The Sun. — 1851-09-23 (London, England)

EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION.  About a month since the Neu, York Express stated i that lately, at Halifax, a private of the Ist Royal Regiment, then in garrison, about to return to England, appeared at the police-office, and voluntarily confessed to having murdered a young woman, about eight years ago, at Norwich, in England. The man gave his name as Thompson, a native of Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His victim was a young woman with whom he had been on terms of intimacy, and the crime was perpetrated by drowning her in what he termed a canal. The crime had so preyed on the offender's mind that he at length determined to give himself up to justice, and allow the law to take its course. Subsequent occurrences have confirmed the truth of the principal circumstances narrated. Thompson has arrived in England, and is now in Winchester gaol, and one of the superintendents of that district, Mr. Hubbersty, late of the Norfolk constabulary, has been over to this city instituting inquiries. Thompson gives the name of his victim as Hannah Barber, and both he and the girl were well known to many people still living in Norwich, the crime having been perpetrated so recently as 1846. Thompson himself states that it was in the month of August of that year, and Mr. Hubbersty has learned from several sources that Thompson was at that time a private of the regiment of Carbineers then lying at Ipswich, having just left Norwich, and that a girl named Hannah Barber had shortly before been rejected by one of the band of the same regiment, in consequence of her intimacy with Thompson and other men ; that Thompson got a day's leave of absence, and came down to Norwich ; saw the girl there again, and walked out with her in the evening. It appears, also, that a Mr. J. Taylor, of Pockthorpe, well remembers that between twelve and one o clock one night in the same month, while bobbing for eels in the river, near St. George's-bridge, he heard some blows struck, and immediately afterwards a splash in the water. He also distinctly heard the footsteps of a person running away. 11e unmoored his boat as quickly as passible, aad hastened to the spot, tend succeeded in rescuing a young woman from a watery grave. After she recovered herself a little he placed her on the steps leading to the house of Mr. Brooks, blender. Mr. Taylor, together with Mr. Rix, a brewer, who came up at the time, attempted to learn from her her name, but she positively refused to tell, or to reveal any of the circumstances connected with the event which had just occurred. She shortly afterwards left the spot, no one knowing who she was, or whither she went. Two or three persons now state that they have seen Hannah Barber in Norwich within the last twelve months, but have no knowledge as to where she is to be found. She is said to he a country girl, and her visits to Norwich were only occasional. It is very desirable that she should be found, in order that it may be ascertained whether she is really the girl whom Mr. Taylor rescued. Under any circumstences, however, it appears probable that Thompson's victim escaped the death to which he has till now thought that he had hurried her. Shortly after August Thompson left the Carbineere and j nined the Ist Royals, who were lying in Ceneda, whither he was sent to join them ; and he has, doubtless, been living since that time under great mental suffering.— Lynn Advertiser.  G REBA, TEA and its