The Sun. — 1867-07-10 (London, England)

SHOCKING MURDER.  On Sunday morning a dreadful murder was committed at Dowlais, which is part of the town of Merthyr Tydfil, in South Wales. A woman named Ann Murphy, who is between 60 and 70 years of age, and whose husband is employed under the Dowlais Iron Company as a watchman, keeps a private lodging-house, and among her lodgers for some time past were two single men named Saunders Henderson, 38 years of age, and Thomas Watkins, 40. She had also a lodger named John Silk. It is said that for some time previous to Saturday night Henderson and Watkins had been on too familiar terms with their landlady, and, if not mutually suspicious of each other, it is tolerably certain that Watkins was suspicious of Henderson, and, in fact, jealous of him. On Saturday night Murphy, the husband of the landlady, who is an old man bordering on 70, was on night duty. Watkins and Henderson came in about 11 o'clock, and had supper together. Mrs. Murphy then went out and returned about' 12 o'clock. She found that Watkins had gone upstairs, leaving Henderson apparently sleeping on the chair in which he sat. The old woman then went to bed—her bedroom being on the ground floor. About five minutes after she had been in bed Henderson went into the room and got into her bed. She rose up, and as she did so heard Watkins coming downstairs. She then got out of bed and was going out of her bedroom into the kitchen, when she met IVatkins at the door with a poker in his hand. She was then stunned by a blow which he struck her on the head, but recovered in a few moments. Watkins passed on ir.to the room, but the old woman did not hear either him or Henderson speak, and she also heard no blows. When Watkins returned from the room he said nothing, but went and called a neighbour, a Mrs. Rees. He then went back to the house and called up the lodger Silk, to whom he said he " thought he had killed Saunders, or had done for him." Two or three persons went into the old woman's bedroom, where they found Henderson lying in a pool of blood on the floor by the side of the bed. The bedclothes and pillows were all spotted with blood, and blood was still flowing freely from wounds on Henderson's head. Henderson was quite dead. A policeman then came, and he took Watkins in custody on the charge of causing Henderson's death. Watkins said he had been charged himself with being too free with the landlady, but be had caught the -- at last. Mr. Byrne, a surgeon, came in just afterwards, and found that Henderson had his skull fractured very badly in two places, and lacerated and contused wounds besides. The poker was found under the grate with fresh blood stains on it, and it was bent in the form of a bow. It was straight a few hours before. Watkins was taken before the magistrates Wrenn Monday, and charged by Mr. Superintendent with the wilful murder of Henderson. Witnesses deposed to the facts which are stated above, and the prisoner manifested the utmost indifference during the whole hearing. His reply to the charge was that he never struck Henderson with a poker, and the injuries which were found on his head must have`seen caused by his falling off the bed. This, the surgeon said, was impossible. The prisoner was then committed for trial on the capital charge at the next assizes at Cardiff, to opn on the 16th instant.  On the 19th Mr. Henry Seymour will call the attention of the House of Commons to the long-continued imprisonment and ill-treatment of her Majesty's envoy and her Majesty's consul and other subjects of her Majesty by the King of Abyssinia, and to pray her Majesty that proper steps may be taken to procure the release of the prisoners by force of arms.  A Moscow paper states that in 1853 the Russian army consisted of 580,000. At tho present time it consists of 800,000 men. This number could bo soon increased to 1,180,000, besides 300,000 irregular troops. The Czar has, therefore, a total military force of nearly 1,500,000 men.