The Sun. — 1846-07-10 (London, England)

ARWICKSHIRE  KIXETON, WEDNESDAY.—The magistrates of this division of the county held a special meeting here yesterday, which was very numerously attended, and at which it was resolved that an application should be made to the Home Secretary of State to offer a reward for the apprehension of the person or persons engaged in this diabolical affair. Every possible exertion has been used by the magistracy of the neighbourhood to unravel the mystery in which the transaction is involved, and one or two circumstances have transpired since the Coroner's inquest to confirm the opinion so decidedly given by the surgeon, Mr. Brown, upon his examination—namely, that the deceased had died of an extensive fracture of the skull, occasioned by several severe blows from a blunt instrument, such as might have been inflicted by the piece of timber found under the person of Chater when he was discovered in a senseless state, bleeding from the mouth, near to Pittern-hill, which is about half a mile from Kineton, a very quiet secluded market town, containing a population of about 1,400 inhabitants. It has ready been stated that near the body of the murdered man a quantity of coffee was found spilled about the ground, as though in the course of a struggle it had fallen there, from the bursting of the paper in which it was wrapped ; but it has only just transpired that this piece of paper, upon which are printed the name and address of the tradesman from whom the coffee was purchased (Meddoms, Kineton), was very carefully folded up in the deceased's pocket, as if put there after an attempt had been made to rob him, and with a view of preventing any clue being given by it to the guilty parties. With the exception of a few spots upon the piece of timber spoken of, no blood was found near the body, or anywhere in the vicinity, and this goes far to strengthen the supposition that, being a man of spare frame and weak habit of body, the deceased was carried to, and placed on, the spot where the carrier's son discovered him after the outrage had been perpetrated. It has also been stated that only a few pence were left in the pockets of the man, and there is no reason for supposing that he was in possession of more than a very few s shillings throughout the day, notwithstanding the attempt made by rumour to give undue weight to the affair in this respect, in the conjecture that he had raised money that day by mortgaging some cottages belonging to him at the village of Combrook, where he resided. It appears, however, his real object in coming to Kineton was to procure an under bailiff's situation, which had fallen vacant by death, on Lord Willoughby de Broke's estate, at Compton Verney. Mr. Roby, the well-known and active superintendent of police, has arrived from Leamington, and is now engaged in a thorough investigation of the whole circumstances, in the chain of which there is apparently one link to be supplied, namely, where the deceased, who was last seen in the town by a groom, named Fennell, about a quarter past ten at night, bad spent his time between then and twelve o'clock, soon after which his body was found at the top of Pitternhill ; for two individuals connected with the Warwickshire kennels passed the spot at half-past eleven, and described the night to be so light that they " could see rabbits run across the road," but saw no man lying down, which they consider they must have done had any one been there, as they had to -drive a horse which shied at any dark object in the road. Suspicion has fallen upon some inmates, on the night of the murder, of a lodging-house, kept by a blind man, who lost his sight in Egypt 45 years ago, under the military generalship of the celebrated Sir Ralph Abercromby, and now enjoys a pension ; he also keeps a kidging-house in King-street, Drury- lane, from which metropolitan establishment one of the suspected parties married his wife. It is thought that the inquiries now in course of being made by Mr. Roby will terminate in a result that will materially lessen the excitement which the melancholy occurrence has occasioned for several miles around the neighbourhood of Kineton.