npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Sun. — 1832-10-19 (London, England)

COMMON..SERJEANT inquiring if the prisoner was known, Mr. Wontner stated that be had been confined in the House of Correction for two months, and since bis release had kept company with nothing but thieves. The COMMON•SERJEANT directed Mr. Wontner to make the usual mark against the name of the prisoner, in order to his transportation. John Jacobs, a Jew clothesman, was indicted for stealing, on the 19th of September, several articles of wearing apparel, the property of John Cox.  Mr. Cox stated that having an old wardrobe to dispose of be directed his servant to procure a purchaser. The prisoner came on the day stated in the indictmeot, and after looking at the articles agreed to purchase them for 51. Prosecutor wanted 81., but ultimately agreed to take the lesser sum. The prisoner said he bad a 101. note and wanted change. Witness refused to take the note, and said he would have nothing but sovereigns, suspecting that a person of the prisoner's appearance could not have a good 101. note. The prisoner then gave witness five half-crowns as a deposit, saying be would go to the next public-house, get the note changed, and bring the difference immediately. Witness, suspecting the honesty of the prisoner, retired:into his dress.. ing- room ; immediately after which he heard a great bustle, and on looking out of the window, he discovered the prisoner running off with his clothes ; but being in deep negligee, he could not follow him. Witness afterwards went down to Cutler-street, accompanied by City Police 36, where he discovered the pri.oner with his clothes, in company with others, under a gateway. On the prisoner's second examination at Hatton-garden, a friend of the prisoner's put Si. into his hand. Witness mentioned this to ,Mr. Serjeaot Sellon, the sitting Magistrate, who directed him to keep it. Mr. Pommes appeared for the prisoner, and by his cross-examination of the prosecutor excited a good deal of laughter in the Court, but elicited nothing materially favourable to his client.  The prisoner in his defence said, that he had bought the clothes in two lotedothe one that he had taken away not being worth more than 10s., and he had left with the prosecutor 12a. 6d.  The prosecutor stated that be positively:refused to sell the property in lots, and that the value of the clothes taken away by the prisoner was 50s. and upwards. Seven or eight Jews of respectability gave the prisoner an excellent character.  The jury found the prisoner Guilty. The Comatow SER3KANT ordered the prosecutor to return the five pounds he received at Hatton Garden to the person from whom he had it; and the officer of the Sheriff of Middlesex claiming the 12e. 6d. given to Mr. Cox as a deposit by the prisoner, as the property of a convicted felon, the prosecutor was obliged to return that also.  em murder ld el dr extremea ofy Countylyefa Er years, GI asCouKlff, ef—roerd °t the eihl MAuarcE CONNELL' of which he was convicted on Wednesday, before Baron
The Sun. — 1832-08-24 (London, England)

THE EDDYSTONELIGHT-HOUSE.--The care of this important beacon is committed to four men, tire of whom take the charge of it by turns, and are relieved every -ix weeks. But as it often h,ppens, e,pecialy in stormy weather, that boats cannot touch at the Eddystone for many months, a proper quantity of salt provision is always laid up, as in a ship victualled for a long voyage. In high winds such a briny atmosphere surrounds this gloomy solitude from the dashing of the waves, that a man exposed to it could not draw his breath. At these dreadful intervals the two forlorn inhabitants keep close quarters, and are obliged to live in darkness and stench, listening to the howling storm, excluded in every emergency from the least hope of assistance, and without any earthly comfort hut what is administered from their confidence in the strength of the building in which they are immured. Once, on relieving this forlorn guard, one of the men was found dead, his companion choosing rather to abut himself I up with the putrifying carcase, than by throwing it into the sea to incur the suspicion of murder. ►n fine weather these wretched beings scramble a little about the edge of the rock, when the tide ebbs, and amuse themselves with fishing, which is the only employment they have, except ,hat of trimming their nightly fires. Such total inaction and entire seclusion from all the joys and aids of society can only be endured by great religious philosophy, which we cannot imagine they feel; or by great stupidity, which in pity we must suppose they item ss. Yet, though this .wretched community is so small, we are assured it has sometimes been a scene of misanthropy. Instead of suffering the recollection of those distresses anti dangers in which each is deserted by all but one to endear that one -o him, we are informed the humours of each were so soured that they preyed both on themselves and on each other. If one sat above, the other was commonly found ealow. Their meals, too, were solitary; each, like a brute, erowling over his feud alone. The etnoiument of this arduous post is 201. a-year, and provisions while on duty. The house to live in may lie fairly thrown into the bargain. Tee whole together, is, pectin; s, one of the least eligible pieces of preferment in Britain ; arid yet, from a story which Mr. SMEATON relates, it appeers there are stations still more ineligible. A fellow who got his liveti• hood by making leather° pipes for engines, grew tired of sitting constantly at work, and solicited a lighthouses/13n's place, which, as coutpetitors are nut numerous, he obtained. As the Eddystone boat was carrying him to take possession of his habitation, one of the boatmen asked him what could tempt him to give ❑p a profitable business to be shut up fur months together in a pillar ? " Why," said the man, " because I did not like confinement."
The Sun. — 1832-10-11 (London, England)

ATROCIOUS MURDER.  Bhican, a Muhomedan, and butcher by trade, was arraigned for the murder of his neighbour, Chimtnun Bangur, whom he stabbed to death in his own house.  The prisoner is described as about 23 years of age, of a dark complexion, tall stature, and vigorous build ; his bearing was firm, almost contemptuous, and his whole demeanour during the trial, which lasted till near midnight, displayed a character quicksighted, impatient, fearless, obstinate, and scornful. On his arraignment he pleaded Not guilty, and, challenging the whole native panel, demanded to be tried by a Jury of white men. Twelve European Jurors having been impannelled and sworn,  The witnesses for the Crown clearly proved that the pristiner entered the deceased's house in the night to rob it. The deceased awoke, alarmed his wife, and endeavoured to intercept the retreat of the thief, who stabbed him with a knife, and the unfortuna; e man fell into the arms of his wife, whose cries brought persons to the spot. They found a cummerbund and turban, which the dying man recognised as the prisoner's, adding that he knew the man who had stabbed him—it was Bhican, his neighbour and caste brother. The murderer and his victim were members of the same religion, Ellowed the same trade, and dwelt in the same street, and lived upon terms of intimacy, if not friendship. In his defence the prisoner reasoned somewhat ingeniously upon the improbabilities of the evidence; declared the witnesses were actuated by revenge; appealed to his character and to his behaviour before the Magistrate. " When I was exrmined before the Coroner and the Magistrate," he observed, " those gentlemen marked me well; they can declare that my eyes were not bloodshot, that I had no appearance of a murderer. Tne blood mounts to the eyes of him who has shed blood—the expression of a murderer's countenance can never be mistaken : ask those gentlemen whether my features wore that expression." After a charge of two hours from the CHIEF JUSTICE, the Jury in ten minutes found the prisoner Guilty.  His LORDSHIP passed sentence of Death, after a solemn and affecting address, which, however, was quite lost upon the culprit; for, from the moment he saw the black cap assumed, he commenced a strain of defiance and contempt so loud and outrageous as frequently to drown both the Judge and the interpreter. Before his execution, which took place on the 26th, his previous violence gave place to a mild and decorous, but firm demeanour. At the scaffold he was pressed to make a confession, when he declared as follows :—" I was not the man who murdered Chimmun, but I was present ; I know who who did the deed, but will not tell ; there were 10 of us at his house that night ; our object was to rob it; the turban which was found was mine, but I am not the murderer." On being again urged, he said, " What is the use of asking me ? Whether guilty or innocent, I am about to die and I am prepared; I have made my peace with God l" The last words lie pronounced with his eyes raised up to liea,en, and a smile upon his lips.
The Sun. — 1832-08-15 (London, England)

THAMES POLICE.  Charles A11en,.21 faria Thompson, Sarah Shaw, and Annair ged with ce ore unte rbroughtfeitbefore in g the cu current r elnt si,BRODERIP,er coin of the realm. After hearing evidence, Mr. BRODERIP remanded the prisoners for a week. Yesterday, a gentleman named Leonard, residing at No. 11, Smith-street, Somers-town, accompanied by two other persons, applied to Mr. BRODERIP, for a warrant against Captain James M'Culloch, master of the Glasgow, a Dundee steam-vessel, for swamping a boat, and nearly drowning them and the Waterman. The applicant stated, that he and his friends were proceeding towards Greenwich in a wherry, on Sunday afternoon, when they met the Glasgow off Cherry-garden Stairs, Rotherhithe, proceeding at a most rapid pace. She had scarcely passed them, when the swell caused by the steamer washed over the boat, filled it with water, and it immediately sunk. They were all immersed in the stream, but fortunately two of them were good swimmers, and contrived to support the others until assistance arrived, when they were picked up, and conveyed ashore in a most exhausted state. They had since applied at the steam-packet office, where they saw the Captain, but could obtain neither apology nor recompense for the injury, further than he was sorry for it.  Mr. BRODERIP inquired if the steamer was stopped after the boat swamped, and at what rate she was going. Mr. Leonard said the steam-vessel was not stopped, and that she was proceeding at the rate of at least ten miles an hour. But for the prompt interference of the watermen they must have been all drowned. Mr. BRODERIP said the little regard paid to the lives of persons by the captains of steam-vessels was shameful, and if they were not more cautious, lives would be lost ; and the dangerous speed of the steamers would not be abated, until the master of one of them was either hanged for murder, or transported for manslaughter. This would inevitably be the case if they were so recklesq. He should certainly grant a summons against the captain of the Glasgow for proceeding at a greater rate of speed than five miles an hour, between Londonbridge and Limehouse-reach.  Mr. Symons, the chief-clerk, here intimated, that the clause imposing the penalty for going beyond the legal speed was one of the by-laws of the wa termen's act, and only applicable to wateronen or freemen of the Watermen's Company. The captain of the Glasgow was not a waterman, and could not be proceeded against under the watermen's act.  Mr. BRODERIP said Mr. Symons was quite right, and after observing that the law was very defective on the subject, granted a peace warrant against the captain for endangering the lives of the applicant and his friends, and putting them in bodily fear. Mr. J. E. Cutler, the beadle of the Waternien',, Company, then applied for summonses against John Jenkins Large and Henry Sergeant, captains of the Hero and Brilliant, Gravesend steam-vessels, for navigating their vessels at a greater rate or speed
The Sun. — 1832-12-26 (London, England)

MUL-. GRAVE undoubtedly is ; and re augur from it the best results in the course of the execution of the measures we fear it will be found necessary to adopt towards our contumacious colonies in the West Indies. The West Indians are now playing a mistaken game,—the game which ruined  the Tories of England,—that of utter defiance to public opinion. Their answer to the speech of  the Governor of Jamaica contains but too certain evidence of their ignorance of the state of the feelings of the people of this country, irritated by constant opposition towards them. The idea of the planters repudiating the right of the Imperial Parliament to interfere between them and their slaves, when it is only by the interference of the King's troops that the whites can be preserved from the vengeance of their oppressed fellow-creatures, is as absurd as it is unconstitutional. If any parties have a right to complain of the Imperial Parliament, it is the majority of the population of the West Indies for so long suffering a minority to exercise a power over their persons which it has solemnly recognised as unjust. What it would have been, and still would be, wise in the planters to do, is  to acknowledge that slavery must be abolished, and to come forward with some plan of compensation of their own. We have often contended  that, as a matter of principle, they have no right to any compensation for yielding up what they ought never to have possessed—that, if any thing, they ought to compensate the slaves ; but we are willing, for the sake of accomplishing a great good, and in expiation of its having originally shared in the guilt of the whites in the West Indies, that the nation should by some means ease the loss, be it great or little, which they must sustain by a change of system. Such, also, we are satisfied is the feeling prevalent even among some of the stanchest of the abolitionists, although it may be that they seem to snatch at the gold gown in order to secure the sleeve. But to benefit by this feeling, the planters must take instant advantage of it, or they may depend upon it that the kind of locus penitentice now granted them will be taken away. We marvel that experience of the horrors they are subject to under the present system, has not of itself been sufficient to turn their views in that direction. They naturally deplore in their address " the conflagration, rape, and assassination," to which their properties, families, and lives, were exposed during the late rising of the blacks ; but has it never struck them that " conflagration, rape, and assassination," are as naturally concomitants of a system of slavery as light and warmth are of sunshine, or as agitation and discontent are of boroughmongering. The latter was got rid of only when all classes had been ground down to a state of intolerable misery. Will not the Assembly of Jamaica consent to abolish slavery till each member of it has had a son or two murdered, a wife or daughter violated, and a plantation burnt ? We could say more, but verbum sap.
The Sun. — 1832-09-11 (London, England)

THE LATE MURDER ON THE RIVER.—The melancholy death of Mr. WILKINSON is another illustration of thesomewhat hackneyed observation, that the most trivial circumstances often lead to very serious and fatal results. On the day of his death he called upon his friend, Mr. SMALES, who was just about to sit down to dinner, but not liking the dish prepared, which was minced veal, he proposed going out with Mr. WILKINSON to dinner. They went to a tavern, and dined together, after which hey adjourned to a skittle-ground, where they spent the afternoon, and drank rather freely. On leaving this place, the deceased gentleman, finding himself a little affected with the liquor he had drunk, propo•ed walking about, in order to recover himself before he returned home. On reaching the water side, towards which they had directed their course, they agreed to engage a bo it, and take a row to the river, believing that the coolness of the evening and the exercise together would operate as an excellent restorative, and they were on the point of landing when the affray occurred, which ended in the death of Mr. WILKINSON, and has now placed the lives of two other individuals in jeopardy. The fire-engine and ship-pump constructed by Mr. HEARLE, engineer and iron founder, of this town, which has been fixed for trial in twelve ships of the Royal Navy, and after a use of nearly duce years, without requiring repair, has proved, from the official reports of the Commanding Officers, to have fill), answered all the purposes proposed by the invention. On Friday last Captain SYMONDS, Surveyor of the Navy, inspected the pump fitted in his Majesty's ship San Josef, in all its parts and operation., and from the high opinion expressed by him of its merits, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, with Admiral DUNDAS, Comptroller of the Navy, accompanied by Admiral* Sir CHARLES PAGET And Sir FREDERICK MAITLAND, went on board the Sun Josef to inspect the apparatus, immediately previous to their leaving in the Lightning steamer for Falmouth, where Captain Cu itxtr, as the first trial, directed the water to be supplied from the pipes amidships, through the ship's bottom, and connected with the pump in the well, when the water in a few seconds was thrown over the fore-topgallant.mast head with great force. It was then applied oa as ttihrreeec .distinctcould an t a s lid times epte separate be engines, we instantly broughtl li i thei n t event euns without the aid of a bucket, and with only four men at the pump, and one to direct each hose. Their Lordships, After minutely observing the whole of the experiments, its fitting, and arrangements, on every deck, were of opinion that it wasr theewieaamsr iobasrgto brought effectiveigiehts h firp, m the ration, and simple o in its for its construction, of any thing of the sort they had ever time witnessed. It was found to be a powerful pump from well water fo washing tht he holdedecks; fresh every part of the ship, and on leaving they were pleased to express their high approval to the inventor of its use:illness and benefit in the Navy.—Devonport Telegraph.
The Sun. — 1832-05-30 (London, England)

FAILURE OF THE SALE-RESTORATION OF THE CATTLE TO  THEIR. OWNERS-POPULAR ENTHUSIAS;;.-The transactions of the last two hours will not easily be effaced from our mind ; and our present regret is, that time does not permit us to say any thine but state a few leading facts. Amidst the yells of infuriated thousands, guarded by a squadron of Lancers, the fifteen unfortuate i.ows were driven from a field belonging to the High Constable, where they had been since Thursday night, to the Grand Parade, and there exhibited for sale. The entire of that leading street was one dense mass of human beings, who occasionally set up tremendous cheers. Surrounded by the troops, the process of auctioneering was commenced —the auctioneer, a stranger, it is said a resident of Middleton. They were set up at 31. for each —no bidder ! 21.—n0 bidder ! 11.—no bidder ! in short, he descended to 3s. for each cow, but no purchaser appeared. This scene lasted for more than an hour, when, there being no chance of making sale of the cattle, it was proposed to adjourn the auction; but, as we are informed, the General in command of the military expressed an unwillingness to have the troops subject to a repetition of the harassing duty thus imposed on them. After a short delay, it was at the interf rence and remonstrance of several gentlemen—both of town and country—agreed upon that the cattle should he given up to the people, subject to certain private arrangements. At this hour the cattle, followed by the people, frantic with joy, have just passed our office. We never witnessed such a scene— thousands of country people, jumping with exulting feelings at the result. When the result was known, clamorous and irrepressible cheering for the military burst forth. Three cheers were then given for General Sir George Bingham, and were followed by shouts tLe most deafening. Another tithe sale is advertised for Wednesday. Shall our city again present the fearful spectacle—shall its trade be again suspended, and its inhabitants be " frighted from their propriety ?" The day will give the reply,  We are glad to find that the demand for English gloves is daily increasing. This is, in a great measure, owing to the exertions of Mr. WILLIAM HULL, by whom the state of the glovers of Yeovil, Stoke, and Ali!borne Port has been brought before the public. 'fhe trade have presented that gentleman with a handsome piece of plate, in acknowledgment of his services. The workmen of the collieries in the western pert of this country, who were ad out of work the begin. ning of last week, have returned to their employments, the masters having all pledged themselves to pay the wages of their men weekly in money, instead of in goods or by truck.—Monmouthshire  The skeleton of a human body was discovered on Monday, in Long Room barrack-yard, Plymouth, 13) the falling of some earth at the lower range of the bat racks ; the body must have lain there a considerable time, us the bones crumbled to dust when they were touched. It is generally supposed the person was murdered.