The Sun. — 1850-04-29 (London, England)

MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY.  Yesterday, between one and two o'clock, a rumour rapidly spread throughout that part of the parish of Clapham lying near to the Wandeworth-road, that a murder and robbery had taken place that morning during the hours of Divine service at the house of Mr. John Meddle, Clarem o at-place, Wandsworth-road, and that the person murdered was that gentleman's housekeeper. At a ter( minutes to eleven o'clock, Mr. Meddle left his house to attend Divine service at Clapham church. Mr. Meddle returned shortly after one o'clock, and ringing the bell at the gate several times, and finding he could make no one hear, he went round to the garden gate, which, to his surprise, was unfastened. He went in. The washbouse door was open, as also the back kitchen, and he was almost paralysed at beholding his housekeeper lying on her back in the frost kitchen, her legs extending over the threshhold of the door, and her head lying towards the French windows that open into the area in front of the house. Mr. Maddle felt the body, and believing, as was the fact, that life was extinct; rushed out and alarmed the neighbourhood. For some short time so horrified were the neighbours that none of them, though earnestly appealed to by Mr. Maddle, would go into the house. At last Mrs. Travash and Mrs. Staples went in, and found the deceased lying as stated, but under most extraordinary circumstances. Her right leg was partly drawn up under the body, and entangling the foot, which was without a shoe (which is missing), was a coil of rope used in banging out clothes; her head rested on six or seven folds of, carpeting, and within six inches of the head was a basin containing about a pint of clean water. The face, hands, and other parts of the body were cold. There was not the smallest contortion of features nor, so far as was observed, any marks of personal violence. The eyes were closed as if in sleep, and but for the ghastly expresion of the face it could have hardly been imagined but she slept. The police were very promptly on the spot, as also Mr. Parrott, jun., the surgeon to the police force, who examined the body. and pronounced life to have been extinct some time, • He could detect no outward marks of violence, nor was there any mucus flowing from the mouth or nostrils. On,entering the house Mr. Maddle had found it in a state of great disorder, and very soon discovered that a gold watch, some jeweller;', consisting ef rings, &e., and some plate had been carried off. Mr. Coleman, the inspector of police, having communicated with Mr. Bicknell, the superintendent of the V division, made an examination of the premises, and found that every drawer, box,' and even the iron chest, had been opened and ransacked, and a small box, in which the housekeeper kept her money, was emptied of its contents. A very great deal more labour appeared-to have been expended in opening the various drawers, cupboards, &c., than would have been used by an expert thief. What the amount of property stolen actually is cannot at present be stated. From subsequent information obtained by Inspector Coleman and his men, it would appear that two men were seen in a byt-road near the rear of the house at about twenty .minutes past twelve o'clock at noon, and one of them is elescribed as follows :—Short stature, with a blotched face ; dressed in a dark coat with pockets at the side, a black neckerchief and a red Maid handkerchief containing a bundle. The other was tall and thin, with curly hair, he WAS dressed in dark clothes, and carried a blue bag; they went in the direction ofßalham. Between eleven and twelve o'clock a man was lurking about the bye-lane, and lay down in the grass in the rear of the house. He was attired in shabby black clothes and black neckerchief with spots. Another man, about the same time, was seen near the spot. At a later part of the evening Dr. Parrott, the father of the previously, mentioned surgeon, attended by his son, examined the body. Dr. Parrott remarked that there was no suffusion in the eyes, nor any congestion; there was no protrusion of the tongue, and not the slightest scratch; and it was further remarked that the deceased appeared to be in good health.