The Sun. — 1862-05-19 (London, England)

MANCHESTER, SUNDAY EVENING.  In endeavouring to gain some light upon the antecedents of the prisoners Taylor and his wife, the police have obtained possession of some MS. books, chiefly account books, which were among the articles seized the last time the murderer's goods were distrained by the house agent who has fallen a victim to his vengeance. The two prisoner's and their children appear to have lived in as much seclusion from all neighbouring intercourse as was possible for persons engaged in retail business, and, since the closing of their provision shop, their retirement from all observation was so complete, that inquirers about their character or history were rather misled than answered by contradictory versions of idle gossip. A statement that the female prisoner is now enciente, whether for the first time or not, is the assertion of neighbours ; and the belief that she is the step-mother of the murdered children seems to rest on a possible conjecture from her appearance and her own declaration that she was 25 years old, while the age of the eldest child was said to be 12. At the funeral of the child who was killed by the explosion of a kitchen boiler, some months ago, the undertaker says there was not a single relative of the prisoners present. By the books above referred to the police have an imperfect trace of the male prisoner's occupation as far back as April, 1860. Nothing of an earlier date is yet known of him here, but the nature of the entries may lead to further inf.rmation Tieing obtained. In the spring of 1860 Wm. Robert Taylor (or as he appears to have invariably styled himself in business matters, " W. Taylor,") seems to have been a traveller in the south of England for a Mr. P. M. Hadley, for Messrs. Fraser and Thurkettle, and for other persons, apparently spirit merchants. Among the places named as having been visited by Taylor in his accounts of travelling expenses, are Exeter, Yeovil, Taunton, Sherbourne, and Lyme Regis. Afterwards, for a few months, he must have kept a publichouse at Bideford, North Devon. One of his books contains the names of persons by whom he was then supplied with liquors ; for instance. " Norman and Woodcock, City Brewery, Exeter, March 4, 1861." The visit of an excise officer is noted, with the date, "April 26,1861," in one of "Loftus's Spirit Books!" which is a ruled account book. Nothing further is known of him before his coming to Manchester, and when he came has not been ascertained. . He believed to have been living somewhere in the city or the neighbourhood nearly a year ago. Of his wife the only trace is what may be conjectured from a book which appears to have been used originally as an exercise book of some youthful student in arithmetic, whose progress is manifest through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, when, the book having been half filled, in the latter portion there is an interval of blank pages, and the rest contains a considerable number of pencil copies of short musical pieces. On the fly-leaf at the beginning is an elaborate and boy-like inscription--" Joseph Giles, 1856." Some pencil notes at the head of each of the sums (which aro in ink) seem to have been written by a feminine hand, and likewise the copies of music; and on a leaf at the end of the book, a female pen in some idle moment has written, among a number of apparently meaningless words and scratches, the following :--" Miss M. A. Giles, flatherleigh Farm, near Win maven, Somerset," and A  below this three names, placed apart from one anctker :—" Martha Ann Giles," " Mrs. Taylor," "Hannah Mariah Taylor." The Lame peculiar spelling appears in the "Haanah Maric,l3. Taylor, 8 years of age," on the papers which were found attached to the bodies of the murdered children. The names and ages on these papers were written in a feminine hand; while the inscription on the other side of each paper, " We are six, &c.,' is in a man's writing, bold, but rather rough. The name of the female prisoner is " Martha Ann" Tay. lor On one page of the exercise book is a rude childish drawing of a building which looks very much like a dissenter's chapel. Along with the books were found what seems to be an old daguerreotype likeness of a man and woman, unknown.