Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1893-06-03 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

STABBING OF LADIES AT BIRMINGHAM. Some excitement has lately been occasioned among suburban residents in Birmingham by the dangerous vagaries of a stranger, supposed to be a madman, who makes a point of stopping ladies without escort and stabbing them in the breast or side with a stout bodkin or a lady's hat-pin. Several of these stabbing cases are reported from various parts of the town, and ladies have sustained painful injuries. In one case the weapon broke short off, or the wound might have been fatal. In another case the bodkin, which had been newly sharpened, was left sticking in the victim's side. The mysterious assailant has been repeatedly pursued, but without success. From the similarity of his methods to those of a man who was arrested and imprisoned at Northampton a few years ago for wantonly stabbing women in the strerts with a shoemaker's awl, it is conjectured that the man at Birmingham is the same individual. An arrest was made by the police on Sunday, but the prisoner has not been identified by any of tho ladies.  According to the Bir»tinghant Post, the first case of the kind occurred as early as the 4th inst. The lady attacked was Miss Wilkinson, daughter of Colonel Wilkinson. Walking in the neighbourhood of her home in Hamstead-road, she was struck on the breast by a wild-looking fellow who sprang in front of her, and whom, until the moment he delivered the blow, she had not seen. He decamped instantly, and when she got home, much unnerved, she discovered that in the stiff shirt-front she was wearing the point of what appeared to be a steel hair-pin had broken off short. Miss Agnes Turnbull, of Calthorpe-road, was the next lady injured. In that case the lunatic approached his victim from behind and struck her as he passed, leaving embedded in her flesh a steel knitting needle which had been sharpened at one end. The time of day was 5 o'clock, and about an hour later Miss Leedham, of Weston-place, was struck in the breast, but not stabbed, whilst walking along Beaufort-road. On this occasion the culprit was pursued, not only by a passer-by who saw the blow given, but by a policeman, who made use of a milk-cart to scour the neighbourhood. The former pursuer ran down Duchess-road after the man, and on getting into Francis-road found him nowhere in sight. The most sensational story has yet to be told. Miss Wilkinson came home in hot haste one afternoon, calling to the groom to saddle a horse and giva chase to the man, who had essayed a second attack upon her. He had sprung out of a hedge, but when she faced him boldly, and raised her heavy handled umbrella to strike him, he had taken flight. The groom tore down the high road towards the country; and a policeman who was. on duty close at hand jumped on a 'bus going into town; but the ruffian had plenty of time to make good his escape across the fields or along one of several byways.  _ The public fund started for the benefit of the widow of the late Sergeant Eves, of the Essex eon• stabulary, murdered at Purleigh, near Maldon, already amounts to £250. Mr. Henry William Lord, one of the Registrars of the Chief Probate and Divorce Division, Somerset House, died suddenly on Saturday from heart disease. His wife died only a week aco.