The Potteries Examiner : — 1875-09-04 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

WIFE MURDER AT NEWCASTLE.ON•TTNE. A shocking wife murder was committed in Newcastle on Saturday night. A young man named John William Anderson, described as a clerk, but who has for several years past worked as a labourer in several of the large engineering works, and has frequently been out of employment,af ter returning home from the town and having a quarrel with his wife, locked the door, and stabbed her with a large knife in fi'.epineeq, one of the wounds being in the region of the heart. The woman shortly afterwards expired, the husband in the meantime giving himI self up to the police. Anderson has been much addicted to drink, and has freqnently assaulted and threatened ' the life of his wife, who is described by the ne:ghbours as a steady, quiet, goolnatured woman. She carried on a very small provision,busineas in the room in which they lived, and the weapon with which the murder was committed was used for cutting bacon. Anderson is well connected, but has been reduced to poverty by his drunken habits.  AN AMERICAN VENDErra.—There is, says the Nor Feet !braid, the most urgent eyed of a hangman in Williamson county, Illinois, and of a Govetnor in Springfield, with decision of character enough to have the laws so enforced that the hangman shall have something to do. The Rnssell-Bulliner fend is a disgrace to the whole State of Illinois. The quarrel between these two families and their clans commenced about two years ago, growing out of some trivial cause, and has been kept up with such murderous violence that already no less than twenty-seven murders have grown out of it. Like all these vendettas, it has been a war between cowardly midnight assassins, who have not courage enough to meet each other like men in fair open day. light tight. A favourite mode is to call the antagonist to a door or window, and then shoot him before he can arm himself. One man was assassinated as he was riding home from church by his enemies hidden behind a fence. Another man was shot while ploughing in a field, another while riding along the highway, and i others through windows while sitting at their fireside. For a few months past there has been quiet, but the feud broke out again three weeks ago, resulting in the murder of Colonel G. W. Sisney, who had formerly been a sheriff, and had provoked the enmity of the But. liners. Three previous attempts had been made to take his life. Sisney's murder was followed by that of Was. Spence, a respectable merchant of Crainville, who was not related to either of the families, but had been nnfortunate enough to make some comments upon the feud, and to entertain some of the persons who attended Sisney's funeral. There is no longer any protection for , human life in Williamson county. The fend has gone beyond the limits of the two families of murderers, and anyone who has the temerity to speak of the fend pays the penalty with his life. There is no hindrance to this murderous work. Courts and officers entrusted with the execution of the laws are afraid to do their duty, and a reign of terror exists. The Russells and Milliners have license to shoot, stab, and kill each other and at everybody else with the utmost impunity.