Glasgow Courier. — 1864-08-18 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

THE WATERLOO BRIDGE MYSTERY.  " George Irwin," dating from "Serpentine Avenue," Dublin, writes to the Telegraph regarding the mysterious disappearance of an acquaintance at the time of the discovery of a body—sawn in pieces and packed in a carpet-bag—at Waterloo Bridge, London, about five years ago, who, he believes, to have been the murdered man. After some introductory remarks, be says—Without further preface I will quote an extract from a letter received by B—, a gentleman well known in this city, from his brother at present in Tasmania, and holding there a highly respectable social position, and her Majesty's Commission of the Peace, referring to a Mr R—, the subject of the tragedy which, it is believed, has been enacted. He writes :—" I feel convinced that his (R— 's) was the body found in the carpet-bag under Waterloo Bridge. From what I have heard from a person lately come out, it appears R— was lodging with a Jew named W—, a returned convict, close to Waterloo Bridge, at the time that he had £l4OO worth of Tasmanian debentures, which for some time he had been endeavonring to sell; that he sold them to a respectable Jew named N—; that he received the money, and the same day went home to his lodgings, and is supposed to have had his money with him, from which hour he has never been seen or heard of; and when Mr S—, a friend of his, went to his lodgihgs a few days after, he could get no tidings whatever of and the wretch W had fled no one knew where. I have no doubt he knew It— had the money, then murdered him, cut him up, put portions of the body (the head never was found) into the carpet-bag, and threw it into the river. Not a paper, not a vestige of anything belonging to him has since turned up, and I have no more doubt that that was his fate than that I am writing this. We have ascertained that the man W— is dead. . . . , Mrs R— is still very unsettled. I told her of my suspicions, but still she hopes on. She says she would know the carpet bag he took with him. No doubt the police have got it. Would it be possible to obtain it, and any other articles connected with it, and have them sent out here for her to see them ?" "R was somewhat eccentric, and, though possessed of considerable means,lhis habits were frugal and saving, if not penurious. It is by no •-neans impossible he may have known the convict W— when the man was the denizen of a penal settlement; perhaps he looked upon him as a "reformed criminal," and as more to be encouraged and relied upon than one who has all along led an honest life. R— was known to very few in London. I am not aware, indeed, that he was known to any one there except Mr S—, who called upon him. His stay there was to be brief. In that crowded hive it may have seemed immaterial to him where he stopped for the time, provided his expenses were small. In any case, it has been ascertained by those in Tasmania who knew him that !he lodged with this returned convict close to Waterloo Bridge at the time referred to, and has never since been heard of—he, together with the proceeds of his sale of Tasmanian debentures, having alike disappeared—neither have the mutilated fragments of the human body found in the carpet-bag been ever since accounted for in any way the least satisfactory or credible. That it was the means adopted by some anatomist to get rid of human beings upon which he had been practising—the suggestion aecepted at the time when the police failed to make any discovery—was not only exceedingly improbable—being so different from what is customarily done in.such cases, but was altogether inconsistent with the mangled—and not anatomised—appearance which the remains presented."