The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-09 00:00:00

DUNDEE MAGAZIiVE.

Some interesting particulars have transpired in reference
to this as yet unexplained occurrence. Wrapped up with
the piece of tow there was found a bit of flannel cloth. At
first it attracted no attention—the police thinking it a rag
which had been mixed with the tow inthe absence of some-
thing of a more combustible character. On further in-
spection of it, however, it struck some of the officers that
it resembled very strongly the fabric from which mili-
tary underclothing is made. So convinced were they that
this was the case that they resolved on a comparison.
This was done in the course of Friday by the detec-
tives, and the similarity between the cloths was so great
that they were convinced that they were one and the
same. Another circumstance is possessed of considerable
interest. A fortnight ago several soldiers were appre-
hended on a charge of being guilty of riotous conduct.
One of the soldiers was rather severely cut, and Dr. Pixie
was called to dress his wounds. While he was doing so the
man gave utterance to numerous statements, one of which
was that he intended to blow up the magazine
before the detachment left the town if he was not re-
leased. Another of the soldiers, about the same time,
alleged that he would yet do for the police. Such re-
marks at the time did not awaken any apprehension, or
indeed excite much attention, but, since the occurrence of
Thursday, have been vividly recalled to the memories
of those by whom they were heard. Some excite-
ment was created in the town on Friday, when
it became generally known that two of the
soldiers had absconded from the barracks. A private left
the barracks on Wednesday, and has not been seen since.
On Friday morning a lance-corporal was sent with the
letters to the post-office, and did not return. He was
found in the Wellgate in the course of the evening, and
taken to the police-office, and afterwards to the bar-
racks. It is a very common thing for soldiers to desert
from their regiment before it leaves town, and this
is considered the explanation for the conduct of both

men.

MURDER IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.

A man named John Rogers, an itinerant pot-seller,
living at Burslem, is in custody at Hanley, charged with
the wilful murder of Mary Durwin, an Irishwoman with
whom he had cohabited for several years. The circum-
stances,
as at present known, are briefly these :—On Thurs-
day night the prisoner and the murdered woman were
seen together in several public-houses in the neighbour-
hood of Burslem. At the village of Milton they had a
violent quarrel, the woman upbraiding her paramour with
wasting the money which she earned, and the latter telling
her that as she was not his wife she had no claim upon
him, and that he did not care how soon she left him. He
was proceeding to violence, when the landlord of
the house interposed and protected the woman. At a
late hour they left the house together, and went through
several fields in the direction of Hanley. They were met
by two colliers, who, before they came up to them, had
heard a woman screaming " Murder," and who on seeing
them were satisfied from her appearance that the woman
had been grossly illtreated, but they do not appear to have
interfered. The deceased and Rogers were not again seen
together, but at half-past four o'clock on Friday morning
a collier going to his work reported to two men whom he
met coming from a pit that he had passed a woman lying
on the canal bank, and that she appeared to have been in
the water. He asked them to look after her, but they
contended that as they bad just left work, while he was
fresh from sleep, it was more reasonable to expect that he
should charge himself with this act of humanity. The
wrangle ended in all three of the men going about their
own business with the most perfect indifference as to the
fate of the woman. Nothing more was heard of her until
seven o'clock on Saturday morning, when her dead body
was accidentally discovered in a disused colliery engine-
house a few hundred yards from the bank of the canal. The
body, when found, was lying across a wheelbarrow, and a
subsequent examination of the locality shewed that in all
probability the murderer had first of all endeavoured to
bury the body in the shale lying at the mouth of a
neighbouring coal-pit, but had abandoned that idea for
some reason or other, and had then wheeled it straight
the engine-house. A post-mortem examination of the
ivaly has been made by Mr. Oldham, surgeon, of Burslem,
who is of opinion, from appearances presented by the
woman's throat, that she was strangled. In addition to
marks of violoice on the throat, there are bruises on both
arms, caused ap,:larently by the tight grip of a man's
hands. The prison: r, on being taken into custody, said
that as he and the womao were walking along the bank of
the canal she fell into the water through being very drunk,
that he pulled her out at the ris:: of his own life, and then
left her.