Weekly News. — 1890-03-13 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

BARP.ETT CHEATED 111 E GALLOWS.  The American mail despatches give particulars of the death of Richard Barrett, the Englishman who cut his throat in a cell in the New York Police headquarters. His case from the first was hopeless on account of the great loss of blood. The surgeons tried vainly to repair the loss to some extent by the transfusion of blood, but Barrett was too far gone to be saved. He died apparently content with having cheated the gallows. That the prisoner was the Richard Barrett, or "soreeyed Dick," wanted at Scotland-yard for the murder of Edward Thomas Williams, in Cliftonterrace, Finsbury Park, London, is not doubted. A letter was received at the police headquarters from Scotland-yard on February 10th, asking for Barrett's arrest. It was written by the Assistant Commissioner B. Anderson, on information furnished by Inspector Peel, that Barrett was then in New York, and gave the locality up town where it is said lie ought to be found. A full description of him, with a woodcut, by means of which Barrett was easily identified, accompanied the demand for his arrest. Detectives Crowley and dr.Naught were 'harped with the duty of hunting Barrett up. They found him in the locality of 545, West Fiftyseventli-street, and working as a plasterer for Power Brothers, of 1,754, Broadway, making good wages. He went there by the twine of Richard Collins, and had been known also as John Murray and Richard Barrett. He drank hard at times. The detectives arrested him in an Eleventh-avenue saloon. On the way to headquarters the prisoner, who had said little or nothing when arrested, asked what it was for. The detectives told him it was for murder committed in London. "Oh," said the man ; "is that all?" At the police headquarters he was searched most carefully by the detectives, and a knife and sonic papers were taken from him. The orders of Inspector Byrnes on this point were exceedingly strict, and likewise in tne matter of watching the prisoner. In the headquarters cell central office door-men are obliged to make their rouuds every 15 minutes instead of every half-hour, as laths rule of the department. In one of the 15-minute intervals Barrett cut his throat. The wound looks an if he had prodded many little holes with a sharp nail, and then with his fingers tern out the walls between them, until it made one great jagged cut. Tim utter mystery is what lie did it with. There is absolutely nothing in the cell that could have been used. The closest search has failed to discover any nail or any implement with which he might have cut himself. The one thing lie might have used, the buckle of his suspenders, is free from stain of blood. Sergeant Bird, who is in command of the office, cannot account fur his suicide at all, He will not believe that the man could have torn his throat with his finger nails. The thing seems fairly incredible. Yet there is his torn throat, and no way to account for it. The murder fir which Barrett was wanted in Loudon was committed on January 19, 1589. That morning there was a disturbance in the house, and Williams, the murdered man, left his room to see what was the cause of it. He entered a halfway where lie tetrad two men. They were abusing an old woman, and when Williams remonstrated with them one of the men fired a pistol at him, the bullet taking effect in the abdomen. Williams staggered to the street, where he informed a policeman of the shooting. They returned to the house, and Williams identified a person named Charles Turner as having been with the man who had shot him. The man who really did the shooting had escaped, and this man, it is said, was Barrett. Turner was arrested, and on the following morning Williams died from the result of his injuries at the North Central Hospital. In England Barrett was known under a nuuiber of aliases.