The Cotton Factory Times. — 1887-12-02 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION OF MURDER. —On Monday, a young man, giving the name of Henry Sides, son of a farmer at Cut Glass Farm, Oswestry, gave himself up to the Newcastle-under. Lyme police as the perpetrator of a terrible murder at Llanfill, a Welsh village, on the 24th November of last year. Prisoner states that he met Margaret Bowen, his sweetheart, on that night, and gave her port wine, with which he had mixed laudanum and other deadly drags, to drink. She immediately became unconscious and died in a few minutes. The prisoner states that he concealed the body under a hedge, and returned. after midnight to bury it at the back of a barn at a Jarm occupied by Mrs. Vaughan, near Llanfill. ‘Finding some quicklime in the vicinity he covered. 'the body with it before filling in the earth. Since that time he has wandered over the country, and it is. evident he is in full possession of his faculties, although labouring under great depression. The authorities of the Welsh village named have been communicated with, and the prisoner stands remanded in custody. The man was formerly a clerk. in tho service of Lord Hereford. He is 27 years of age, °V rather stout build, and wears corduroy trousers and a checked coat and vest. THE .RANG3IAN, BERRY, AND HIS RELATIVES:. James Berry, the public executioner, has takenadvantage of a recent professional visit to Chelms-: ford to confide to a reporter of the Essex County Chronicle it number of particulars regarding himself, his family', and his profession. Some of his confessions, the Daily News says, are of a kind on, which persons of good taste would hardly care to' dwell; others are comparatively void of offence, and undoubtedly curious. There seems reason to, suspect that political sympathies have had something to do with the choice of this highly respectable organ of East Anglian Conservatism as the• medium of these confidences. In other words, James Berry is, acwordiug to his own declaration, "a Conservative through and through," in that regard differing from a brother of his (of whom more anon) who is, or rather was, "a Liberal, and in favour of abolishing capital punishment." Berry, we gather, stands No. 14 in the list of a family of 21 children. It will hardly surprise anyone to learn' that his friends did not approve of Ills choice of a profession; but all right feeling persons will be shocked to hear of the disastrous indirect effects of James Berry's abnormal inolinations upon his afflicted relatives. Questioned on this delicate subject, he replied mournfully, "It killed my mother and brother." Then, with an apparently morbid. pleasure in harrowing details, he went on to say "When Marwood died I was appointed in his place, and directly any mother knew of it she was taken ill. My father's solicitor then wrote to the Home Office informing the authorities of this. The' result was that I gave up the position, and Binne got the appointment. My mother died soon after.' wards, though, and then, when I saw the way in which Sinus was going on, I came to the conclusion that he would not hold the place long, and I again wrote to the Home Office, stating that my mother was dead, and there was nothing now to prevent my accommodating them if my assistance should be required. Soon after that I was engaged to hang two men at Edinburgh, and I have carried out nearly all the executions since then. The sequel of the tragic tale is yet to tell. "My brother," he went on to say, "had married a girl with plenty of ' money, and his pride received a blow on my appointment. That was the cause of his death.' This, it appears, was the brother who was Liberal," and "in favour of abolishing capital punishment." It must be confessed that this unfortunate member of the Berry family could hardly!, have given a more emphatic proof ot his dislike of the hangman's office. It is to be hoped that we have here reached the final incident in this ghastly tale, though James Berry's final observation, stlogether I have buried my mother, two brothers, and two aunts within the last three years," has a painfully ominous sound.