The Sun. — 1857-01-12 (London, England)

THE MURDER OF A WIFE AT MERTHYR.  The inquest on the body of Gwenllian Lewis, respecting whose murder some particulars have already ap peered in The Sun, was resumed on Friday afternoon. The inquiry excited great public interest, both on account of the circumstances which bad been previously disclosed, and from the fact that it had become generally known that the husband of the deceased woman attempted suicide on the previous evening. This attempt at self-destruction was of a novel and determined character. On being conveyed to the station house on Thursday the prisoner, John L-wis, was searched, and deprived of everything with which it was supposed possible that he could inflict any injury upon himself. In the course of the eveeiog, however, he contrived to get out a stay nail, which was used to to support one of the fixtures of the cell in which he was confined, and having worked the bead of it into the wall so as to present the point towards him, he ran his head violently against it, apparently with the hope of being thus able to terminate his existence. It so happened that the nail not being firmly secured in the wall gave way at, the first blow, in• fleeting a wound on the scalp, but without materially injuring the skull. Foiled in this attempt at suicide, Lewis then took the stay nail and made a de-perate attempt to force it into his bowels ; but the instrument not being very sharp did not prove fatal, but caused the wreteheet man such pain that he fainted. Mr. Superintendent Wrenn, who had from the first deemed it prudent to keep a frequent watch upon the prisoner, soon afterwards found him in a state of insensibility, and, having administered some restoratives immediatelysent for Mr. Dy ke, surgeon, who was promptly in attendance', and who used further means for Lewis's recovery. At the inquest on Friday a great change was observable in the appearance and conduct of the prisoner. Instead of displaying the indifference amounting to hardihood which he had before manifested, he seemed to regard the proceedings with anxiety, and more than once shed tears. The circumstantial evidence adduced was very strong Mr. John Morgan, to whom the deceased had been housekeeper for three years, deposed that she was io good health when he left his home about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th inst. On his return, at about 11 o'clock, he let himself in with a latchkey, but not finding his night candle placed as usual he rang the bed. A a no one answered he went into the passage, when the prisoner called out " Please come to me." On going down into the kitchen, and seeing the deceased lying on the floor, he said, " How is this John ?" The prisoner replied, " I don't know, indeed. I knocked at the frtmt door many times and tried to get into the house, but I was obliged to go over the wall into the field, and force open the back door, and when I returned 1 found my wife at the bottom of the stairs in her blood, as you now see her." Witness sent immediately for Mr. Dyke, surgeon, and also for Mr. Superintendent Wrenn. On examining the premises it was found that the back door had been forced open. The deceased' was a very steady woman, but the prisoner was occasionally addicted to drunkenness. Mr. Dyke, surgeon, baying restated the injuries found upon the person of the deceased, described the condition in which the premises were found by him when he was called in. Besides a quantity of recent blood stains observed on the kitchen stairs and wall, witness noticed that a quantity of lime from the wall at the side of lithe stairs had been knocked off, as though a struggle had taken place. The prisoner was intoxicated at the itime, and on his face there was a recent