The Sun. — 1859-10-29 (London, England)

HOAX AND ATTEMPTED STRANGULATION OF A NEWSPAPER REPORTER.  A novel case of hoaxing and murderous assault happened on Thursday evening, on a reporter. It will be sufficiently explicit for the reader, and vague enough for us to conceal the individuality and location of the gentleman, to mention that it was within the Midland Counties. In detailing the particulars of this piece of shameless duplicity, we must mention that several times on Thursday last a person of respectable exterior and gentlemanly deportment called at the residence of a provincial reporter, wanting, as he said, to see the said reporter, who, however, was out for the day. He gleaned from the servant girl that he would return about seven in the evening He did not come again. A little after seven, and almost immediately after the arrival home of the reporter, a knock was heard at the door. It proved to be a man dressed in the garb of a farm labourer, with a note for the master of the house. He appeared flushed, as if "put about," had a dog-cart at the door, and said it must be given to the master, and so he waited for an answer. The letter, he said, was from his employer. On opening it, it was signed by a country squire, known through a very recent acquaintanceship to the reporter, and who lived in an isolated, yet most beautiful spot, some four miles distant. It was written in a hasty manner, and was nearly an illegible scrawl. The writing of the squire was not known to him, he therefore accepted it as genuine. The purport of the note was, that his housemaid had just deliberately cut the throat of the nurse, through finding her encompassed within the arms of a former sweetheart of hers, and that he had ventured to acquaint him of the matter, believing that he would like to know of it as early as possible, and adding that he might ride with his man in the dog-cart down to his house the same evening if he liked, and that his man should bring him back. In a postscript he advised him, for special reasons, to come then with the man. Having gained from the messenger enough of the particulars of the affair to make him think it had horrible features, he determined to go, and so proceeded towards the scene in a dog-cart. Before going far he was asked by his companion if he had brought his note-book with him. He found he had not, so they returned for it. The man, while the reporter was in the house, went a short distance away, and went into a shop. Directly after they were soon on the way, and when about midway between his own house and the squire's, he was seized by the throat by the seemingly farm labourer, and his money abstracted from his pockets by the powerful villain. Attempting to get away, he was held down by the throat, and threatened that he would strangle him if he offered any resistance. By dint of much per. severance he released himself from his grasp, but immediately regaining himself, he was thrown over the cart into the road, and away galloped the horse with the despicable robber. Cries for assistance would have been futile in his situation. It was found out that the note was a base forgery, that the dog cart had been borrowed from the proprietor of a road-side inn, under the plea that the said squire had " just been taken very ill," and that he wanted to fetch a doctor quickly. The horse and dog cart were found in a geld about a quarter of a mile from its owner's. No trace of the stamp has yet been found out.  While the reporter was away, the servant girl who answered the door communicated to a fellow servant her belief that he was the same person who had asked to see her master the same day.