Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1865-08-25 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

APPALLING TRAGEDY IN SOUTHWARK. ANOTHER TRIPLE MURDER 011 CHILDREN. Another sad case of wholesale murder was added on Wednesday morning to the already fearful catalogue of crime. In this instance the scene of the tragedy was in a narrow alley known as Skin-market-place, Bankside, Southwark, and the perpetrator is a female named Esther Lack, aged forty-one years, the wife of John Lack, who is engaged as a night watchman in the service of Masers. Pegg, the extensive coal merchants, carrying on business in the same locality. It appears that the accused, with her husband, her son-in-law and his wife, together with three children, named respectively Christopher Lack, aged nine; Eliza Lack, aged five; and Esther Lack, aged one year and eleven months, resided at No. 10 Skin-market-alley, and, with the exception of the husband, who went out to discharge his night duties, all retired to rest, as usual, the accused seeming in her customary health and spirits. At three o'clock on Wednesday morning the husband came home after being relieved from duty at the Coal Wharf, and then he found his wife and the three children comfortably in bed. He went out again, as was his practice, to cad up several workmen and tradesmen in the neighbourhood, and after an absence of three-quarters of an hour, lie returned and again let himself into the house. On entering, his wife (the accused) called out to him, "Mate, is that you ?" on which he responded, " Yes, all right." The accused called out in reply, " I have done it—l have killed them at last." The husband rushed upstairs and found his wife standing coolly near the mantel-shelf, aud the body of the eldest child, the boy, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and the other two children in the bed, all three with their throats cut. The husband gave an alarm, and his son-in-law, Richard Gardner, went at once for Mr Edward Flibberd, of Union-street, Borough. who promptly attended and pronounced the three children to be dead. The husband called in the aid of Police-constable Pope, 54 M, who at once entered the apartment, whets the wretched woman on seeing him at once voluntarily declared " I did it with a ravr ;" and on searching the room the constable discovered a razor covered with blood on the mantle-shelf. An elder boy was asleep in the chair, and he states that when he heard the cries of his father and mother, he left his chair, where he had been sleeping its his clothes, and hurried from the room. On the stair landing he saw Isis mother wiping a razor with her chemise with one hand, while she held a candle with the other. He was terrified, and his mother observing it said, "Don't be frightened no one will hurt you -don't be frightened." He went into the room where his brother aud two sisters were put to bed, and the first that he saw was Esther and Eliza lying on the bed with their heads nearly cut off, . and delts,sed its blood. He then turned and saw his little brother smothered in blood, with his throat also cut. The boy also says that since his mother had given birth to three children at one flirts she had been continually suffering from depression, fits, partial blindness, paralysis of the limbs, and temoorary loss of speech. The constable took the accused into custody and conveyed her to the Stones-end Police-station, where the charge of wilful murder was recorded by Acting-Inspector T. Gardner. On being searched there were found upon the prisoner two other razors, a purse, five duplicates, a reel of cotton, two letters and several religious tracts. The charge having beets resist over to her by the Actinginspector Gardner, and after she had been duly cautioned, the prisoner unhesitatingly declared that she had done the deed; that her husband was a very industrious man, who worked night and day for very little money—not enough to keep the children. who wanted shoes to their feet; that she herself was about to go to the hospital to be treated for a bad leg; and that she had killed her children in order that they should not die of starvation. The truth of this allegation was denied by the prisoner's son-in-law, who declared that the prisoner never received less than £1 per week from her husband, and that from other sources the family was in tolerably comfortable circumstances. After the charge had been entered, the prisoner was removed to a cell, and placed under the charge of a succession of constables.