicians
a desperado 1 You will smile at this. No—l
think you will feel for the man, educated and
reared as a gentleman, now the mate of vulgar
ruffians and country bumpkins."
In 1842 the dandy convict was admitted as in-
patient of the General Hospital in Hobart Town,
where he remained some years.
Discharged from the hospital, the elegant-
mannered poisoner, his dress with no style at all
about it now, his spelling rather wandering, and
his bearing less refined than it used to be, set up as
au artist at Hobart Town, where sketches by him
still exist. His conversation to lady-sitters was
often indelicate. A writer in a Melbourne paper,
6th July, 1811, says of this dangerous and
abandoned wretch (we must use plain words for
him now) : "He rarely looked you in the face. His
conversation and manners were winning in the
extreme ; he was never intemperate, but neverthe-
less of grossly sensual habit, and an opium-eater.
As to moral character, he was a man of the very
lowest stamp. He seemed to be possessed by an
ingrained malignity of disposition, which kept him
constantly on the very confines of murder, and he
took a perverse pleasure in traducing persons who
had befriended him. There is a terrible story told
of his savage malignity towards a fellow-patient in
the hospital, a convict, against whom ho bore a
grude. The man was in a state of collapse—his
extremities were already growing cold. Death had
him by the throat. Wainewright's snakish eyes
kindled with unearthly fire. Ho saw at once the
fatal sign. He stole softly as a cat to the man's
pallet, and hissed his exultation into his dying ear :
" ' You arc a dead man, you . In four-
and-twenty hours your soul will be in hell, and my
arms will be up to that (touching his elbow) in
your body, dissecting you.'"
Such was the ingrained and satanic wickedness
of this triple murderer. Twice this delight of
society attempted to poison people who had become
obnoxious to him. Even in that polluted corner of
the world the man was dreaded, hated, and
shunned. No chance homicide had imbrued his
hands, but a subtle series of cowardly and atrocious
crimes. His sole friend and companion was a cat,
for which he evinced an extraordinary and senti-
mental affection. He had always been fond of
In 1852 this gentlemanly and specious
monster was struck down in a moment, as with a.
thunderbolt, by apoplexy. He had survived his
victims sixteen years.
Perhaps no blacker soul ever passed from a body
than passed the day that Wainewright the
poisoner went to his account. Well says Mr.

cats.

Sergeant Talfourd :
" Surely no contrast presented in tho wildest
romance between a gay cavalier, fascinating Naples
or Palermo, and the same hero detected as the
bandit or demon of the forest, equals that which
time has unveiled between what Mr. Waiuewright
seemed and what ho was.

It ig this monster whom Lord Lytton has im.
mortalised in his powerful novel of Lucretia.