The Potteries Examiner : — 1879-06-14 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

CHILD MURDER IN WESTMINSTER. or Chian, according as the exigencies of the situation demanded. The accomplished journalist was about Mr. Bedford has held a lengthy inquiry at three weeks ago in a great German city, where the the Sessions House, Westminster, into the cireumsensation of the time was a troupe of trained bears, stances attending the death of a female child, sin. There were six of them, and they went through their known, found in the front area of Westminster Hoedrills and other performances with ouch startline• pital. Inspector Webber, A division, watched the regularity that it was very generally suspected case on behalf of the Commissioners of Police. It that they were not bears, but men disguised in bear- appeared that as Sarah Banister, the kitchen-maid skins. W. Benton thought as much and offered at the hospital, was about to open the kitchen window, to wager with the manager that he would she observed a. bundle lying in the area. She at once enter the den, but the manager declined to sanction called the attention of the engineer to it. who, upon his enterprise. W. Benton thereepen invited all the opening the parcel, found it to contain the dead body journalists in the city to dinner asmicel them that the of a female child.—William Chamberlain deposed to bears were frauds, and invited thorn to be present at opening the parcel and finding it to contain the dead the afternoon performance next day, when he intended body of a child and a brick. By the Coroner : The to unmask the humbug. Having bribed an employe parcel was wet, and the child was lying on the brick. of the menagerie, Ilenton, disguised as a bear, entered In answer to further questions, witness said he imthe cage. "Ilia tier companions seemed furiously mediately took the child up to the doctor who proexcited, but he attributed this to their desire to fend noamsd life extinct.— Mr. Horace Elliot, house off suspicion. The public applauded most enthusias- surgeon, deposed to examining the body, and finding tieally. It was then that the unhappy being, desirous it covered with soot, as though it had been up a of carrying out his plan, turned towards the press- chimney. The skull was very extensively fractured box, removed his bear's head and bowed politely. A! in five or six places.—By the Coroner: The injuries tremendous roar of laughter e !el, followed by an were inflicted during life. -They could not have been Menem° shriek of terror. The bears, on seeing this caused by the fall in the area. The child had been human face, precipitated themselves upon the enter- dead quite 24 hours when found. There was also a tunate man. Before the tamer could take steps to hires bruise on the forehead. Death was the result save him, the reporter, frightfully mutilated, had of the injurien to the head.—lusyctor Webber etated breathed his last. Thus perished poor W. Benton, that the police had made every inquiry, but had been whose editor-in-chief seeks vainly a man lit to replace unable to obtain a clue to the person by whom the him.—. New York World. parcel was deposited.—The Coroner summed up, and • the racy, after five minutes' deliberation, returned a lee... of " lb ilf al murder against some person or persons unknown."  A