The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1833-11-26 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

MYSTERIOUS CASE.  On Saturday week, and by adjournment on Wednesday, an inquest was held at the Lowther's Arms, Swillington, before Christopher Jewison,. Esq. coroner, on the body of Mary Townend, a young woman, twenty-two years of age, who died on the`Thursday- morning previous, under very suspicious circumstances. It appeared that a young man, named James Prince, a coal-miner, residing at •Seacroft, had been acquainted with the deceased for several years, and had latterly paid his addresses to her. He had visited her at her own home, until the family objected to ling, and used threats towards her in consequence of her keeping his company. On the Sunday previous to her-death, he and the deceased had agreed that they should be married on Christmas-day, or sooner if possible, and he gave her 13s. 6d. in silver to buy such things as she Might want for the wedding. He also measured her finger,'m outer to buy the wedding ring. Before they parted, tier brother William came up to them, and threatened to strike her if she did not go home ; and in consequence, they separated at that time, and he never saw her afterwards. She had told him, that in consequence of her connexion with him, she had no peace at home for some time. Indeed various witnesses proved that the brothers of the deceased were much embittered against her in consequence of her determination to keep company with Prince. In the afternoon of Wednesday week, the deceased was taken very ill with vomiting and sickness. She appeared desirous of concealing what she vomited, and expressed a hope that she would be dead before morning. Her death took place in the course of the night. Mr. Edward Tinsdill, of Halton, surgeon, stated that he was called up between one and two o'clock on Thursday morning by William Townend, to attend his sister, but in consequence of engagements he did not see her till eleven o'clock in the morning, at which time she was dead. The brothers, in consequence of the extreme violence of the symptoms of the disease of which she died, requested him to open the body, as they suspected that she had taken poison. He accordingly opened the body, and found the stomach in a state of inflammation, but did not examine its contents, as he was satisfied that she died from a very high inflammation, though from what cause it proceeded he did not attempt to ascertain. John Townend, one of the brothers of the deceased, stated that they had been in the habit of keeping arsenic in the house, and on the morning of the day on which his sister died, he observed that the end of the drawer in which the arsenic was kept had been knocked in, and the paper which contained the poison was loose, but he could not say whether the quantity had been lessened. He found a sauce-boat, with some sediment adhering to the side, which, he thought, resembled arsenic. He had assisted Mr. Tinsdill in opening the body; and his brother William had got him a shoemaker's awl, to make the holes in the skin to get the needle through to sew it up again. In answer to a question from Thomas Ikin, Esq. of Lenventhorpe, Mr. Tinsdill said that the brothers of the deceased had not assisted in opening the body of their own accord. A quantity of arsenic was found on the deceased's stomach, on a subsequent examination, by Mr. Mitchell, surgeon of Bothwell. The coroner charged the Jury in a very lucid manner, and after a short consultation they returned the following verdict— " That the deceased died in consequence of taking a quantity of arsenic, but how or by whom administered no evidence appeared."—Leeds Intelligencer.  The following lamentable scene occurred a few days ago in the police-office at Moulins :—A woman having been ditreated by her husband, summoned him before a magistrate, when a violent altercation ensued, and the wife became so enraged that she denounced her husband as the perpetrator of a murder committed in the year 1815, on the high road, near Chalons. Upon this the man, who has been long established at Moulins as a porter, and who was in great repute as worthy of trust, was immediately committed to prison, and the woman, who had been urged 1)), her passion to divulge a clime of which she alone was cognizant, endeavoured to retract her declaration, and finding that unavailing, fainted in the office.—French paper.