npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-02-27 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SMART CAPTURE OF A PICKPOCKET. Charles Howell, 50, a well-dressed man, describii g himself as a dealer, and giving an address at Clarendon-street, Walworth, was charged before Mr. Haden Corser, at North London Police-court, on Tuesday, with stealing a purse and £1 153. 4d. from the dress pocket of Mrs. Leah Stokes, of Finsbury Park.—The prosecutrix stated that on Monday afternoon she got into a train at Finsbury Park, and immediately afterwards saw her purse thrown in through the window. She had not felt any, no take it.—Mr. Edward George Woods said he 7s as going by the same train, and as the lady \VOA gt tting into the carriage, he saw the prisoner take her purse from her pocket. The prisoner made for another compartment, but witness seized him and d:agQ.ed him back. As they got to the carriage in ‘lltich the prosecutrix was, the prisoner threw in the purse. Witness, however, did Lot loose his hold, and the prisoner draded him towards the steps and down a few of them. Several people saw this, but did not help, until mitness called to them to help to secure a man who had robbed a lady of her purse. Then a man came to his assistance, and the prisoner was handed over to the police.—The prisoner, who did not deny the evidence, said he was a respectable man, but the police said they had .lot yet verified his address. They asked for a remand, which was granted, and the prisoner was put back in custody for a week.  A plate-cleaner at Osborne nom:rutted suicide on Saturday. The Queen was much upset, and shewed practical sympathy with the man's wife and family.  Senhor Mendonca Cortez, a Portuguese ex. Minister, and a peer of the realm, has been arrested on a charge of misappropriation, and is confined in the civil prison at Lisbon.  All the first-class warships of the French navy will, at the end of the present year, have the quick-..firing guns forming part of their present armament reolacad by a I:l4'W pattern.  1 A
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-09-24 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

THAMES MYSTERY.  Mr. A. %V. Wyatt bold ;an inquiry, on Tuesday.at the Coroner's Court, Lambeth, touching the death of Arthur Lawford, aged 23 yoars, a carman, who was found drowned in the Thames, near Charingcross, early on Sunday morning.—Harry Lawford, a carman, brother of the deceased, said that he last saw him alive on Saturday evening about 10.15. He was then in his usual health. Deeased was not Out of work, and had never threatened to commit suicide.—lnspector Richard Foster deposed to finding the body of the dechiased floating in the water under Charing-cross-bridge at 5.45 on Sunday morning. On searching the body at the mortuary witness found ss. 6d. in cash, a split ring with some keys attached, and some memoranda, but nothing to sliew new the deceased got in the water. Thorn wore no marks of violence.—Elizabeth Reynolds, a domestic servant, of 34, Barnum-street, Bermondsey, said she had known the deceased about four years, trid tecame engaged to him about three years ago. he last saw him on Saturday night at his lodgings. hey were on good terms, and there had been no quarrel of any kind. He complained of being short of money owing to unsuccessful betting speculations, and said he would leave Bermondsey, but would write to witness in two or three weeks. He went upstairs, and brought down his watch-chain, Which he handed to her. She was not surprised at that, as he had previously given her an engagement ring, and had two or three times promised her the chain. He had often told witness that he would blow out his brains, but she did not regard the threat seriously.—Harry Lawford (recalled) stated that two years ago deceased received a kick from • horse on the head, and since then he had seemed strange and quite unlike his former self.—The jury, after a abort consultation, returned an open verdict tvf found drowned.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-04-23 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

THE PRINCE OF WALES'S HEALTH. From time to time, says the Lancet, there appear in the lay Press certain statements regarding the health of the members of the Royal Family which the merest smattering of knowledge of anatomy and physiology would skew to be unfounded. Thus, referring to the health of the Prince of Wales, it is gravely stated in one of our contemporaries that "several months ago much anxiety was caused by the presence of a clot of blood in one of the Prince's legs, and this anxiety was intensified by this clot travelling from one limb to the other." By what circuitous route the journey of the clot was performed, and how frequently the passage from the one side of the body to the other was undertaken, are wisely left without remark. The newspaper in question prefers to exercise itself with "annoyances and troubles which have recently fallen to his share." Here undoubtedly it is on safer ground. The Prince of Wales has suffered much from the calamity which recently befell the nation, and this has led to depression and to some weakness. Cessation from the very active life which he is accustomed to live has also naturally exercised an unfavourable effect on the Prince's general health. Since, however, he has been going about from place to place in the South of France with Prince George he has improved in general health and spirits. In fact, the most recent information from the South of France concerning the HeirApparent is altogether reassuring, and he is said to be in better health new than he has been at any period since the death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale. The statement about the "travelling clot " seems to he based upon a condition which arose during the now historical illness of the Prince of Wales. Prince George is alm better them when he left, though he still suffers from wakefulness and neuralgia. The Princess of Wales, who has suffered very much from shock and from natural grief, has in some degree recovered her spirits, and Princess Maud has recovered from her synovitis.  A very large eagle, of dark plumage, which has been seen in the neighbourhood of Eastwell Park, Asuford, for a few days, has been slict by one of the keepers. The bird measures 7ft. 6in. from Wing to wing.  At about 11 o'clock on Thursday morning a respectably dressed middle-aged woman attempted to leap from Blackfriars Bridge into the water. She jumped upon the parapet and swung herself round and was about to let go her hold when she was seized by a labouring man who was passing, end held until further assistance was rendered. She was then lifted back and given in charge of the police. At the liridewell station she was formally charged with attempting to commit suicide.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-11-26 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

TRAGEDIES IN AMERICA.  A telegram from Chicago says that on Sunday a German resident of that city, named Siegler, began preparations for a day's hunting, and shortly afterwards entered the sitting-room of his house, where his wife and three children were. His manner was so strange that they became frightened and the children screamed loudly. This brought his motherin-law to the room. Believing that Siegler was mad she tried to take the gun from him. He warned her off, crying "Keep away. God is with me," and then, placing the gun against her breast, fired, killing her instantly. His wife hurried the children out of the house, and left them with a neighbour. Upon her return her husband fired at her, fatally wounding her, in the neck and breast. He then fired at his father-in-law, wounding him on the cheek. By this time a crowd had gathered in front of the house, and a policeman called on Siegler to surrender. His response was a shot at the officer, which missed him, followed by a second shot, which wounded him slightly. He was then arrested. The death of Mrs. Lucette Cross Meyer, which took place at Bradford, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night, was at first supposed to be due to suicide, but it has since been ascertained that she was brutally murdered. She was found hanging in a cow-shed whither she had gone at the usual hour to milk the cow. From the evidence at hand it seems that she was struck down by a blow on the head and then strangled, as finger-marks were plainly visible on her throat. After this the murderer, with the design of making her death appear like suicide, knotted a rope round her neck and suspended her from a beam. There is no clue to the assassin.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-09-10 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

NEW CUNARDER.  The largest vessel, save the Great Eastern, that has ever been built will be launched this month at Govan, on the Clyde, from the yard of the Fairfield Company. She is one of two new liners that have been ordered for tke service of the Cunard Company, and she is to be called the Campania. It is expected that she will be completed in time to make her first trip to New York in April next, immediately prior to the opening of the Chicago Exhibition. The Great Eastern was 692 ft. long by 83ft. broad. The Campania will be but 92ft. shorter and Bft. narrower, and will, when fully loaded with cargo, passengers, and stores, have a displacement which is estimated at over 19,000 tons. This is a displacement by at least 3,000 tons greater than that of any ship, merchant vessel, or man-of-war now in existence. It is anticipated that upon her trials, when loaded to a displacement of something over 14,000 tons, she will attain a speed of 23 knots, or nearly 261 land miles per hour ; and she will, not improbably, exceed even this. Upon her voyage she is to maka a continuous speed from port to port of 21 knots, or 24.1 land miles; and this speed is tolerably certain to be improved upon after she has male a few trips. It is understood that her weight, upon the day of the launch, will be 9,000 tons. Her engines are ready for her, but no part of them will be put on board until she is in the water. The machinery consists of twin phosphor-bronze screws driven by two pairs of triple-expansion engines each capable of indicating up to 15,0C0 horse-power. Each engine has two cranks and five cylinders. Two high-pressure cylinders will exhaust into an intermediate cylinder, which will exhaust into two low-pressure cylinder; and the pistons of these last are on the same rods as the pistons of the high-pressure cylinlers. There will be 12 double-ended boilers, each with eight furnaces, and there will be six stokeholes. The funnels, two in number, will be the largest ever made. The launching of so huge a vessel will present considerable difficulties, as the river at Govan is narrow. The Campania will be sent into the water obliquely. with her stern down stream, will then b 3 towed up the river to a basin in which, with care, she can be turned round, and will finally be taken to a specially prepared jetty close to the launching ways, and will there be completed for sea. Excepting only her rudder, she is entirely of British construction. The rudder, formed of a single steel plate, is so wide that no British firm possessed the necessary machinery for rolling it, and the work had, in consequence, to be instructed to Krupp, of Essen.  News of a frightful tragedy is to hand from Steubenville, Ohio, where a farm-labourer, who had been discharged, returned to the farmhouse during the night, and, effecting an entrance, murdered the farmer, the farmer's wife, and mothpr-in-law The culprit then committed suicide.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-08-27 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

AND ATTEMPTED SU IC IDE.  Charles Slater, a ship's fireman, was charged at West London Police-court,onTuesdn-, with stabbing his wife, and also with attempting to commit suicide. The wife was unable to attend in consequence of the injuries she had received.—Police-con • table 477 X said on Monday night, about 10 o'clock, he was called to Osborne-cottages, South Acton, being informed that a man had stabbed his wife. He saw the wife, and found that she had a bad wound in the thumb. He stopped the wound, and sent for medical assistance. He found the prisoner had two cuts in the throat. He told him the charge, and he made a statement, which he took down in writing. The statement was as fellows: "My wife was in bed. I said I was going to have a game of Deeming to-night. I took the knife from the table, and went towards her and said, 'Now, Jenny, are you prepared, like Deeming's offsprings ?' I pointed the handle of the knife to her throat. She threw up her hands and said, Oh, Jim, see what you have done.' I then caught hold of her wrist and saw it was bleeding. I said, 'Mate, it is an awful cut. I then turned round and cut my throat with the same knife."—The constable produced a white-handled knife which he found on the floor at the bottom of the bed. When lie sliewed the knife to the prisoner he said, "That's the knife I did the crime with."—Dr. Aria Jolly deposed that he was called to Osborne•cottages, where he saw the prisoner, who bad two incised wounds on the left side of the throat, each being above two-thirds of an inch in length. The wounds were not deep. Witness found the woman suffering from an incised wound on the left hand, between the thumb and finger, two inches in length. The wound might have been caused by the knife. There must lei.ve been a considerable amount of violence. The wound was not bleeding, as the constable had compressed the vein before Witness arrived. Prisoner said it was quite an accident, his wife catching hold of the knife.—Mr. Curtis Bennett remanded the prisoner, and directed the police to communicate with him in the event of the wife becoming in a dangerous state.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-08-27 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

STRANGE DEATH OF AN ACTOR.  Reynaud Cooper, a member of "The Reynata Combination," met with his death on Sunday under circumstances of a painful and mysterious character. During the past week he and his brothers have been performing at the Grand Theatre, Birmingham, in a pantomime absurdity known as "Th(. Swiss Express," and have enjoyed a consider. able amount of popularity. The deceased, who was known as Rene lteynaud, lodged with his wife and children at Falmouth House, Easy-row. At about a quarter to 10 o'clock on Sunday morning the deceased rushed from his sitting-room,and is said to have exclaimed "Rosa, what is in that bottle?" His wife, to whom the question was addressed, answered "Poison," and the deceased, groaning, said "Then I'm poisoned," staggered into the hall, fell to the floor, and expired almost immediately. The bottle in question was a small medicine bottle, and contained a dark-brown fluid, the nature of which is not precisely known, although it is supposed that one of its constituents is prussic acid. It is said that it bore an ordinary medicine label, and not one with the word "Poison" upon it. There is no reason to believe that the deceased committed suicide. On Saturday evening he was in the best of spirits,and before leaving the theatre was chatting and joking with the manager and other members of the company. On Sunday morning he was also in good spirits,and just before the tragic occurrence was laughing and playing with his daughter, a little girl aged four, who was indeed with him when he drank the fatal dose. The more generally accepted theory is that h 3 mistook the contents of the bottle for some medicine which he has been taking of late. A doctor was immediately called in, but could only pronounce life extinct. The bottle and its contents have been taken possession of by the police.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-12-24 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

FRANCE'S HUMILIATION.  Tile resignation of M. Rouvier is the worst outcome of the Panama scandals. A distinguished member of the French Cabinet, probably the ablest of the political financiers in France, is practically convicted of having attempted to shield a swindler from justice. There may be no truth in the story that M. Rouvier was seen through a window busily engaged with Baron Reinach in destroying papers. But M. Rouvier's confession carries its own moral. Baron Reinach was his friend, and came to him with a piteous appeal for help against the sleuth-hounds who were on the trail of the Panama jobbers. M. Rouvier sought the aid of M. Ch`gnenceau, of M. Constans, and several others who were supposed to have influence with the Paris Press. The great object was to hush the scandal up, to prevent certain journalists from using information which threatened Baron Reinach with ruin. A judicial inquiry into the Panama scandals was pending. Unless Nemesis could be diverted from Baron Reinach's track he was a lost man. Manifestly it was M. Rouvier's duty not to shield a man who had boon the chief instrument in the wholesale bribery by the Panama directors, and who, as we now know, had used much of the money entrusted to him for his own private advantage. But M. Rouvier determined to do his best for his friend and his worst for the ends of justice. He tried to stop the month of retribution and failed. Then Baron fteinach wont home and committed suicide. This in brief is the story of one of tin.) most grievous humiliations that ever Lefol a public man of M. Rouvier's distinction. He has been forced to withdraw from the 'Ministry, and it is difficult to see how lie can remain in public life. Moreover, no ono can tell what fresh catastrophe t 3 reputations which have hitherto stood high the slow unfolding of the Panama mystery may precipitate. France is passing through one of the darkest hours of her history, and the purgation threatens to render the task of government even more difficult than the vicissitudes of the Republic have already made it. A
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-12-24 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SLAYING THE SLAIN."  There is much, the SatUrdcl.ll &TielV says, in Mr. Balfour's second speech at Sheffield on Tuesday which resembles a slaying of the slain. The character, for instance, of Sir James Mathew's proceedings had alrea iy been pretty sufficiently exposed by a variety of hands; while as for Mr. Morley's extraordinary—well, let us say paradox about the composition ot• the Evicted Tenants' Commission, that is even more obviously a case in which Mr. Balfour has been anticipatal. The learned President of the Commission may be said to have committed political suicide on tl.e day when he opened its proceedings; but Mr. Morley's "paradox" was ahsolutely stillborn. To say that the Commission, "if packed at all," was packed in the interest of the landlords, was like saying that the late Mr. Jay Gould," if he concerned himself in railways at all, did s.) in the interest of the shareholders; and the one dictum was rezeived very much as the other would be. People, that is to say, stared at it, laughed at it, or were indignant at it, as their respective moods of mind sirgestml; but nobody ever for a moment thought of seriously asking himself whether he ought or ought not to bt lieve it. Curiosity, to be sure, was not quite so early extinguished in the case of Sir James Mathew's performance. Even after the memorable speech in which he observed on the fact . . .  that Lord Clanricarde had no backing among his brother-landlords, and, in fact, had better agree with his defaulting tenants while he was in the way with them, there still survived a certain amount of sensational interest in "what was coming next"; and as the English public have, no doubt, to some extent failed through want of t-chnical acquaintance with the subject-matter to understand precisely what it was that did come m.xt, 111r.Balfour's review of the subsequent course of thP inquiry was by no means superfluous. But, considering into what utter discredit the inquiry has long since fallen, the reviewer of this its subsequent course, for the purpose of pronouncing upon it the indignant condemnation it deserves, can hardly help resembling him who slays the slain.
Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-03-12 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

DEATH OF A PARISIAN CELEBRITY. Another celebrity of Paris, says the GloLe, has just departed—Madame Maupy, commonly called La :Gre Manpy, landlady of the notorious Cite Maupy, the great resort of rag-pickers, situated in the Rue Marcadet, iu the back slums of Paris. For 30 years, with the aid of her hushand, she has governed this little kingdom of chiffonniers—a task by no means easy, as can be rcadily understood. The Cite may he described as an agglomeration of huts rather than houses, which she let out at the rate of three or four francs a week. A less stalwart lady than she would have found it impossible to collect her rents, but she was not to be resisted, and, if the rent was not duly paid, she would eject her tenants bodily with her own powerful arms. To the honour of the rag-picking world, however, be it said that the rents on the whole were punctually paid. A few weeks ago she lost her husband, who does not appear to have been in good odour with the tenants, for they got up a charivari at his funeral and rejoiced over his death till they were all drunk. This disrespectful conduct preyed on the mind of his widow, who gave all the tenants notice to have, and, shutting herself up ia her bedroom, committed suicide with thy fames of charcoal. On the table was founts a testament which she had written in the morning, and in which she leaves her fortune— said to be handsome—to an orphan girl whom she had taken under her care. She wishes to be buried without any ceremony whatever, and, to mark her anger with the rag-pickers who insulted the remains of her husband, ordains that not one shall be allowed to follow her to the grave.  The Et-taw states alac tne ramous "blonde lady," to whom allusion was so frequently made in connection with the escape of Padlewski, the supposed murderer of General Seliverstoff, was in reality the Russian poet Procopius Bazilisk, who has given an account in the journal of the manner in which Padlewski effected his escape from Paris. This account differs merely in some trifling details from that published by M. Labruyere shortly after the murder.  During a game of football between Gloucester and Exeter at Kingsholme, Jackson, one of the home three•quarters, a county man, and well-known throughout the west and Midlands, collided with Baker, the Exeter back, and on being picked up seemed quite dazed. The game was suspended for a few minutes, but was resumed on Jackson partially reviving. He was taken to the infirmary in an unconscious condition, and an asainination proved him to he sufferiurr from concussion of the brain.