Star.
London, England, 1829-01-03 00:00:00

MYSTERIOUS DEATH.

Monday an Inquest was held at the Griffin Inn,
Leeds, before R. BARR, Esq. Comm r for that b.,rough,
on view of thelsody of Ebenezer John .on, aged nine
sears, lying at the house of his father, Mr. Mat. lihn-
son, situate on the Wellington-mad, in that town. Thal
inquiry was instituted at the reque,t of W. Hey, E.+ I
the surgeon, of Leeds, who had attended most unre-
mittingly the unfortunate youth from the. commence-
ment of his short and severe illness to its melancholy
termination ; and who, on the poet snorter* examination
of the body, found the appearances to be such as ren-
amed proper an investigation of the circumstances of
the case. The inquiry, as involving the future peace
of mind of a most respectable family, thus assumed a
very important aspect, and was of a nature at once the
most painful and interesting. The investigation, which
commenced at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, did n t
terminate till nen. five is the evening. The Coroner
addressed the Jury as follows :
Gentlemen, before we proceed to view the body of
Ebenezer Johnson, the cause of whose death we are met
to investigate, I think it necessary to state 'a few cir-
cumstances, in order to guide your attention to the evi-
dence. The deceased, who, I understand, was nine or
ten years of age, is the son of Mr. Matthew Johns• n,
residing near the Public Baths, and died in the course
of last week, at the house of his sister, in Park-street.
Ile was attended by Mr. Hey, tie surgeon, and that
gentleman called upon me to say that there were cif.
cumstances count cted with the boa's death which ex-
cited in his mind some sort of surprise. The symptoms,
Mr. Hey thought, were such as would be produced by
the admitlistcting some deleterious substance; and I
am infcrmeJ that there have been four deaths within
the short space of eighteen weeks in the same family.
The first death, it would appear. took place un
doss telly as the effect of typhus feser. The second
death was sudden, attended with a degree of vomiting.
In the third death, which took place very soon after
in
second, the symptoms were precisely similar—pain
the chest, attended with vomiting ; and Ebenezer,
the fourth, whose death, as I before laid, we are now
met to inquire iqto, also died after a short illness, at-
tended by violcnt pain in the chest, great thirst, and
much vomiting. These circumstances were such as to
induce Mr. Hey to require that the body of the deceased
might be opened. Nt t the least objection aas made by
the sister of the deceased, at whose house the boy died,
nor by his father, to this proposition ; and the body was
in consequence opened by Mr. John Hey, in the presence
cf his father and two of his pupils. On the examination
of the stomach, the appearances (a Lich will be best de-
scribed by the evidence of Mr. Hey himself, who will
be called in) wile such as to induce him to suggest the
propriety of the present investigation ; and it is but
Justice to Mr. Johnson and his daughter to say th .t they
both acquiesced most willingly in that proposition, and
were anxious to have the matter thoroughly inquired
into. 1. understand, also, that another sun, who has'
just come home, now lies dangerously ill. and that the'
maid servant of Mr. Johnson's daughtet also lies ill at
the House of Recovery. lam not awa.e that .411 y per
son in particular stands accused; or that any CIICUITI
stance has hitherto come to light to criminate any in&
vidual ; but taking into consideration all these singular
circumstances, I felt it to be my duty to summon you
together; and the very important inquiry remains f r
you, whether the deceased, Ebenezer Johnson, came to
his death simply by natural causes, or by violent means?
Mr. Hey, the surgeon, two sisters, and the father and
mother of the deceased, were examined in support of
this statement; the father stating that lie had no doubt
of the insanity of his wife, against whose wishes, it,
would appear, the children were sent to their sister's.
The Jury, after a short consultation, returned a see-
dist, which, when entered by the Coroner, and read
over, stood thus—" That the deceased died of inflam-
mation ut the stomach, and that the said inflammation
was c used by the Visitation of Gon in a natutal way,
and not from any violence or osherwise.'"

The Windham Club possesses this peculiarity, that
ft admits strangers to dine with any member who dimes to intro-1
duce thew.
Ye-terday an Inquest was held at the London Hos-
pital, t n the body of WilliAm Zreen. aged 13. The
deceased and serval other, boys were winding the
handle of a winch, to turn a quantity of wash which
was boiling in the distillery of Meisrs. Smith and Co.
distillers, at Whitechapel, when he suddenly let the
handle go, and it struck him in the breast, and forced
into the copper of boiling wash. He was so dread-
fully scalded, that be was beyond the reach of human
aid, and died is a few boors. Verdict-04 Accidental
Death."

DREADFUL CALAMITY—EIGHT PERSONS
DROWNED.
PROM THE HULL PACKET OE TUESDAY.
It is with most sincere and heartfelt freangs r f regret
we have to state that, since cur first impression went to
press, intelligence has been received of the occurrence,
in the vicinity of Spurn, on Sunday last, of a su. st
411:ctitig calamity, by which eight individuals have
pet ished I The particulars of thislart.entable affair are
but imperfectly known at present; we have, however,
made what inquiry was in our power, in the limited space
that has elapsed; and the following, we believe, is a cur
rect outline ol the circumstances connected with this me.
larcholy.catastrophe.On Sunday morhing,three trading
vessels, the Pliebe, (.1 Goole, the Helms'. y, of Seib).
and the &By, of this port, we:e lying uff Spurn, a ben
the three masters, Captain Sales, Samuel Healas, arid
George Briggs, agreed amongst themselves to spend the
day with the family cf Mrs. Richardson, who resides at
the km n Light-house. They left their respective yes
sels at half-past eleven on Sunday morning, in the boar
of one of them, accompanied by three men and a b,ny,
all belonging to the Phebe. and a man belonging to
one of the other vessels. Haling spent some time at
Mrs. Richardson's, it appears the unfortunate men
got into their boat to return :o their vessels, but were
beard, previously to leaving the house, to express a
determination to procure some cockles. Alter this,
nothing was heard or seen of them; they, however,
never returned to their vessels. Considerable alarm
cnnsequetstly prevailed, and the m. it melancholy
forebodings were indulged in, which were, alas! con-
verted into certainty by the finding of one of.the b -
dies yesterday morrs'ng, washed up by the tide at Clee-
thorps, on the Lincolnshire coast, and the subsequent
discovery of the remainder in the same vicinity. The
boat has nt.t hitherto been met with, but a bag of
cockles was found near the spot where the bodies were
washed ashore. The immediate cause of this dreadful
event tbus remains unknown, as every person on board
tine boat has perished ; but it is supposed that they had
got on Cleethorps sand for the purpose of collecting
cockles, and had returned to their boat, when, by some
accident or other, the boat was upset. The whole of
the bodies now lie at the ion at Cleethorps, but the
Coroner's Inquest has not yet been held.