The Sun. — 1842-01-11 (London, England)

SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT SHEFFIELD. The town of Sheffield has been the scene of a very shocking occurrence, the result of intemperance. A young man, aged 25, named Henry Vaughan, a table-knife manufacturer, living in Whitecroft, had, it appears, paid attentions to Sarah Poole, who, with her two sisters, lived at Pyc Bank Bridgehouses and obtained a respectable livelihood by dressmaking ; but about eighteen mouths ago, in consequence of his dissolute conduct and intemperate habits, she refused any longer to keep company with him. Soon after this period, he called upon her, and endeavoured to induce her to revoke her determination to discard him as a lover. But finding his persuasions in vain he drew out a razor, and attempted her life. She, however, with great promptitude and spirit, threw him down, and got the razor from his hand. In October he hail fired a pistol at the house, and on Monday last he visited her and uttered such alarming threats that she applied to the Magistrates for protection, and obtained a peace warrant. Vaughan was summoned to appear before the bench on Friday. The sisters had, in consequence of his violence, been latterly in the habit of fastening the door and window-shutters in the evening ; but on Friday night unfortunately forgot or neglected to do so. At about a quarter before eight o'clock they were sitting at their work, when Vaughan suddenly rushed in at the outer door, closing it after him as he entered, and cried, " Rever.ge ! revenge this night. if I go out a corpse!' He then drew his hands from his pockets with a pistol in each. Sarah Poole immediately rushed to the door, followed by her sister Harriet, who, perceiving that he was aiming at Sarah, shut the door, but he fired one pistol before it was closed. Sarah escaped down the stairs, but Harriet, by closing the door, shut herself in with the infuriated man, while the third sister, Hannah, escaped out at the front door, and ran over to give alarm at the public-house opposite. Vaughan essayed to follow Sarah, but Harriet, with great presence of mind and wonderful intrepidity, pushed him backwards and he fell. At this moment she snatched from him what she supposed to be the other loaded pistol, threw it down, and (seeping into the next room, made for the window. She threw open the sash, and pushing open the unfastened shutters, was in the act of jumping out, when the villain fired at her.  The ball struck her upon the shoulder, inflicting a superficial wound, and passed by her cheek. At this moment the landlord of the Barrel public-house, and Mr. Palfreyman, a commercial traveller, came over, upon which the desperate fellow fired a third pistol through the pannel of the door, the ball from which entered the front of Mr. Palfreyman's trowsers and tore his shirt, but, wonderful to say, passed over his thigh without wounding him. The door still remained fastened, and they were afraid to make any further attempt at entering until the police should arrive. In the interval three other shots were heard in the room, and when they at length entered they found the miserable man in his last agony. He hid discharged one of the pistols at his own breast. Near him lay three pocket pistols, one discharged, one loaded, and the third with the barrel partially unscrewed, as if an attempt had been made a second time to reload it. Two or three bullets were found on the floor, and that fired at Sarah Poole, which bad touched her left temple and raised a small lump, had flattened . against the wall, and fallen down the cellar steps. An inquest was held on the body of the suicide on Saturday afternoon and a verdict of Felo de se returned, after the facts above related had been deposed to before the jury by the witnesses to the dreadfol transaction. The Coroner accordingly gave the usual directions for the interment of the body at midnight, without Christial burial.—Abridged from the Shejcld Independent.