The Potteries Examiner : — 1872-03-23 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

MURDER IN LONDON.  An inquest has been held at the London Hospital, by the coroner for East Middlesex, respecting the death of Caroline Elizabeth Crew, aged 29, an =fortnnatewoman well known in the neighbourhoods of Ratcliffe and Limehouse, who was stabbed by a man named John Kirby, aged 19, in a house of ilLfame in York-road, Ratcliffe, on the morning of Sunday week.  The first wits em called was Ellen Crew, the wife I of a trimmer in an iron foundry, who said the deceased was her step-daughter. Witness believed that she had got her living by charing, although witness had heard that she was a prostitute. Clara Steel, of 2, York-road, Ratcliffe, deposed that about a quarter-past one on Sunday morning the deceased and a young woman named Racked Williams came into the house, when the landlord, his wife, and witness were sitting in the kitchen. Kirby and another young man came with them, and the accused and deceased went together into the back kitchen. Shorly afterwards the latter came back for a moment and then returned to Kirby. Witness then heard a scream, and deceased staggered into the kitchen with a knife sticking in her breast. She pulled the knife out, and saying, " Oh dear, I am stabbed," fell insensible to the ground. The knife produced—an ordinary clasp-knife—was the weapon with which the girl had been stabbed! In answer to the coroner, witness said that she did not know why the accused had stabbed the girl. He had paid her 65., and perhaps he thought she was going to van away with it, and Bo became " wild " about it. Witness did not think deceased intended to rob him. She had never been, she believed, charged with robbery. Jane Wynne, the landlady of the house, corroborated the evidence of the last witness, and added that when the deceased came back int. the kitchen it was to give her 2s. out of the 6s. she had received.  _ -George Goldsmith, police-constable, said that on the morning in question ho saw Kirby running from No. 2, York-road. Having previously heard a woman scream, witness stopped him, when the man said, "You need not stop me. I give myself up. I have stabbed a woman." Witness took him into custody, and the girl Crew was removed to the hospital. On Monday the accused was taken before the magistrate and remanded.  Mr. john Howell Thomas, the house surgeon at the London Hospital, described the nature of the wound, and said that it would have been produced by a knife like the one found. The girl lingered until Thursday morning, when she died at six o'clock.  _ The coroner having summed up, the jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict against John Kirby, aged 19, for feloniously killing and slaying the said Caroline Elizabeth Crew; and the coroner made out his warrant for the committal of the accused to Newgate to await his trial.  PROSECUTION OF THE TICHBORNE CLAIMANr.—The Law Times believes Mr. Serjeant Parry is retained for the prosecution of the Tichborne claimant. It is understood that the law officers will take no part in the proceedings, but that the learned serjeant will lead for the Crown. The public is prone to consider that the huge cost of the Tiohborne trial goes intact into the pockets of the lawyers. As far as counsel are concerned, we believe we may state that the fees paid by the defence constitute somewhat less than one-fifth of the expenditure. The Attorney-General received E 6,000, Mr. Hawkins, Q.C., rather more than £5,000, and so on in proportion.