The Sun. — 1865-08-14 (London, England)

OWN REPORTER.) RAMSGATE, Sunday. Another melancholy scene in the terrible tragedy perpetrated by the unparelleled murderer, Stephen Forward alias Earnest Southey, took place this morning, viz., the burial of two of his victims, Mary Anne Jemima Forward, his wife, and Emily Frances, his daughter. The bodies of the two unfortunate creatures were removed from the Infirmary, where they had lain since the murder, to the residence of the late Mrs. Forward, No. 61, Kingstreet, on Friday ; and it having become generally known that the burial of the bodies would take place on Sunday morning, an immense crowd of the inhabitants of, and visitors to, Ramsgate, assembled before the house as early as 9 o'clock, with the intention of joining the melancholy cortege which conveyed the bodies to their last resting place. Shortly before 10 a strong body of the Ramsgate police arrived, and having to some extent taken possession of the street, the hearse and mourning coach drove up soon after, and in a few minutes the coffins containing the bodies having been deposited in the mortuary carriage, it drove off at a slow pace followed by the carriage with the mourners, which consisted of the two uncles of the deceased and Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, in whose house it will be recollected Mrs. Forward and her daughter were savagely shot dead. The funeral procession proceeded to St. George's Church, at the entrance to which it was received by the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Nesbitt, and both coffins having been placed on biers, they were raised on to the shoulders of the bearers and conveyed into the Church, followed by a large concourse of persons, the numbers remaining outside amounting to nearly a thousand. The funeral service having been read in the most impressive manner by Mr. Nesbitt, the bodies were then conveyed to the new burial ground, a short distance from the church, and here the whole of the spectators fell into something like order, and a more melancholy spectacle cannot be imagined than the long, silent, and sorrowing train presented. From the grave into which the two bodies were deposited the remains of one of Mrs. Forward's children, a boy who died some six years ago, had to be removed, and after the latter portion of the service had been said it was returned to its resting-place, and thus poor Mrs. Forward and her two children take their last long sleep together. The Rev. Mr. Nesbitt, seeing so large an assemblage before him, could not refrain from addressing a few short, but impressive observations to the crowd, during which he said the present was one of the most melancholy duties he had ever had to perform, and he hoped that the lesson it taught would not be lost upon those now before him. It showed to what terrible lengths a person departing from the right course could go. The man who was now in the hands of justice, from an honest man had by degrees become a gambler, a faithless husband, a treacherous friend, and a murderer. He besought all present to reflect on the terrible consequences of a falling from the course of rectitude, because one false step might, if not at once recalled, lead to the most lamentable and fatal consequences, consequences which not only perilled life, but perilled the mortal soul both here and hereafter. The crowd paid the greatest attention to the observations of the rev. gentleman, and at their conclusion the assemblage quietly dispersed.