The Express. — 1846-11-16 (London, England)

LAM BET I I.—A ROMANCE.—On Saturday evening, as the business of this court was nearly disposed of, Maria Rosina Cook, a young woman dressed in the garb of a sailor, was i brought n and placed at the bar before the Hon. G. C. Norton, on a charge of attempting to destroy herself by swallowing a quantity of laudanum. John Constable, 43 L, deposed that about 10 o'clock on that day, while on duty at the Tower-street station-house, a person came in and requested his immediate attendance at a coffee-house in the Waterlooroad, where a young sailor had poisoned himself. He instantly proceeded to the house, and, finding the prisoner in a sleepy state, he went in pursuit of a medical man. The first shop he went into he was asked if it was not a young sailor who had destroyed himself, and on asking them why they should know the fact, they told him that a young sailor had been there a short time before to request three-pennyworth of laudanum, but they refused to serve him. He subsequentlyremoved the prisoner to Guy's hospital, when the stomach pump was used, and she became sufficiently recovered to take her to the station-house, when he had the charge booked against her. From the statement she had made to him (the constable), it appeared that she was the daughter of a respectable veterinary surgeon residing at Clutton, Somersetshire, and having become enamoured of a private soldier belonging to the 37th Regiment of Foot, she had left her home, and had latterly lived at Chatham, where her lover was quartered. The regiment had latterly been ordered on foreign service, and was on the point of sailing for Ceylon, and the prisoner, discovering that the object sof her affections was to proceed thither by the ship Minerva, lying in the East India Dock, she sold her female apparel, at a great sacrifice, and purchased the sailor's clothes she then had on. She thin went to the registry for seamen, and procured a registry note in the name of David Cook. She next went on board the Minerva and offered herself to the captain as a cabin-boy, but to her great mortification found that the captain had shipped all hands on board, and therefore did not require her services. Foiled in her object in accompanying her lover, she had resolved upon comrniting suicide, and her first intention was to have thrown herself off one of the bridges ; this she should have done, she said, had she not been told by a sailor-boy that she brought with her from Chatham, that the Thames was so excessively crowded with craft that the probabilities were that she would drop on to one of them, break her bones, and die a lingering death. She then made up her mind to take poison, and procured a small quantity of poison at different shops, all of which she swallowed off with some coffee, before the constable found her. The witness here handed to the bench a letter, which Mr Norton read, and of which the following is a copy : " Dear Thomas—l have overstepped the bounds of prudence and modesty in hopes of being able to reach Oeylon with you. I have put on boy's apparel and come to this sink of inMuity, London, to enter the “Nlinerva' as a boy, but when I got here the captain had shipped all his hands. I have tried to get on board several vessels, but cannot, on account of not being able to find money enough to provide enough of clothes to get to sea. I have sold all my own to get what I have on, and have no money to set other I have no iriends here, no place to go to; but I cannot blame anybody but myself. Think of me no more, Thomas, as it is useless : you will never see nor hear from me again. Remember me to Harriett and Charles. Don't make yourself uneasy about me. I have no more to say, but remain yours till death, " M. B. Coos. London, Nov. 14, 1546. ' Charles White said he was in a coffee-house in Waterloorota that afternoon, and perceiving a strong smell of laudanum, he looked about to see if any person was taking any. Immediately after he saw the prisoner with her hand on the table and in a drowsy state. He shook her up and asked her if she had taken anything, and she n plied that she had swallowed poison. He then scut for the constable, and the prisoner was removed to Guy's Hospital.—Mr. Norton here remarked that he was not aware that the laudanum would have so instantaneous an effect upon a person taking it, and a medical gentleman present replied that it would not, particularly when taken in coffee.—The constable said that the prisoner had acknowledged to him that when she had taken the laudanum she was so exhausted for want of rest, that she was scarcely able to hold her head up. The fact, she said, was that she was so much alarmed about her sex being discovered, that from the time she had put on her present apparel till the present, she had not taken them off. On the Friday night she engaged a bed for herself and the sailor boy that was with her at the coffeesshoptand rather than take her clothes off, and go to bed, she sat in a chair all night.—ln reply to the questions of .Ir. Norton, she said she had seen the soldier, Thomas Gardner, three years ago, when he was with a recruiting party at Bristol; l,at she had not left her home until six months ago, when she learned that he was in Newport, in Wales ; and from there she had accompanied him to Chatham. She declared that it had been her fixed intention to destroy herself, and was very sorry that she should have been prevented; and added, that it was impossible to endure greater torture than that which she had experienced for the last three days.—The prisoner, who is in her 20th year, must have been, a very pretty girl, and who became the ;sailor's dress exceedingly well, was ultimately remanded to a future day, to give time to communicate with her friends.