The Sun. — 1860-10-29 (London, England)

THE CONVICT MULLINS.  The career of this nefarious villain, who has been justly convicted by a jury of his country of the crime of wilful murder, hds been most extraordinary. He was mixed up with the prosecution of Ribbonmen in Ireland while he was attached to the Irish Constabulary, and acted the part of spy, informer, and witness on several occasions. Twice he narrowly. escaped assassination by Ribbon conspirators. While he was in the K division of the metropolitan police, he was constantly intriguing and getting other constables and sergeants into trouble, and was a very mischievous fellow. While he was officiating as sergeant he was very unpopular with the men under his control, and was very officious and very arrogant. For several years after the opening of the Blackwall Railway the metropolitan police did duty on that line, and Mullins, who was then a sergeant, was appointed to look after the police-constables selected to do duty at the various stations between Blackwall and Fenchurch-street, and apartments were assigned to him in a house belonging to the railway corn pony in London-street, Fenchurebstreet. In the same house lived another Irishman, named Dempsey, a constable in the K division, and a railway guard named Rutherford. At that time the carriages on the Blackwall Railway were propelled by means of wire ropes attached to enormous wheels set in motion by stationary engines at each end of the line. A carriage for each station was attached to this wire rope, and cast off from it while the train was in motion on nearing the station to which it belonged, and where it was to stop. It happened that the guard (Rutherford) had 'made a complaint to the secretary of the company of the dirty habits of Mullins and his family, and their general disorderly conduct. This came to the knowledge of Mullins, and he declared that he would have a word or two with Rutherford the first time he met with him ; in other words, Mullins, who was a person of very quarrelsome disposition when offended, determined to have a row with him. For that purpose he got upon a Poplar carriage one Wednesday afternoon when the full train started from Fenchurch-street. Rutherford was on the West India-dock station carriage, and after the train had passed Limehouse Church, he took off the coupling irons to detach the carriage he was upon from the hers. The carriage had no I sooner been detached from the others than Mullins discovered the mistake he had committed. He was upon the wrong carriage, and made an attempt to step from the Poplar to the West India-dock carriage. In doing so he fell upon the line. The wheels of the carriage Rutherford was upon went over his knee. He was severely injured, and when assistance was obtained he was insensible. He was taken to the London Hospital, where he remained under medical treatment for three months; On his recovery he again joined the police force, and resumed his old position on the Blackwall railway. One night he presented himself at the station-house of the sub-division in Shadwell, with his clothes torn, marks of violence on his person, and apparently exhausted} and stated that as he was walking down the railway after the trains had ceased running, he saw three burglars attempting to break into the rear of a house in Brunswick-terrace, Stepney, and that he went down stairs at the station, took the burglars by surprise, and attempted to capture them, on which. they attacked him, and after beating him in a brutal manner, disabled him. This story obtained credence from his superiors, and was not contradicted by those who knew it to be a fabrication, because they were glad to relieve the force of Mullins at any price, and soon afterwards he was superannuated upon a pension of £35 a year. He obtained employment through the influence of one of his countrymen on the SouthEastern line, and immediately commenced a system of plunder which terminated in his conviction and a sentence of six years' penal servitude. On his discharge as a ticket-of-leave convict he obtained employment from Mrs. Emsley as bricklayer and plasterer, and was almost constantly engaged in executing repairs in one or other of her numerous houses until he committed the barbarous murder for which he is doomed to forfeit his life.