The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-22 00:00:00

THE WILL FORGERIES.

Lydia Sanders, the wife of Sanders, and the fictitious
Emma Slack, with whose name the public have been so
long acquainted in connexion with the will forgeries,
has, as well as her husband, been apprehended, through
the able instrumentality of John and Daniel Forrester,
the officers. They will be placed at the bar of the Man-
sion-house on Saturday, together with Barber, Fletcher,
Mrs. Dorey, and Griffin, when the depositions against all
the prisoners will be read over preparatory (according to
the general expectation formed upon the evidence pub-
licly adduced against them) to their commitment to
Newgate for trial, at the ensuing session, at the Central
Criminal Court.
After much activity and tact of' investigation exhi-
bited upon the part of the officers employed by the pro-
secutors, it became apparent that Sanders and his wife
were both secreted at Edinburgh, or in the immediate
neighbourhood of that city. John Forrester was, upon
the receipt of such information, dispatched to Edin-
burgh, and, after considerable difficulty, he ascertained
that persons answering the description of the two ac-
cused individuals had been lodging, under assumed
names, from the middle of January until within the last
three weeks, at a small lodging in an unfrequented part
of Edinburgh, but that, in consequence of some dis-
turbance between two of the inmates of the house, on
account of which a threat had been held out that the as-
sistance of the police should be claimed, they had de-
parted, but whither, the occupiers of the house were un-
able to afford any information.
Forrester, however, through the medium of the Post-
office, learned that when Sanders and his wife left the
above-mentioned lodging, the former requested the post-
man of the district to leave the letters addressed to him
at a grocer's shop, where it appeared they had been in
the habit of dealing since their arrival, and during their
stay in Edinburgh. The people of the shop, it would
seem, did not know Sanders's place of residence, but
they knew him from the calls he had made to purchase
various articles, and to receive his letters. Having amen
tained so strong a fact, Forrester forthwith obtained
permission to have two of the Edinburgh police stationed
at the back part of the premises from morning till
night for the purpose of pouncing upon Sanders when
he should call for his letters. This course was pursued
for several days, until at last, at about nine o'clock in
the evening of Wednesday, the 13th instant, the hus-
band of the notorious Lydia Sanders, alias Emma Slach,
made his appearance at the shop, and purchased a small
quantity of tea. The desirable visit was instantly com-
municated to the police stationed on the premises, and to
Forrester, who, dreading that he might lose Sanders in
tracing him to his home, considered that the best plan
he could adopt was to secure the prisoner he had so long
sought for on the spot.
Sanders refused to state where he resided, what his
name was, or to answer any questions put to him by
Forrester, who, of course, could not guess amidst such
exclusive caution as that exhibited by hirn and his wife.
The law of Scotland does not, it appears, authorise the
committal of a person apprehended under such circum-
stances as those above described to prison, and Forres-
ter was, in consequence of so remarkable a difference
between the English and Scotch systems, obliged to keep
Sanders at his hotel, in custody of two men, night and
day during his stay in Edinburgh. where he was delayed
in the hope of finding Emma Slack. With this vie*
the officer remained in Edinburgh during the whole of
Thursday and Friday, but without success, when San-
ders ultimately requiring that the warrant should be
complied with, viz. that the prisoner should be taken
before the Lord Mayor, there was no alternative, and
Forrester was obliged on Saturday to leave Edinburgh
with the individual named in the warrant, after having
given strict injunctions to the Edinburgh police to pur-
sue the inquiry, and apprehend the female they sought,
if she was to be found. lie arrived in town with the
prisoner at six o'clock on Monday morning, in the mail.
At twelve o'clock on the same day Sanders was takes
before the Lord Mayor, and, after a short examination,
remanded till Saturday next, when her final examina-
tion is to ta4e place. Forester, having deposited his
prisoner in safe custody, left London again for Edin-
burgh on the same night, to renew his search after
Mrs. Sanders, alias Emma Slack. It seemed to be
next to impossible that she should escape, as it would
appear that she had little or no money in her possession,
and her friends had no means of sending her any assist-
ance, except through the former address, where, of
course, she would be apprehended, if she went to receive
what might be necessary to her existence.
A dispatch was, we understand, received yesterday
morning, from the chief of the Edinburgh police, an-
nouncing that they had discovered Mrs. Sanders in the
course of Tuesday, and that she had been apprehended,
and was then in custody; and it was proposed to send
her to town on Wednesday night in the care of a male
and a female guard.
Forrester, it is conjectured, arrived at Edinburgh
on Wednesday last, and will, no doubt, accompany the
prisoner, who is to be attended by a female to town,
where they will arrive in the course of this day.
We have been given to understand that before it be-
came known to the prosecutors that Mrs. Sanders was
the party who personated the fictitious Emma Slack,
suspicion attached to various females who were in any
degree connected with, or known to either Barber or
Fletcher ; and in fact we have reason to believe that at
one time Emma Slack was supposed to have been a man
in female disguise. Daniel Forrester contrived, with
great ingenuity, that Mrs. and Miss Neville should ob-
tain interviews, under the most extraordinary pre-
tences, with these parties, they little suspecting at the
time the object of the mission. Ultimately, however, it
appeared that Mrs. Dorey had been seen to kiss the
female who personated Emma Slack, and that kiss at
once suggested to the prosecutors the utility of looking
more closely to the connexions of the former. The
description of Emma Slack was accordingly ob-
tained with the greatest precision and accuracy, in-
cluding her manners, her habits, her mode of singing,
of which she was represented to be very fond, and the
songs she sung. Armed with all this information, the
officers employed upon these important investigations,
found that no two persons could be found so closely to
resemble each other in all those particulars. Dates were
then compared, and it was ascertained that Mrs.
Sanders was absent from Bristol at the time in ques-
tion. Other facts were also ascertained, which it is not
necessary to represent here, but which, combined with
what we have detailed, remove all doubts as to iden-
tity. All that was then to be done was to track Mrs.
Lydia Sanders, alias Emma Slack, out ; an undertak-
ing which has been just so ably accomplished by the.
sagacious officers to whom the task wits consigned.

THE STORM IS ATRSHIRR.—EarIy on the morn-
ing of Saturday last, one of the most fearful storms raged
around Kilmarnock which the memory of that anacima
earls, "the oldest inhabitant," enables him to meal from
his youth upward. As the day advanced the storm deepened
into the utmost pitch of hurricane fury. The gusts which
roared in hollows were alike stunning from their noise and
violence ; the woods resembled an army making war upon
itself; branches were lopped in pruning-knife fashion, torn,
twisted, and whirled through the air, and echoes awakened
in hidden recesses, so clamorous that they seemed, to be
" sympathiserP with the Spirit of the Storm. Little chil-
dren in venturing abroad, were in many instances toppled
head over heels, and even adults, taxing their energies to
the uttermost, were in danger of sharing the same fate. Cane
were dashed from ehimney-tops, roofs at least partially
tirled, and thatch coverings grievously disturbed, if not
blown bodily away. In the west end of the town, two
stately beeches were prostrated, that bad withstood the
blasts of many a winter, shrubberies greatly injured, and
the architectural ornaments on villas grievously defaced.
But the strangest arrival of all, was the arrival, at the ter-
minus of the Glasgow and Ayr Railway, of a truck used in
the transmission of goods, driven by the wind at the rate of
seventy miles an hour. In approaching the depot it split
the huge pillars of the gate, and would have done otherwise
much mischief, had not its career been stayed by the buffers
—Dumfries:Courier.
Three weeks ago a mare, belonging to Mr. Father-
stone, of Tibberton, was backed for ten sovereigns to trot
jfour miles in sixteen minutes. The animal was in the straw-
yard, and quite out of condition at the time, but last week
she justified the confidence of her backers by trotting from
the Crow to the fourth mile-stone en the broitwieh road
in fifteen minutes and a half, being half a minute under the
time.