Bridport, Beaminster, and Lyme Regis Telegram and Dorset, Somerset, and Devon Advertiser. — 1865-08-10 (Bridport, Dorset, England)

HER HALF-BROTHER.  The Edinburgh Review publishes the following version of the motives which induced Miss Constance 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 woul i say, was haunt‘Kl. The story, we believe, wss a simple one. At a time when the late Mrs. Kent, the mother of Constance, was a hopeless invalid, Mr. Kent, iri 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 iroved 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 herself was better informed on most .11 points than her ,*.called governess—whom, immediately r on her mother's death, her father presented as stepmother. Her elder sisters had the same feeling, but 4,6, they, unlike herself, had the prudence or the piety to it I disguise it. She came into the family a half-educated mtn, mill-girl ; the mother Was still lying sick; by-and-byeii the mother died; and now the mill girl suddenly became the second Mrs. Kent, a stepmother; the whole thing was abundantly clear. Constance 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 alreadybeeen fixed upon as her successor, and who took her place at the he'd of the family immediately on. the demise of the mother. Then a child was born. The second marriage 4, became a prolific one; and Constance had the imprudence to revile. g:he punishment inflicted by her ,t)",n stepmother was to perform the menial offices of the household. One day, we are informed, she was ordered to scrub out the nursery, and, on refusing, was lashed '153,1" with a horsewhip 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 murdered. This, we believe is all. Miss Constance Kent says she herself did it, and we haven') reason to doubt her word." _  The Edinburgh Daily Review has received from a near relative of Mrs. Kent, residing in Manchester, a contradiction of the above narrative, and says—We have no hesitation in believing that the following statement, furnished to us upon the best authority, is correct. We are informed that "Mrs Kent was never a mill-girl, or in any way connected with a mill. She was born at Tiverton, Devon, and was the daughter of one of the most respectable tradesmen in that town. She was educated from early youth in a first class school, under the care of a lady " of superior attainments. In fact, she received a superior education to qualify her competently to fill the situation of a governess, and such a position she i had occupied before her engagement n the family of Mr. Kent. The statement of ill-treatment by her of Mrs. Kent's children has not even the shadow of truth about it. What Constance Kent instructed I her counsel to say was literally the fact—that she I had been treated by her stepmother with kind and. I forbearing love.' Mrs. Kent wa3 brought up as a lady, and has always conducted herself as such. I must observe that Mrs. Kent's child was born tea months after her marriage."