The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1880-06-12 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

MURDER MYSTERIES.  Murder mysteries are plentiinl. Undiscovered crime would appear to be stalking through the land. A short time ago, a poor innkeeper was murdered in his bed in Scotland, while his wife was nearly killed, and no clue has yet been obtained to the perpetrators of the diabolical outrage. At the end of last week, some human remains were discovered in a house in Harley-street, London, and scientific examination has indicated that they were those of a poor soul who was murdered. A weapon has been found with which the crime might have been committed. The assassin was, probably, an ignorant person, as chloride of lime, an antiseptics, was used to cover the body, instead of quicklime, which would have destroyed the remains. The house is in the occupation of Mr. Jacob Henriques, whose story, as told to the coroner, is as follows":—" I have resided at 139, Harleystreet for twenty years, where the, body was found. On Thursday morning last my butler came to me looking very serious. I was then in my breakfastroom. The butler said he wanted to speak to me. It was, he said, very important. I said, 'Well, what is it?' He said, 'Oh, some remains are found. I said, 'Oh, a new-born babe, I suppose?' He said, 'Oh no, something worse than that. They are the remains of a fall-grown body.' I then told the butler to go and get a policeman directly. I then went downstairs and saw the remains, which were in a barrel in the front cellar. My present butler has been with me eighteen months. I have given a list of all the servants and the dates they came and went to the police. I generally go out for six weeks in the summer, and have always left the house in charge of the same people for font. years. I noticed a bad smell in my house soon after the present butler came. His bedroom abuts on the cellar. In consequence of the smell, I had the drains seen to, to try and discover where the smell came from. I than had the dustbin seen to. I have a wife and two daughters living at home. It was not my own servants who kept the house when we were away." So far the police seem to have made no great progress towards unravelling the awful mystery. At Abergele, on Monday, some men, while clearing out a ditch, came across a large earthenware vessel, containing the skeleton of a person about seventeen years old. The vessel also contained material evidently intended to destroy the body. The discovery has caused intense excitement in the neighbourhood, and the police have been busily investigating, but with no practical result. Another discovery, of an equally startling character, was also made on Monday in a wash-house in the Woolwich barracks. A soldier named Thomas Humphries, accompanied by his dog, entered the wash-house, which had not been used. After preliminary sniffing, the animal dragged out frcm under some lime the dead body of a little girl. In this case the mystery is as intense as it is in the others to which we have referred. Nothing is known as to the child, nor how the body came to be deposited where it was found. All this, taken in conjunction with the many undiscovered murders which it is possible to call to mind, points to the melancholy fact that in England an adept, who has elevated murder to the rank of fine art, might gratify his vitiated tastes without running much risk of detection. The question arises, is our system of police what it ought to be? The public mind is becoming saturated with doubts on this point, and timid people are living in a state of fear, so it is more than possible that the question will have to be seriously considered at no distant date.