The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-09-04 00:00:00

ATROCIOUS MURDER IN DEMERARA

(Pomo the Guiana Times of July 21.)
Happily for the safety of human life, and the maintenance
of the reputation of society, the atrocities which it falls to
our lot to narrate, in the following recital, are, in this part of
the globe, of rare and remarkable occurrence.
Penny, or Penelope Rose, the wretched woman who has
been condemned to expiate her deliberate and treacherous
cruelty on a public gibbet, was married to Samson, a fellow-
slave, some time about the memorable era of Missionary
Smith and martial law. They lived, if not happily, at least
peaceably, and had children by their marriage. Five years
ago, Penny, who had never been acceptable to her husband's
family, having a reckless and turbulent character, com-
menced an adulterous intercourse with an apprentice on the
same plantation, Harry Blount, subsequently her partner in
crime, and now the sharer of her misery, with whom, leaving
her husband, she even went to reside. When the passion of
the moment was gratified, she would come to her husband
again, who, a quiet, easy, unsuspecting person, was but too
glad to receive her. It is singular to remark that in figure,
face, and speech, she is one of the coarsest and most repul-
sive women that are to be seen. At last, Blount, becoming
jealous of the possession of Penny by her husband, who, be-
ing a foreman, or under-overseer of the plantation, was, so
far, his superior, threw out hints about putting an end to the
husband's life. These the faithless and traitorous wife was
but too ready to understand and act upon. In fact, not-
withstanding her asseverations to the contrary, the instiga-
tion to what followed seems to have principally come from her
tongue, The labourers on the same plantation say she first
tried poison, preparing a bason of soup for her husband, of
which she forbade her children to partake, This failing, Blount
and she laid a common scheme to murder by violent means.
A Thursday night was fixed on : the Holy Evangelists of
Almighty God were taken, and an oath of resolution and
silence sworn upon them ; but the man's courage failed, and
nothing was done. Next day the woman upbraided him for
his absence, telling him, as she had made her husband drunk
for the occasion, that he missed a fair opportunity. The
plot was laid anew, and the solemn oath again taken, and it
was fixed that the murder should happen on the night of
Friday, the 26th of June : the time, premises, and mode,
were minutely marked. For the last time, on that afternoon
was the unfortunate victim seen alive and in health. As
evening came, the domestic meal and familiar conversation
occurred, and the savage murderess, it is said, attuned her
temper, for the moment, to unusual sweetness. Supper
over, she fastened, ow pretended to fasten, the doors of the
house, leaving, by concert, the windows unbolted, knelt for
prayer, and went to bed, her husband following immediately
and lying down beside her, and their two surviving children
lying on a mattrass on the floor beneath. Towards mid-
night, Blount entered by a window, and groped his way
through the humble hall towards the bed-room. His para-
mour, broad awake and expectant, seized his hand, and,
bidding him move softly, directed him to where rested the
head of her husband, fast asleep it may be, although the evi-
dence is not explicit on this head, under the influence ofa drug
mixed with his supper. Thrice Blount raised with his two
hands a heavy green-heart club, to strike the fatal blow, and
thrice his weapon fell powerless. The mysterious influence of
the woman, however, overcame his fears or his scruples, and
the fourth time he struck, and instantly fled, leaving, in his
terror, the window and the door open. The wife, then,
to complete the tragedy, cut in her husband's neck with
a knife, and, when all was over, lay still beside him
ga-ei
icnt,
oietsushnsneletos,,
mother,
sounds,
rewi
c3ooarnnt:el illustrated,y
until he became cold. We compile our narrative from
l
the confessions of the prisoners and the depositions of
ionf acrfeedwi credit. minorsle particulars,then
made a b
noise,
pri-
vate
whichfros she as
theatt o
awake
as if of a person in great sickness, and awoke her boy, who
father,pra og
u pawn
with
hmwaedieLas if tfeignedo
astonishment. To protract the period of discovery, she bade
her son call one of his uncles, who lived a considerable way
off. The boy, with remarkable intelligence, said he would
call the uncle who lived close by. When this latter person
came and felt his brother, the callous woman told him he
needed not feel him any more, for he was dead already. She
then made an effort to wash the pillow-case of the bed from
the blood with which it was saturated, before
the people in
the yard were alarmed, but in this she was frustrated. The
manager was called up : early in the morning an inquest was
commenced before a Stipendiary Justice, a gentleman who
evinced the most laudable circumspection in nearly all that
lie did, and was adjourned to the following day, when first
Penny and then Harry Blount, emitted the voluntary de-
clarations which have led to their conviction.
At the trial, the brother of the deceased, his son, a kept-
mistress of Harry Blount, with the Stipendiary Justice, and
a medical man who examined the dead body, delivered very
clear evidence, inconclusive of itself, but corroborative or
explanatory of the confessions. As the little boy was ex-
amined, when he said he had had a mother, but Penny was
not his mother any longer, there was hardly one dry eye in
court. The prisoners' counsel rested the defence on the re-
jection of the confessions, which, lie said, were, in many
points, informal, according to the English law of inquests,
and had, moreover, been taken on Sunday, which is not a day in
law. He dwelt, with judicious brevity, although with impres-
sive earnestness, on the possibility of comparatively ignorant
persons having been terrified into confessions stretching
beyond the truth. The judges unanimously over-ruled the