The Potteries Examiner : — 1872-04-20 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

ATROCIOUS OUTRAGE ON A LADY. At the Leicester Town.hall, Edwin Dutton, a young man, was charged on remand with wounding Mrs. Elizabeth Scott Burgess, niece of Mr. Gilbert Soott, architect, by attempting to strangle her, on the night of Saturday, the 30th of March. The prosecntrix, who is 76 years of age, said that she lives alone at 20, Stonghton.street. About a week ' before the occurrence she had engaged the prisoner's wife as a charwoman, but soon afterwards discharged her. About a quirter past seven o'clock on the night of the 30th ult. she was in the house alone, when she went to the door to answer a ring at the bell. The prisoner was on the top step and handed her a note. She took the note into her room and found that it was from an unknown person, soliciting orders for coal. ( She refused to five an order, telling him that she ordered from her regular coal.merchant, end did not want any from him. Is he stood in the middle of the passage she requested him to leave. The prisoner afterwards mine again, and presented another note, which he said she mast read, as it was of great importance. As he managed. to get inside she told him to go outside, and then she would read it; but on her moving the door he put his foot between it and the jamb, pushed it open, and entered. He placed his back against the wall and struck her with something on the top of the head, 'knocking her down. She got up in a moment, and although blood was flowing, seized him by the wrists. He struggled with her and tried to kick her, and eventually threw her from him on to the floor. As she screamed out he took her by the shoulders, dragged her along the passage, and then threw her down on her head on the bottom stair. She then screamed " Murder ! " when he forced his left hand into her month. As she could not then call out she tried to raise an alarm by kicking on the floor. He then threw himself upon her, pressing heavily on her chest, and pulled out of his pocket what she thought was a bottle, and tried to pour the contents down her mouth. Something was sprinkled over her face, and she perceived a faint smell. He then put his arm round her neck and grasped her by the throat. She felt consciousness going, and determined to bite his hand, so as to make him remove it from her month. The last thing she recollected was that he tried to pull her false teeth out of her month. On recovering consciousness she was in an arm-chair in the sitting. room, and the prisoner was there in custody. She at once identified him as the man who had brought the notes, and told the policemen that they would find marks of the prisoner having been bitten on the left hand, and these were clearly visible. Dr. Sloane then dressed her wounds, which bled very much, and he had attended her ever since. She still felt the effects of the prisoner's violence. Had she been a few years younger she could have pushed the prisoner into the street easily. The prisoner was apprehended at his own hence, a short distance off, by Police-constable Orton, who had received a description of him, and heard where he was likely to be found from the proseentrix. He denied the charge, but on being taken to Miss Burgess's, she said at once, "Policeman, that's the man; stick to him. Look at his left hand and you'll find I have bitten him." Inspector Langdale deposed to searching the pHBoner's lodgings and finding to his boxes paper and envelopes corresponding with the notes handed to Miss Burgess by the prisoner. He got the prisoner to write a letter to his wile, the handwriting of which corresponded unquestionably with the writing on the note and envelopes in question. The prisoner, who at the commencement of the hearing fainted away, and had to be accommodated with a seat during the lengthy examination of the witness, was then committed for trial, bail being refused.