The Sun. — 1851-10-24 (London, England)

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 24, 1851  SINGULAR CASE OF INFANTICIDE AT  WAKEFIELD.  At an early hour on Monday morning last, the inhabitants of Wakefield were greatly excited by the report that a child had been found, with its throat cut from ear to ear, at the station of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. The rumour unfortunately proved too true ; and in the course of the day an inquest on the body was held at the Royal Osk Inn, before Mr. Thomas Lee, coroner, when the following particulars transpired : Shortly after five o'clock on Monday morning, one of the company's porters named 11. Jackson, went to the station as usual, for the purpose of seeing the Government train dispatched, which leaves Wakefield at half-past fire. There was another railway servant also on the premises, a young man belonging to the telegraph-office, named Mahalana Park, who booked four persons to go by the train, namely, two males and two females. Immediately on the departure of the train, the porter Jackson went into the passage where the bookleg-office is situate, for the purpose of taking out a ladder, intending to extinguish the gas lights. Having discharged this duty, and been absent only about five minutes, on his return he found in the passage a common blue hat-box, corded in rather a clumsy manner, lying on the ground. On taking it into the telegraphic office, and thinking there was something strange in the weight and appearance of the box, the two servants decided upon opening it, when, to their horror and surprise, they found it contained a male child, with its throat cut in a shocking manner, and quite dead. From the medical testimony of Mr. Francis Horsfall, surgeon, it would appear that the child could only have been born a few hours before its life was destroyed. As to the parties implicated in the prepetration of this diabolical deed, a curious chain of circumstantial evidence has already been developed. It appears that, about ten minutes after the departure of the train for Manchester, a man and a woman came to the booking-office window, and inquired if the train had gone to Thornhill. On learning that it had gone, and that there was no other train until half-past eleven o'clock, they departed, and within a few minutes afterwards the hat-box was discovered, containing the murdered infant. A railway officer, while going up Kirkgate to the police-office, saw a female standing at the end of a yard, who, on catching sight of him, speedily decamped ; but she was subsequently taken into custody in company with a man who is supposed to have been with her at the railway station. The telegraphic clerk, Park, positively swears to the woman being the person who came to the window to make inquiries respecting the trains to Thornhill. The two prisoners are known to have been associated together for a long time, and were met in the streets at various points during Sunday night and Monday morning ; and, from the confused and unsatisfactory account they give of their movements and business, strong suspicions are entertained of their implication in this mysterious transaction. The medical gentleman has examined the female prisoner, and gives it as his opinion that she is not herself the mother of the child. The jury returned a verdict of " Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown." On Monday afternoon, the two prisoners, whose names are Ann Smith and James Doyle, were brought before the magistrates at the Court-house, and on the request of Mr. MtDonald, the chief constable, they were remanded for a week for further examinetiun.—Manchester Guardian.