The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1889-09-14
An ENGLISH cANMIBAL.
Desired to Learn if Human Flesh Re-
sembled that of q Young Pig.

sembled that Of . Young Pig.
Congleton, in the county of Ches
ter, is memorable in the history Of
the county as the scene of an afro
cious and perhaps unprecedented
murder, which was. perpetrated by
Samuel Thorley, a butchers assist
ant in the town. The name of the
unfortunate victim was Anne Smith,
a ballad-singer, aged %. 1t ap-
peared that she was met on foot
way near Congleton by the prisoner
who prevailed on her to accompany
him to hollow place at some dis
tance from the road, where he sew
cred her head from her body, cut
other arms, legs, thighs and breasts,
and having cut off the calves of her
legs and other fleshy parts, threw
what remained of the carcass into
a brook. Having thus, as he inn
agined, secured himself from the
possibility of detection, he placed
those parts in his apron, and carry
ing them to the house of an old
woman, told her that he had re-
ceived from a butcher, who had
been driving pigs on the road, the
flesh of one that had died, which
he desired her to put up for him.
Calling again the next morning, he
permission to boil what
he then termed his pork.
Soon afterward some men, who
had occasion to pass the brook, OBJ
served petticoat in the water, and
their suspicious being awakened,
they searched attentively and found
several dismembered parts Of q hu-
man body. The head and face hav-
ing been seen by an aged woman in
the neighborhood, she instantly ex-
claimed, :."It is poor Anne Smith,
the ballad-singer." The manner in
which the deceased had been cut to
pieces occasioned a shrewd coun-
tryman to observe that the act was
probably perpetrated by butcher;
and the ferocious disposition of
Thorley excited a suspicion that he
was the person, though he had as
sisted in the search for tire remains
of the body, and expressed a strong
detestation of the conduct of the
unknown murderer.
His general character was bad,
and his frequent practice of eating
raw meat induced the countryman
to imagine that Thorley might have
concealed the flesh in some barn for
food. Under the influence of this
idea, he searched the cottage of the
old woman in whose custody the
flesh had been left, and who was
perhaps known to be an acquaint-
ance of the murderer, and was then,
as far as she was concerned, in
formed of the foregoing particulars.
The scattered portions of the body
we're produced, and the man, per-
ceiving that they were not bristly,
as scraped pig would have been,
them to a surgeon, who
Immediately pronounced them to
have belonged to some human body.
Thorley was soon afterward appre-
hended.
He acknowledged the perpetra-
lion, and being questioned to the
motive which influenced him to
commit such a horrible crime, he
announced that "having frequently
heard that human flesh resembled
young pig in taste, curiosity promp-
ted him to try if it was true" Dur
ing his Imprisonment and trial he
behaved with the utmost indiffer-
snce. At the gallows he only in
luired if the executioner intended
TO strap him, when receiving an an
swer in the negative, he displayed a
slight degree of satisfaction. His
body was hung in chains on a heath |
near Congleton. The witnesses on
MS trial averred that he had never
shown any marks of insanity, and
entertained the opinion the extreme
avarice was the principal induce
nent to the commission of this sin
yularly savage act of diabolical
cruelty. He was executed on the
10th of April, 1777.