The Miner and Workman's Advocate. — 1865-08-05 (London, England)

ACCOMPLISHED IMPOSTOR. ed woman of superior address Elizabeth Hetihniesley, 31, of no settled residence,named A yrell-drese Marylebone Police-court p\ovneahowrwa:risi-, at dulently obtaining from Colonel charged rant for frau Hereford-rad, Paddington the f sum o 2e., with at 99, Egerton watched the case on behalf of the intiensntpetectodrefrri. 'ssioners of Police. Comm'the evidence i tu ence t appeared that the prisoner was Fre lady's maid to Mrs. Spode, of Bereton, near llngeley, and was dismissed. Shortly afterwards she Vc a s convicted at Birmingham for obtaining money under false pretences, and sentenced to three months' hard labour. She was subsequently sentenced to twelve months' hard labour for a similar offence. On the 10th May last prisoner called at prosecutor's residence, 09, Hereford-road, and said she wanted to see the a )lonel on urgent business. On an interview being accorded her, she told him her name was Jane Clay, and that she was in the service of Mrs. Spode, at Bereton, Staffordshire; that she had come to London to bid farewell to her two brothers, who on that day had sailed to Australia, and her way to the station ,she was robbed of all her money at Blackwall. The colonel, knowing Mr. Spode, questioned her minutely, and finding she gave satisfactory answers he gave her .28., sent her to a place where she would be well taken care of, and told her to come to him every morning during her stay in London, when he would supply her with necessary funds. She never returned to the house. The colonel wrote to the clergyman at Bern. ton, who replied that prisoner was a notorious impostor. He then gave information to the police. Mr. Mansfield sentenced her to three months' hard labour, and on being taken from the dock she said, "I expected four years." aid a number of gentlemen Inspector Egerton s whom the prisoner had victimised out of large sums of money under similar circumstances were in court, and that she had also swindled several members of the police force. The prisoner will again be taken into custody when her sentence has expired.  iNOTHER VERSION OP THE ROAD  , The Edinburgh, Review is responsible for the follows ng version of the motives which induced Miss Con. htance Kent to murder her half-brother :—The house at Road-hill was too evidently entirely isolated from all around it. It was not on visiting terms with its neighbours—or its neighbours, we should say, with it. For a long time previous to the murder of Francis Saville Kent, the place, one would say, was haunted. The story, we believe, was a simple one. At a time When the late Mrs. Ker.t, the mother of Constance, was a hopeless invalid, Mr. Kent, in the course of his factory inspection, saw the present Mrs. Kent and loved her. She was then a mill girl of extraordinary personal attractions; and Mr. Kent placed her at a boarding-school for a period which proved too brief, and afterwards introduced her, while only half-educated herself, as governess in his own family. The girls Kent, we need hardly say, despised her; but the two elder girls had the good sense to conceal or control their contempt. Not so this unhappy Constance She Points herself was better informed on most than her so-called governess whom, immediately on her mother's death, her father presented as stepmother. Her elder sisters had the same feeling, but they, unlike herself, had the pradence or piety to disguise it. She came into the family a half-educated mill-girl; the mother was still lying sick; by-and-by the mother died; and now the mill-girl suddenly became the second Mrs. Kent, a stepmother; the whole thing was abundantly clear. Conetance alone rebelled. Constance, we believe, had rebelled against this kind of thing all along. Of the last days of her mother we know nothing—beyond the single fact that they were consoled by the woman 'who had already been fixed upon as her suecessor, and who took her place at the head of the family immediately on the demise of the mother. Then a child was born. The second marriage became a prolific one, and Constance had the imprudence to revile. The punishment inflicted 14y her stepmother was to Perform the menial offices of the household. One day, we are i ;formed, she was ordered to scrub out the nursery, and, on refusing, was lashed with a horse. Whip until what is called "broken in., She got on her knees with her back in livid welts, and washed out the nursery floor; but that very night the child was removed, and shoved, with its throat cut, down the privy- This, we believe, is all. Miss Constance 'Bays she herself did it—and we have no reason doubt her wu.a