The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

NEW SOUTH WALES

Sydney papers to the 3d of March mention that Sir George
Gibbs, the Governor, was introducing " Normanbyism," as
it was there called, into the colony ; that is, granting free
pardon and letting criminals loose on society who had been
duly tried and convicted by jury.
These papers in the shape of extracts from South Austra-
lian journals and annotations contain certain passages which
may be usefully extracted here for the information, if needed,
of the jobbing people in the Adelphi and their dupes most
concerned. There is no occasion for comment as what is
here found is no more after all than a repetition of what has
been urged at various times respecting that colony.
"The thing is a whig job—the colony is a bubble which
will burst. We have said so often, and we repeat it now.
The bubble colony pretends to stand before the English
people a specimen of all that's bright and beautiful in the
theories of colonisation !—of all that is free and beneficial in
the annals of population and in the relations of commerce.
The consequence is, that many have committed, and many
talont more
inte haaoryms
oebaf
dye c
oscs
said
ani mdn
witonfshi
ht tpe
orl aehr
nee
only
Ist
gyeo
ar‘m -nae
ues with
colony,
towei
only
thallat
js
a with—disappointment
had
dhte
flourishedhi re Am'O man
idi l
wyhwbo before,
sfa 00l wealth,
s.
had done more than the mightiest conqueror to benefit man-
kind ;' but, as we have already said, there must be no forcing
—the colony, as well as the corn, must ripen by natural
means. But, with respect to Sonth Australia, there already
seem misgivings about a public debt. It is said that the
government, commercially speaking, is in a state of insol-
vency—that it neither does, nor can pay its way. It is said
to be dependent on the sale of bills to meet its daily neces-
sities. Will those bills be honoured with cash when they
become due ? If not, which does appear likely, public credit
must sustain a shock. The bills will be thrown back upon
hand ; and then how unfortunate will be the condition of
tradesmen who may happen to hold them ? Already a depre-
ciation in the value of property has taken place—there exists
a conviction in the minds of all persons interested
in the sub-
ject that the state of things at South Australia is anything
but sound. All, all is " bubble." The government is in a
state of trepidation, and does not know which way to look
for aid ; and few of the acts of that government are so de-
cided in their tendency as to promote any permanent good."
There are accounts besides of the prevalence of robbery
and bushranging, too long for insertion, but which
. may, serve
to enlighten those who are trusting to the specious represen-
tations of the emigration agents, as to the real state of the
country and its prospects.—Morning Herald.

AWFUL MURDER AND SUICIDE OF THE MUR-
DERER, IN LAMBETH.

On Monday morning. about ten o'clock, the greatest con-
sternation and horror were excited in the neighbourhood of
St. George's Road; Lambeth, by the intelligence that the
above tragical event had occurred at No. 4 Caroline Build-
ings, near West-street, West-square, Lambeth. The parti-
culars obtained'at the station house; in Tawer-street, Lam-
beth, are as follow :

The house in which this melancholy event took place is
inhabited by a man named Wetherley, who obtains a preca-
rious subsistence by showing a seal about the streets. We-
therley's wife some few days since left her home, and lived
with a shoemaker named William Heeley. On Sunday
night, the misguided woman changed her mind, and, meeting
casually with her husband, she listened to his promises of
forgiveness, and assurances of renewed comforts, and re-
turned home. The husband kept his word, and not a sylla-
ble of her-error was addressed by him to her ; and at an
early hour on MOnday morning, Wetherley quitted the house
with his seal and barrow. William Heeley, upon assuring
himself that he was deserted by his paramour, and that she
had returned to her natural protector, vowed vengeance on
her, and he was seen before light on Monday morning, try-
ing the temper of a carving knife. At ten o'clock the
neighbourhood was alarmed by piercing screams proceeding
from the residence of Wetherley ; and before the cause could
be discovered by breaking open the door, Mary Wetherley
' rushed out, with her throat dreadfully cut, and the blood
gushing over her dress arid upon the pavement around. The
poor creature could not cry for assistance, the blood choking
her utterance ; and, after running a few yards, she sunk
dead on the ground.
_ _

The murde-rer now appeared at the door, and it was evi-
dently his intention to follow his victim, and, if necessary,
finish the deed ; but the sight of some of the neighbours
caused him hastily to close the door—not before be had
flourished the bloody knife, and with dreadful imprecations
vowed instant death to any person who dared to follow or ar-
rest him. The police now arrived, and, a forcible entrance
being obtained, they proceeded to search for the murderer,
whom they shortly after discovered lying upon the floor, with
his bead, except a small portion of flesh, severed from his
body. The place was all the forenoon perfectly inaccessible
from the dense crowds congregated upon and around the spot,
and multitudes were every minute arriving to obtain a glimpse
of the scene of this tragic occurrence. The neighbourhood
is a low and mean one, through which there is no thorough-
fare ; and it is but a short distance from the spot where
Oxford lodged. _ _

In the confusion which necessarily attends so horrible a
transaction as this double deed of blood, it is very difficult to
ascertain the precise- facts of the case; and the different ac-
counts received consequently disagree in some of the details.
The brother of the unfortunate woman who has fallen a victim
to the unhallowed passion of her paramour, states that We-
therley was a fishmonger; that formerly he was doing very
well in that business, and was possessed of money ; but that,
through his intemperate habits, he had latterly been very
much reduced in his circumstances, and had hawked fish
about the streets in the neighbourhood of Greenwich, where
he and his wife bad lived for the last three years. About two
years ago, Heeley, who is a shoemaker, came up from the
west of England, and took lodgings with Wetherley and his
wife at Greenwich, where he attended to his business, with-
out any thing occurring to disturb the harmony of the family
beyond the occassional drunkenness of the husband. He had
not, however, lived long with them before he became very
much attached to Mrs. Wetherley, and, in the language of
the brother of the deceased, " was so fond of her that lie
doated upon the very ground on which she stood." His
attachment and attentions to the wife soon excited the
jealousy. of Wetherley, and frequent quarrels among the
three were the consequence. They still, however, con-
tinued to live together; and although both Wether-
ley and his wife often attempted to induce Heeley
to get lodgings elsewhere--for the poor woman was
wearied with the constant dissentions to which his unfortu-
nate attachment gave rise—he still persisted in retaining his
ground, and would not be persuaded, by kind words or other-
wise, to quit the house. Finding that all their efforts to
eject him from the lodgings were useless, Wetherley and his
wife agreed that they would take lodgings in London un-
known to Heeley, and leave him in possession of the house
at Greenwich. This they had done about a fortnight ago, to
the great annoyance of the infatuated Heeley, who imme-
diately resolved upon finding them out. On Saturday he
met the wife in the neighbourhood of the New Cut, Lam-
beth, and tried to make her divulge the place of their retreat.
This, however, she refused to do, and did all in her power to
induce him not to persist in a course which interfered with
the happiness of her' husband and herself. He was bent
upon revenge, and on Monday morning dogged the steps of
the husband home, by that means discovering their dwelling.
He then watched him (the husband) out with his barrow and
seal, and thereupon- proceeded to the house, when, finding
the wretched woman alone, he despatched her as above de-
scribed. _ _ _

The passage of the house in which the Wetherleys resided
resembles the floor of a slaughter-house, deluged with blood,
and the window-frame on the ground floor bears the marks
of the blood-stained hand of the ill-fated woman, whose first
act, after she received the fatal wound, was to throw up the
window to alarm the neighbours.
Heeley, after he had killed the woman, deliberately stood
before the looking-glass, and cut his own throat from ear to
ear. He then sat down in a chair opposite the glass, but was
seen by a pot-boy of a neighbouring public-house, almostim-
mediately to fall lifeless from the chair. The wound in his
own throat is one of the most desperate that could be inflicted
by a man's own hand.