Bradford opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1874-1881, 1877-10-20
A SHOCKING TRAGEDY.
The Sad ktsry Of the Death OF YoanG
Wife In London-A Tale Of starvation
and Terrible Cruelty veutilased In the
Cour(s.

The Sad stsry Of the Death OF u Yosa
wife In Lendon-A Tale Of starvatie
and Terrible Cruelty veutilated In III
Courts.
Olive Logan writes from London I
the New York Graphic, giving the dc
tails Of the Penge mystery, the trial q
four young people for the murder b
starvation of fifth, a woman, the wifi
! OF one of the four. The trial creates
IN extraordinary sensation, and the court
room was crowded daily. The CORE
spondent says:
The murdered woman, whose Christian
name was Harriet, came up to Londol
from her home in the country four year
ago. She was highly connected. Sh'
was niece of Lady Rivers. Her step
father is n clergyman. Her own fathe
had good position. Her mother il
lady. From various sources Harrie
was entitled to the sum Of $4,000 OF
her marriage. She was of rather veal
intellect, easily influenced by any one tc
whom she took fancy, and she was
thirty-fve years old.
She stepped in London at boarding
house, and there made the acquaintance
of young man, Louis Staunton, 6
good-lookiag fellow, clerk to an auction
eer. He informed himself of her fnan.
cial prospects, and Immediately offered
her marriage, though he was more than
ten years younger than she was. She
accepted, and the astonished mothe,
in the country hurried up to town, took
in at glance what sort of man the
young auctioneer's clerk was, and his
motive for marrying her daughter. She
made an effort to reobtain control over
Harriet by trying to prove her of un.
sound mind; but she was not successful
in this, and Louis Staunton took his
wife away. Her mother never laid eyes
on her again, dead or living.
Louis had brother inhabiting lonely
place in Kent, and he now pleads that
he paid to this brother G1 week for his
wife's support. The brothers wife had
young sister, Alice Rhodes, and behold
them all living together in the same
house-the two couples comfortably; the
discarded wife, whose $4,000 have been
duly obtained, confined in dark cellar
beneath, without food, fire or necessaries
for cleanliness. A servant named Clara
Brown, sort of remote poor relative
waits on the lot, and one day when the
milkwoman was at the door, a ghastly
spectacle of filth and emaciation came
peering up toward the light from the
basement below, giving the milkwoman
as great fright as if it had been ghost,
and Clara Brown few toward the gaunt
intruder, shrieking, "Go back! Go down
stairs | I'll give it you'll" The poor,
hunted thing fed away with the wild
look of fear in her mournful eyes. "Do
you speak like that to a lady ?" asked
the milkwoman. "She'sno more lady
than you or ]" answered CLARA Brown.
"Who is she?" Masters sister," The
milkwoman never dreamed she was Louis
Staunton's wife. How could she9 Alice
Rhodes was Mrs. Louis Staunton to all
who knew them thereabout.
Now, this unhappy creature gave
birth to child. The child was seen
about the house by several people; all
thought it either. Alice's baby or her
sister's-Mrs. Patrick Staunton. One
day, however, this child was missing,
Patrick Staunton had taken it up to
London and placed it in hospital. The
Sister of Charity who received the babe
told him that it was dying of starvation,
which seemed to have been going on
since its birth. He replied that he knew
nothing of that, for the child was nothing
to hint was the child of carpenter
named Harris, whom he had promised as
a favor to bring the sick child to Lon
don hospital. He was told he must
fetch proper clothes for it. He called
the next day. The child had died during
the night. He promised to call again.
He never did. The child was buried by
the hospital authorities, registered as
" Harris"
We must change the scene now and
find these Stauntons and Alice Rhodes
looking for lodgings at Penge, a suburb
near the Crystal Palace. They engaged
a sitting-room and bedroom at the rate
Of SO q week, and told the landlady that
the lady was i'll who was to occupy them,
and would probably not be able to come
over from the railway station before
She left the front door open
that they might the more easily go in
and out, and at ten o'clock in the
evening, to her surprise, on going up to
her new lodgers' rooms, she found the
sick woman lying in bed. She had been
brought in the house without noise or
The landlady insisted ON their
having doctor, and after some hesita-
tion Alice Rhodes and Louis Staunton
went out and called on the nearest
physician, DIR. Longrigg. He came and
saw the patient, but she could not speak.
He remarked the extreme filthiness of
the body, and asked who had been her
previous medical attendant. They gave
The name of physician near their own
home, but who in reality never attended
her.
When the landlady at Penge was
cleaning her doorsteps the next morning
The undertaken came up and asked to be
allowed to go upstairs and measure the
corpse. The good woman was astonish-
ed, and directed him to another house,
where there had been sickness, thinking
he had made a mistake in the number.
She then hurried Upstairs and raped
1t the door of the sitting-room. Alice
Rhodes answered it, and in reply to her
question, said q" Yes, she is gone" A
woman came from the undertaker's to
wash the body. The filth of it was some
hing ipdescribable. The feet were
horny, indicating that she had been long
without shoes. Her hair was matted and
L. "a h.