The Sun. — 1860-08-10 (London, England)

TILE ROAD MURDER.  A writer in a contemporary says :—As " the Road murder" bids fair to become " the Road mystery," perhaps you would allow me to communicate an idea which suggested itself to my mind on reading over the evidence at Miss Constance Kent's examination.  In conjecturing the circumstances which could have led to the murder of a child of such tender age, the probable causes reduce themselves to three— hatred, lunacy or somnambulism, and fear. We have all as children had our quarrels, but it seems repugnant to human nature to believe that such lasting enmity could be inspired by a child five years old as to lead to his being taken out of bed in the dead of the night and murdered in cold blood. In the absence of stronger reasons than have yet been given to the public I reject the first, or melodramatic supposition, which the police so readily adopted. 2. Lunacy or somnambulism would hardly manifest itself with such startling results, unless symptoms had previously appeared which it would be the business of the police to discover, and which would go far to identify the author of the crime. 3. The motive of fear remains. How, it will be asked, could a child so young inspire fear ? Suppose—and every step of this case, except the actual murder, is based on supposition—suppose that something, call it an intrigue, a burglary, or what you will, was taking place beneath the roof that night, suppose the child awaking from sleep " saw a man where a man should na' be," would not that supply a motive for the crime ? To my mind, two things that occurred the next morning are fraught with suspicion—the ostentatious reading of the Bible for an hour by the nurse, who knew that the child was missing, and who ought immediately to have made inquiry in Mrs. Kent's room ; and the decision which was at once arrived at by certain parties that the child had been murdered. If the police would follow out these two points they would,.perhaps, be more successful than they were in their " fussy activity" about the nightdress of a schoolgirl.  ROBBING THE DEAD, AND SALE OF CORPSES FOR Dr ssnarrox.—Some months since a family residing at South Boston had the misfortune to lose a child, and it was buried in an expensive dress, made by a lady, a friend of the family. The body of the child was placed in a tomb under one of the churches. Two weeks after the ceremony the lady who manufactured the dress which the little one wore before her death and was buried in visited a washerwoman for the purpose of employing her to do some work. While conversing, the lady's eye was attracted by a child's dress, which hung upon a clothes line. She was startled, for the dress resembled the one in which her friend's child was shrouded. The visitor asked permission to examine it, and her request was complied with. What was her horror to find that it was the very dress which she had put together with her own hands, and which she had seen her little favourite wear several times. There could be no mistake about it, for the lady knew her own work, and the materials were of a unique pattern. The visitor asked the washerwoman how she came by the dress. The answer was that one day she was washing at Dr. —'s house, and that the doctor's wife made her a present of it for her little girl. The lady instantly left the house and stated her suspicions to friends. The result was, the child's coffin was opened and found empty. This discovery created such an excitement that the police were appealed to, and other coffins, deposited under the church by the same undertaker, were c,pened and found vacailt. The bodies had been removed and sold to surgeons for dissecting purposes.