Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1862-05-30 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

DREADFUL MURDER OF TWO CHILDREN. -ATTEMPTED SUICIDE OF THE MOTHER.  On Thursday evening se'nnight the utmost alarm was manifested in Ludgate-hill and neighbourhood on a rumour which generally prevailed that Mrs Vyse, the wife of Mr Vyse, bonnet maker, of 32, Ludgatehill, had murdered her two children and afterwards attempted to commit suicide by cutting her own throat with a razor. In a very short time the street became almost inipassable, and it was with difficulty that the police could keep a way clear for the traffic, every one being anxious to obtain the particulars of this melancholy event. The particulars as far as they could be obtained were these, and we believe they may be taken as authentic. At ten minutes peat four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs Vyse directed the servant girl to go to Mr Keating's, the chemist, in St. Paul's Churchyard, for a quantity of powders similar to some which she had received in the morning. The servant aecerdingly went as directed, and when she returned with the powders she went up to her mistress's bed-room, where she had left her. She knocked at the door, but receiving no answer she endeavoured to open the door. She found it'fastened, upon which she went down stairs and told Mrs Vyse's sister, who also lived in the house. She accompanied the servant upstairs, and together they succeeded in forcing open the door; when they found Mrs Vyse with her throat out, bleeding very much, and with a razor clutched in her hand. They immediately raised an alarm, and Dr. James, from Mr /Coating's was sent for. Mrs Vyse then told her sister that if she would go into the next room she would see the children. Accompanied by the servant, she went into the bed-room, where she found the two children, of. the ages of five and seven years, in bed, apparently fast asleep, but melancholy to relate, both of them quite dead, having succumbed to poison which had been administered to them. The powders sent by Mr Keating in the morning were at the request of Mrs Vyse, she having stated that she wanted some poison to kill some rats, with which the house was much infested. The powders were accordingly sent to her sealed up, and there could be no doubt that as soon as she received them they were administered to the poor children. No cause can at present be assigned for this dreadful deed. The wound in her throat had been closed up, and she was secured in bed to prevent her from committing any further injury upon herself, but she is in a very precarious condition and her life is considered very uncertain. Dr. Payne, of Artillery-lane, who professionally attends Mrs Vyse, has some slight expectation that she may recover. It appears that she is herself the daughter of a chemist, and to that fact is to be attributed her knowledge of the poisonous nature of the vermin powders which she used for the destruction of the lives of her two children. She on Thursday morning entered the shop of Messrs Keating, the chemists, of St. Paul's Church-yard, where she has been a conetant customer for some years, and in her usual cheerful manner asked to be shown some perfumes She chose out of those which were offered for her inspec tion a bottle of violet extract, and poured some of it on her handkerchief. Then when in the act of leaving  ..... . she said, as if on the impulse of the moment, by the bye, we are infested with mice, and we have just had to pay -£5 for the repair of the mischief they have done in the shop. They are so impudent now that they keep us awake at night running over the floor. Let me have some prussic acid till I get rid of them." The assistant replied that he could not sell prussic acid for such a purpose, but recommended Beard's wheat as a safe means of effecting her object. She stated that she had tried that, and that it was of no use, and asked for a package of Battle's vermin destroyer, which was given to her, and she went away perfectly self-possessed and quite cheerful. In the afternoon she sent out the servant for another package of the powder, and it is presumed that she bad then the intention of poisoning herself, both her unhappy children being then dead from the effects of the first package. Some slight delay, however, appears to have occurred, and she made the attempt upon her own life with a razor, which she found on the mantel-shelf of the bed-room. Mrs Vyse is a native of the small town of Bideford, in Devonshire, where Taylor and his wife, who destroyed three of their children by poison in Manchester set up in business in a wine and spirit shop in 1861: Mrs Vyse is a person of excitable and impressionable temperament, and the connection of the Taylors with the duitrtot from which she came no doubt caused the