Nantwich, Sandbach & Crewe Star — 1888-10-20 ()

ATROCITIES. In Dugdale's England and Wales delineated the following account of a terrible crime perpetrated in Cheshire is given :—" Congleton is memorable in the history of the county as the scene of an atrocious and perhaps unprecedented murder, which was perpetrated by Samuel Thorley, a butcher's assistant in the town. The name of the unfortunate victim was Annie Smith, a ballad singer, aged 22. It appears that she was met on a footway near Congleton by the prisoner, who prevailed on her to accompany him to a hollow place at some distance from the road, when he severed her head from her body, cut off her arms, legs, thighs, and breasts, took out her bowels and tongue, and having cut off the calves of her legs and other fleshy 13arts, threw what remained of the carcass into a brook. Having thus, as he imagined, secured himself from the possibility of detection, he placed those parts in his apron, and carrying there to the house of an old woman, told her that he had received 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 requested permission to boil what he then termed his pork, which bt iug granted, he ate a part of it for breakfast; but finding it to disagree with him, he desired the woman to throw the remainder away. Soon afterwards some men, who had occasion to pass the brook, observed a petticoat in the water, and their suspicions being awakened, they searched attentively and found several dismembered parts of a human body. The head and face being seen by an aged woman in the neighbourhood, she instantly exclaimed, "It is poor Annie Smith, the ballad singer." The manner in which deceased had been cut to pieces occasioned a shrewd countryman to ebserve, that the act was prohably.perpetrated by a butcher; and the ferocious disposition of Thorley excited a suspicion that he was the person, though he had assisted in the search for the remains of the body, and expressed a strong detista,tion at 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 t.his idea, they searched the cottage of the old woman in whose custody the flesh had been left, and who was perhaps known as an acquaintance of the murderer, and was then, as far as she was concerned, informed of the foregoing particulars. The scattered pieces of the body were produced ; and the man perceiving that .they were not bristly as a scraped pig should have been, conveyed them to a surgeon, who itnmediately pronounced them to have belonged to some human body. Thorley was soon afterwards apprehended. He acknowledged the pernetrp.tion, and being questioned as to the motive which influenced him to commit such a horrible crime, he answered, that "Having frequently heard that .human flesh resembled young pig in taste, curiosity prompted him to try if it was true." During his imprisonment and trial he behaved with the utmost indifference. At the gallows he only inquired if the executioner intended to strip him; when, receiving an answer in the negative, he displayed a slight degree of satisfaction. His body was hung in chains on a heath near Congleton. The witnesses at his trial averred that he had never shown any marks of insanity, and entertained the opinion that extreme avarice was the principle inducement to th 9 commission of this singularly savage act of diabolical cruelty. He was executed on the 10th of April, 1777.  INTENDING EMIGRANTS TO CANADA, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand can obtain pamphlets and other information free of cost from HENRY TAYLOR Auctioneer, High-street and Heath-street Crewe, who has the Agency for no less than NINE Atlantic Steamship Lines, besides the principal lines to other parts.— Advt