The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-11-27 00:00:00

A MARVELLOUS STORY.

On Wednesday, the 17th ult., (live weeks ago last Wed-
nesday,) a lad of twelve years of age, named John Windet,
the son of Mrs. Julia Ann Winder, a widow, living in Eller-
street, Cross-lane, and the mistress of the Pendleton Infants'
School, left home in the morning, and did not return; and
notwithstanding numerous inquiries, all that could be heard
of him was, that he had been last seen on the New Bailey
Bridge, shortly after eight o'clock, on the morning of that
day. Several days passed over, and nothing more being
heard of him, bills were posted, and be was advertised in
the London Hue and Cry, in the following terms :
" Boy Missirso.—Left home, in the neighbourhood of
Cross-lane, Salford, on Wednesday, the 17th instant, [OO.l
about eight o'clock in the morning-, and was last seen on
the New Bailey Bridge, shortly after that time. He is about
twelve years of age, four feet four inches in height, light
hair, fair complexion, with a slight scar on the upper lip;
dressed in a drab fustian jacket, waistcoat, and trowsers,
black silk handkerchief, and cloth cap. Any information
which can be given to Mr. Diggles, constable, Town-hall;
Salford, that he may be restored to his distressed parent, will
be most thankfully received.—Oct 23, 1838."
These means tailed to obtain any tidings of the lad, and
his motheraud friends had altogether despaired of ever seeing
him again alive, supposing him, with some reason, to have
' fallen into the river or canal, when, on. Monday last, nearly
five weeks after his disappearance, the lad returned home,
and related such a strange story of his adventures during his
absence, that Mr. Hobday, one of the constables of Pendle-
ton, on bearing it, very properly took the boy, to the Man-
chester police-office, the same day, with a view to having
the circumstances a little investigated. The story of the boy,
as related to the constables of Manchester, was substantially
in the following terms:—
On that Wednesday, five weeks since to-day, I was walk-
ing along the bank of the river, near the New Bailey, and a
man, with an empty boat, drawn by two horses, asked me if.
I would ride upon one of his horses. 1 got up, and rode about
a mile, and then got off, and was going home, when the man,
who was captain of the boat, took hold of my arm, and pulled
me into the boat, and said he would take me home soon, I'
cried, and then he put me below, and' said he should soon
return, and would bring me back with him. He took me to
Liverpool, and I cried, and asked to go back to my mother,
and the boatman said he was not going back for a tew days,
and he would take me to another vessel that was going to
sail to Manchester the next day. It was night when we got
to Liverpool, and he took me through several streets, and to
the sea side, and placed a ladder, with two bent hooks at the
end, to stick in the stones, and I went down the ladder into
a small boat. I was taken in the small boat, and put upon
a large vessel, lying a good distance out, and it took us a
long time to go there. When the boatman from Manchester
and me got up the large vessel, the boatman told the captain
of the vessel that 1 was his nephew. 1 told him I was not,
and I was ordered below stairs, and the captain and this
boatman went away, and left the vessel together. 1 was in
that vessel from that day until Saturday ,night last, and/
during that time, I was made to clean the deck, and wash
different places, and do odd jobs about; and I was kept
chiefly upon salt beef, biscuits, and whiskey punch, They
called the captain "John Jones," and the mate "Ball," or
"Bold." There were two boys upon deck, brothers; and
they said they came from Scotland, and that their father and
mother had bound them apprentices to Captain Jones. They
called them Thomas and John Turner. They said they had
been one voyage to New South Wales. I got very friendly
with the mate of the vessel; he very often said prayers, and
read his Bible • and he and me read the Bible together verse
for verse. The mate said he would see if be could not assist
me in escaping. I was a month and five days on board this
vessel, and during that time she never moved. Besides the
captain and mate, the two boys' (Turner) and myself, there
were nineteen sailors on board. Most of the men were of a
yellow colour, and wore tiugs in their ears; and one of them
wore a ring in his nose. On Saturday last, a vessel loaded
with'sets [large square stones for paving' lost its anchor, and
was driven back to sea, and it came alongside the vessel I
was upon, and fastened to it with a rope. That night the
captain was gone to tea, and all the sai:ors were drunk, and
the mate got hold of me and placed me upon a rope that fas-
tened the other vessel to ours; and I slided down it, and hid
myself amonest some hay that was amongst the sets, and I
kept there till Sunday noon, and then 1 was found there by
the captain of that boat; and,we were at Runcorn. The cap-
tain was vexed at my being there, and he drove me on shore,
and 1 asked which was the way to Manchester, and I came
all along the river side all night, and I got to Manchester on
Monday morning.
On hearing this story, Mr. George Wood and Mr. Woollam,
constables of Manchester, direeted M r„,,Heswick, the principal
police beadle, to proceed to Liverpaol, and make inquiries
as to the vessel for New SoutleWales, &c. Mr. Beswick
took the boy with him, and had Interviews with Mr, Hall, the
stipendiary magistrate ; Messrs. Shuttleworth and Ellis,
clerks to the magistrates; Mr. Dowling, superintendent of
police, and other official persons, all of whom declared their
conviction that the whole of the story of John Winder was a
fabrication Mr, Askew, • the haesour-master, who offered
every assistance in his power, expressed strongly his disbelief
„c., --.- ------- - - u - '"'-' - T.ieut. Walker, tide-
surveyor and inspector of the river, was of a ,- -1.,...0
as to the falsehood of the statements. He state,,--
d, that all the
vessels that came within the Black Rock, as well as every
vessel in quarantine, were registerd at his office; and there
was no ship or other vessel having such a crew as described
by the boy, whose mind, the lieutenant hinted, must be labour-
ing under some strange hallucination. Both Lieut. Walker
and Mr. Askew paid every attention to the case; and as to
one statement of the boy, they declared that they had been on
board many hundered vessels in their lives, and they had
never yet seen one man with a ring in his nose. Mr. Bes-
wick extended his inquiries amongst the pilots, and they de-
clared that there had been no vessel lying out for more than
three or four days; nor was it likely that such should be the
case, for a vessel lying out at anchor, with her crew on board,
the wages and maintenance of the crew would be going on ;
whereas, if the vessel were in dock, the crew, while not at
work, would have no claim for wages. Mr. Beswick next
sought in vain for the boatman, who, the boy said, had rowed
him from Liverpool to the large vessel. All the boatmen
ridiculed the idea of any vessel lying, out so long. The boy,
amongst other duties on board the vessel, said he had been
compelled to go up two flights of rope ladders, to set a small
flag; but the boatmen laughed at this and said that small
lags were always hoisted by a line from the deck. Mr.
Beswick next took the lad in succession to St. George's
Dock, Prince's, Waterloo, Clarence,- Nova Scotia, Salthouse,
and other docks; but the lad said he could not see any vessel
at all resembling the one on board of which he had been de-
tained. At length, after visiting Lloyd's'Rooms, and having
given more pains and trouble to this inquire than would be
expended in some localities in conducting investigations
relating to a murder, Mr. Beswick returned to this town
on Thursday night last, with the lad, requiring him to be at
the police office again, yesterday morning at nine o'clock,
in order to go with him to discover the flatman, who, he
said, had taken him from Manchester. The lad did not
make his appearence, and he was accordingly sent for, when
he still persisted in his story. Oar reporter saw him at
the police-office, and asked him the names of the flat and
ship ; but he said he never heard or saw either, and he never
asked the mate of the latter what was her name. .Our re-
porter then asked him vilit books he was fond of reading.
The lad said the Bible, prayer books, and hymn books; but
he subsequently said that his elder brother paid a penny a
month to a Sunday school library for the loan of books, and
that they had read Captain Cook's voyages. He said that
Robinson Crusoe was not in that library; but on further
questioning, he said his mother had that work, but he de-
clared she would not allow him to read it, and that he had
never read more than a page or two of it, relating to Crusoe
being wrecked. Now those who have read this work will
recollect that Crusoe, a runaway from his parents, the second
day of his first voyage is dismayed by a storm, and, by the
lad who tempted him to leave him, lie is supplied with punch,
a liquor not usual on board vessels now; but, nevertheless,
the same which Winder asserts was given him. Crusoe's
vessel lay seven or eight days in Yarmouth roads, waiting a
wind ; hence the alleged length of time during which Winder
says be was on board the ship at anchor. It would require
no remarkable stretch of a lively imagination to convert
the crew of the Sallee rover of Crusoe into the yellow men,
with rings in their ears and noses of this young romanccer.
We have been somewhat diffuse in our notice of the case,
because that, from the lad's youth and manner, he has gained
credence for his tale in various quarters, amongst individuals
of great respectability; and because, if believed, the story
must tend to awaken a host of groundless apprehensions
on the part of parents, especially those residing in the neigh-
bourhood of rivers and canals. The circumstances in detail,
however, of this story, are, we should think, quite enough of
themselves to satisfy any reflecting mind that the whole is a
fable—such a fable as a clever imaginative boy of twelve
years old, having read nautical books, and especially Robin-
son Crusoe, might invent. The only remarkable circumstance
is the fact of the boy's absence during five weeks. When he
returned, his clothes were soiled with tar or pitch, and there
is little doubt that he has been on board some vessel. The
probability is that he was a volunteer sailor, like the hero of
the fiction Robinson Crusoe, and having got tired or fright-
ened, he left his vessel, and then invented this story to con-
ceal his disobedience and wayward folly.
Since the former part of this article was written, we learn
that Mr. Beswick discovered, yesterday afternoon, that the
boy left home about nine months ago, and at that time ab-
sented himself for five days. We think if any thing were
wanted to satisfy the too credulous, as to the real character
of the story, this circumstance is amply sufficient.—Manches-
ter Guardian.