The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1872-02-03 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

MISCHIEVOUS SERVANT.  At the Central Criminal Court, in London, Esther Elkington, aged fifteen, was indicted for feloniously setting fire to a dwelling-house. The prisoner had lived as a servant in the house of Alfred Richard Brogden, in Theobahrs-road, Holborn. On a morning in January, about four o'clock, Mr. Brogden was awoke by the wife of a lodger named Guthrie, a compositor, who was dying of consumption on the second floor, and from what she said he went downstairs to the back parlour, and found the window. curtains all burnt, an arm-chair on tire, and also the bottom bar of a little fancy table. In a cupboard the remains of some paper with three pieces of charred wood on it were found; some of the floor swas burning, and the wood lining of the window had been charred. A child's chair had been burning, but the fire had gone out. The prosecutor went to the prisoner's bedroom, the door of which he found ajar; she was partly dressed, having her night-dress over her ordinary clothes. She was standing in the room when he went in. Being asked if he could account for the fire, She replied she knew nothing about it, and that somebody must have come in and done it. He said it was very strange, the room had been on fire in different places; and he sent for a constable. The prisoner's room asljoined that in which the tire occurred. The prosecutor, his wife, and children slept on another floor. In reply to the constable who had been brought, she said she had opened the cupboard to get some sugar for a cup of tea she had made, having a piece of lighted paper in her hand, and as she was looking for the sugar she dropped the paper. The prisoner's box was found in her room ready packed for removal, and there was liOnle tea in it. The prosecutor had left I.od, in copper in his till over night which was missing in the monili,g, and exaetly that sum in copper was found in her box. Inside the cupboard a child's money-box, containing about d:2, was kept, and that was also missing, except a piece of it which was found among the charred furniture. The fire was. discovered by Anne Guthrie, the wife of the lodger, who in the dead of night had occasion to get up to attend her dying hits. basil, Perceiving the upper part of the house full of smoke she took a lamp and went downstairs, where she found the prisoner under the circumstances described. On being searched at the police-station ss. 4d. in silver and Gs. 71. in clipper were found upon the prisoner. The prisoner, who had no counsel, occasionally demurred to some parts of the evidence for the prosecution, lint made no defence. The jury returned a verdict of Guilty, accompanied by an expression of opinion that she was totally ignorant of the consequences of the crime, and recommending her to mercy. The Deputy-Recorder told the prisoner, in passing sentence, she had been guilty of a most serious offence, which was for many years capital, and was now punishable with penal seri itude. She must have known the possible consequences of her act, though he did not suppose she intended deliberately to destroy the inmates. Her object was to get away with the things she had stolen. As it was, however, she had run the greatest risk of committing murder. There was at the time an unhappy man dying of consumption, on the second story, and her inaster and iniatreas, with their children, were sleeping upstairs. She, on the other hand, in the dead of night, was wickedly prowling about the house, taking what she could steal, and, still more wickedly, setting tire to the house. Nothing could be more wanton or diabolical, and, in addittiou to that she had never exhibited the least remorse since the commission of the crime. He sentenced her to be kept in penal servitude for seven years.