The Potteries Examiner : — 1876-01-01 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

FOR TEA DRYNKERS.—The tea trade will enter upon a new phase from to-day (Saturday). All tea imported as merchandise is, from and after today to be subjected to examination by authorised officers of the Customs, who will draw samples and submit them to analysts. If found to be mixed with other substances, or with tea which has been deprived in any way of its proper quality, it is not to be delivered except with thP sanction of the Commissioners; and if the analysts decide that the tea is unfit for aonsumption it e to be forfeited and destroyed.  • THE WAINWRIGHT STATEMENTS . The London correspondent of the Edinbu7gh Daily r Review, aft, complaining of the sheriffs for withhold, , leg the documents from the press, says :—The truth about the statements, briefly told, is that in all three • have h. en written—two by Henry and one by Thomas. ' Both brothers wrote separate statements within a few days of their conviction—Thomas denying complicity in the net, but alleging that his brother murdered Bar.. net Lane, and that he assi,ted in disposing of the body; and Henry denying the crime imputed to him, and without mentioning his brother Thomas, mysteriously pointing to a nameless third party as having subsequently • cast the burden of the dead body upon him. These were the first statements made, an it was upon these, written without collusion, that the Lord Chief Justice and, the Home Sccretary deliberated in considering whether there were ally grounds for staying the execution of the law. Subsequently Henry was informed that Thomas had made a statement directly implicating him, nod thereupon he, casting aside all his forme,: theories and explanations, deliberately and eirenteatelltially denounced Thomas as the murderer, and described himself as iin unfortunate and unwilling taxessory after the fact. That is the whole truth aboat these ' statements," and it would have been me.di better, under the peculiar, and, as I venture to thiaic, the disproportionate amount of public curiosity gxeited, if the authorities had frankly handed tee documents to the Press for publication, arid not let their purport leak out through unofficial sources. A friend of mine possesses an intereging memorial of this eriese criebre in the form of Henry Wainwright s dishonoured acceptance for £lOO. The bill was drawn for goods supplied in the way of business, and Wainwright made no secret of his expetation of being able to meet the bill out of funds that were to he supplied to him by the Sun Fire Office as compensation for alleged loss of property by the fire in Whitechapel-road. When the bill fell due, and was not taken up (the excuse given being that the iosurance offiee had not yet paid the claim), my friend, who is a large Maurer with the San Office, called upon the secretary to ascertain the actual state of affairs. He was informed that the company intended to dispute the claim, and in the course of further interviews he learned that they were prepared to meet it by a charge of arson. W•inwrighes claim was for .123,000, and there being at the outset no grounds of suspicion, the ! stun would probably have been paid in due course. But I Wainwright's precipitancy ruined him. Shortly after the fire he called upon the secretary, and, representing that he was hard up, offered to take £1,500 in cash in full settlement. This unsolicited proposal to abate his claim aroused suspicion, and inquiries were set on foot, with the result that the company found sufficient evidence to justify them in withstanding the claim. Ammigst other things, they discovered that on the very night when the fire broke out Wainwright bad deposited with the barmaid of a public.house opposite a parcel of papers, which he asked her to take care of for him. In the month of September the toils of the law were slowly but surely gathering round Wainwright, and if be had not been arrested on no charge of murder, he would certainly have stood at the bar indicted for arson. The visiting magistrate of Newgate have decided not to allow the statement written by Henry Wainwright Previous to his execution to be published in, es-tense. The public will, therefore, have to remain satisfied with the abstract already published. The Home Office has possession of the other documents penned by the malefactor.