The Sun. — 1861-09-23 (London, England)

THE ATTEMPTED DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE AT GOOLE. 'We find the following additional particulars of this case in the Manchester Examiner and limes : —The prisoner, Mrs. Torkington, is the wife of a police-officer residing at Stockport, but was on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Scholes, Lower Bridgestreet,l Goole, where she has been living since the 9 thof July last. At the inquest, which was holden on Th ursay afternoon, at the Sydney Hotel, Goole, the honour of before J. dHa Simpson, Esq., M.D., the coroner for Pontefract, the following particulars were elicited : Mr. It. P. Bell said—l am in practice as a surgeon in Goole. About two o'clock on Wednesday morning Mrs. Scholes called me up to attend her daughter. I went at once, and found a young child apparently in a profound sleep. The mother was sitting in a chair in the same room, talking in a wild and wandering way, and was making efforts tb vomit. I examined the child, and found its pulse feeble and intermittent, and its skin cold and c!ammy, with the eyelids shut and the pupils contracted. I asked the grandmother what they had been giving to the child, and she replied, daughter says she has given them a penny worth of opium." lat once gave an emetic, but this had no effect. I gave a second wilh the like result. I then used the stomach pump, but I was still unable to give relief. In passing the tube the child vomited a small quantity of mucus. The child died about seven a.m. When I was first called in the child was in a very dangerous state, and there was no possible chance of saving its life. I applied every remedy I knew without effect. I have performed a post mortem examination on the body. I produce the contents of the stomach, and on examining it I found a strong smell of opium. I found a brown powder secreted among the mucus taken from the stomach. I am sure that powder was poison, and that the child came to its death from an overdose of opium, or some other narcotic poison, such as opium or laudanum. I have tested the contents of the stomach by test paper, and find an acid reaction. I heard that the prisoner had another child, aid when I inquired for it she said it was upstairs all right. I sent her to fetch it downstairs, and then saw that it was suffering from the effects of opium. It was then staggering, and in a very nervous state. I gave him an emetic, and one to his mother, and afterwards repeated them, which caused free vomiting. I ordered them some strong coffee, and had them walking about for some time. The boy was kept in motion from my first visit until five or six o'clock in the evening. He is now better, and the mother has also recovered from the effects of the opium, but she is in a very unsettled state of mind. The prisoner told me that she had bought a drachm of opium, which cost her 31d., and that they had all taken it. Mrs, Mary Scholes, the prisoner's mother, said, —Mary Torkington, the deceased, is my grandchild, and was a year and seven months old. My daughter came to me on the 16th of July last. I was over at Stockport on the Bth July, and told her husband, to bring her, as I thought she was " silly mad," and the change might do her good. On the 18th inst. my son-in-law came home about two o'clock a.m. and I got up to let him in. At that time I heard the child moaning. I was in the same bed with it and its mother. I took hold of the child, and thought it was ill, and went at once for Dr. Bell. He gave it medicine, and used the stomach pump, but it died about seven o'clock thesame morning. I asked my daughter what she had been doing to the child, and at first she said, " Nothing." I said, "If thou doesn't tell me I will knock thee down." She then said, "We have all had a pennyworth of opium, and shall be dead directly." She seemed quite in high spirits over it. I sent for Sergeant Greenwood, and in company with my daughter we w ent to the shop where she said she had purchased the opium. I did not know of her buying any, and believe she was not in the habit of taking it. She was very fond of her children, and always afraid any one should injure them. My daughter was in the Stockport Infirmary in Juno last. She had then been attempting to hang herself. I have often taken her children away from her, but she has found and brought them back. If she went upstairs I was forced to follow her, fur fear she should do herself an injury. Mr. W. Steele, assistant to Mr. Leggitt, druggist, proved that the prisoner applied to him for a quarter of an ounce of opium, and that he cautioned her several times, and asked if she knew it was a deadly poison. She said she did, and from her appearance he thought she was in the habit of taking it. The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict of wilful murder against the prisoner. She had been remanded by the magistrates, and will be brought before them in a day or two.  SERIOUS Cif ,