The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-29 00:00:00

HOAX AND ATTEMPTED STRANGU-
LATION OF A NEWSPAPER REPORTER.

A novel case of hoaxing and murderous assault
happened on Thursday evening, on a reporter. It
will be sufficiently explicit for the reader, and
vague enough for us to conceal the individuality
and location of the gentleman, to mention that it
was within the Midland Counties. In detailing
the particulars of this piece of shameless duplicity,
we must mention that several times on Thursday
last a person of respectable exterior and gentle-
manly deportment called at the residence of a
provincial reporter, wanting, as he said, to see the
said reporter, who, however, was out for the day.
He gleaned from the servant girl that he would re-
turn about seven in the evening He did not come
again. A little after seven, and almost immediately
after the arrival home of the reporter, a knock was
heard at the door. It proved to be a man dressed
in the garb of a farm labourer, with a note for the
master of the house. He appeared flushed, as if
"put about," had a dog-cart at the door, and said it
must be given to the master, and so he waited for
an answer. The letter, he said, was from his em-
ployer. On opening it, it was signed by a country
squire, known through a very recent acquaintance-
ship to the reporter, and who lived in an isolated,
yet most beautiful spot, some four miles dis-
tant. It was written in a hasty manner,
and was nearly an illegible scrawl. The writing
of the squire was not known to him, he therefore
accepted it as genuine. The purport of the note
was, that his housemaid had just deliberately cut
the throat of the nurse, through finding her encom-
passed within the arms of a former sweetheart of
hers, and that he had ventured to acquaint him of
the matter, believing that he would like to know of
it as early as possible, and adding that he might
ride with his man in the dog-cart down to his house
the same evening if he liked, and that his man
should bring him back. In a postscript he ad-
vised him, for special reasons, to come then with
the man. Having gained from the messenger
enough of the particulars of the affair to make him
think it had horrible features, he determined to go,
and so proceeded towards the scene in a dog-cart.
Before going far he was asked by his companion if he
had brought his note-book with him. He found he
had not, so they returned for it. The man, while the
reporter was in the house, went a short distance away,
and went into a shop. Directly after they were soon
on the way, and when about midway between his own
house and the squire's, he was seized by the throat
by the seemingly farm labourer, and his money ab-
stracted from his pockets by the powerful villain.
Attempting to get away, he was held down by the
throat, and threatened that he would strangle him
if he offered any resistance. By dint of much per.
severance he released himself from his grasp, but
immediately regaining himself, he was thrown over
the cart into the road, and away galloped the horse
with the despicable robber. Cries for assistance
would have been futile in his situation.
It was found out that the note was a base
forgery, that the dog cart had been borrowed
from the proprietor of a road-side inn, under
the plea that the said squire had " just been
taken very ill," and that he wanted to fetch a
doctor quickly. The horse and dog cart were
found in a geld about a quarter of a mile from its
owner's. No trace of the stamp has yet been
found out.

While the reporter was away, the servant girl
who answered the door communicated to a fellow
servant her belief that he was the same person
who had asked to see her master the same day.