River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1877-11-15
t" The Black Muserm."

IKE Black Museum is room at the
London Police Headquarters in which
during the last three years pieces de con
UictiOa have beee arranged and labelled,
forming CHASTITY, squalid and suggestive
show. The London Spectator thus de-
scribes it:
"Along the wall on the right side OF
the room is ranged choice collection of
guns, crowbars and iimmies the latter
are implements of the house breaking in
dustry, which admit of great variety and
are susceptible ofhighly artistic handling;
and among them is pair of tongs, I'M
evenly rusted and with dirty paper
book, written all over with incoherent
sentences attached to it. The tongs arc
those with which man named MELON
aid killed his wife about two years ago.
The book is, it seems to the visitor,
record of various phases of the mans
insanity. They hanged him though, and
also the greater number of the proprietors
of the horrid, labelled assortment of ham,
mers, Understanding the bread, carv-
ing and pocket varieties-razors and
pistols, which suggest a cutters booth in
fair. There is dried blood on all the
knives and razors, and on some of the
hammers, and every one of them stands
for a murder or suicide; in terrible
number of cases, for the murder of wife
by her husband.
Several of the pistols, mostly beautiful
weapons, are the instruments OF suicide,
and each is labelled with the name, date
and place. The simple suicides are al
most all among the higher class of socie-
ty, and when the visitor asks how the pis-
toll with which gentleman of wealth
and station shot himself has come into
the keeping of the Museum, he is told:
1.-THE family mostly do not like to have it,
and so they ask the police to take it
away" In a corner hang the clothes
the Rev. j. Watson, who murdered his
wife at Stockwell; the horse-pistol with
which he shot her, and the heavy ham
mer which he bought to knock the nails
into the chest in which he proposed to
hide her body. So carefully had the
murderer washed his trousers and his coat
sleeves that the blood-stains could only
be discerned with difficulty at the time
of the investigation. But since the coat
and trousers have been hanging on the
Black Museums walls the stains have
come out close and thick. ave many
times notice that here" the visitor is told.
The frightful weapons used by the "Len-
ME" mutineers are here, neatly ranged
under the photograph of the ringleader,
"French Peter" and "group" of the
whole gang of ruffians, with a red-ink
mark on four heads among the number,
to indicate those who were hanged. Hard
by is bundle of letters forming the cor
respondence which furnished much of the
evidence against Margaret Waters, the
baby farmer. How much sin, shame,
sorrow and cruelty that small dusty bum
die represents!
A small hillycock hat, with a mask
fastened inside the front rim, into which
is packed a purse, a comforter, small
lantern and life preserver with terri
fic knob Of lead on it, is quite cheerful
object to turn to from all these grim
relics of worse crimes, though the bur
glar VINO formerly owned the life preser-
yer informed the police who seized, but
also rescued him-having come up on
hearing his cries when he was caught be-
tween the iron bars of window through
which he was escaping-on false alarm,
that he had thoroughly intended to do
for any one who should interrupt him
with that convenient weapon. A bundle
of flash notes, Bank of Elegance issue, for
which there is a fixed price, and a brisk
sale on race-courses among bettors who
can only read imperfectly or not at all;
the conjuring book of Prof. Zendavesta,
which always opened at the same page,
the only one on which there is a worked
Horoscopes; the wretched cheats ill
spelled accounts, which reveal the stupen-
dous credulity of the people, for they re-
cord an average of five hundred visitors
a week and. the letters addressed to him
chiefly by women, at least sufficiently
educated to know better-these are al
most amusing, after all that has been
seen before. A forged betting ticket,
which got the forger in trouble at the
Nottingham races, is a curious and in
genious example of perverted cleverness.
The forged ticket is identified with the
real one, to all appearance. On very
close inspection, one sees that it is better
printed than the genuine article. A large
assortment of burglars tools is not the
least suggestive object, here"