The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1848-10-31 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

APPALLING DISCOVERY.—On Thursday, Mr. Noble went in company with a workman to inspect the premises situate at Bellvue, in this neighbourhood, and which have been unoccupied since the 12th of May last. They proceeded to open the front door of the further house, and, on doing so, they felt that it resisted their efforts as if sonic heavy body was lying behind it. On exerting more force they succeeded in gaining admittance : but their horror may be imagined when they discovered that the obstruction had been caused by the dead body of a woman. She was entirely naked, with the exception of a piece of calico rag which was sown around the neck, and the remains of a pair of stockings. The few fragments which had apparently constituted her clothing were lying beneath her. On the circumstance being made known to the Coroner, he aumn.u.see a jury, nut not tue sllgntest evmence could be produced as to the identity of the wretched being. There was no article, mark, or sign, calculated in the most remote degree to illustrate her dark and dismal history. We examined the premises on the following morning, and it would appear that she had effected an entrance through the window of a ba,:lc parlour, and the place afforded sufficient proof that she had for some time, perhaps for weeks, used the house as a shelter, and that within it the withering hand of famine had slowly, and hour by hour, gnawed away her vitality, till exhausted nature sunk under the fearful conflict. In the rooms which she had used, not the veriest fragment of any kind of food was found, if we except two small turnips, one half eaten, the other untouched. There were sevzral heaps of turnip peilings scattered here and there, from which it would appear that they had served to prolong the dismal and agonizing struggle which this forlorn outcast had waged with the great destroyer.—Manx Liberal. AFFECTING CASE OF SurcinE.—Mellicent Balch Maguire. whose mother is a widow, residing in Southampton, in an evil hour left her house (having previously had a child, which accompanied her), under the protection of Captain Thomas Besant, of the Bengal Infantry, with whom she lived as his wife for a year and a-half, part of the time in London, and latterly at Owslebury Cottage, near Winchester. Some time since the Captain left her to go to Dorchester, and continued to correspond with her upon ordinary topics, when at length she rece;ved a letter containing the stunning intelligence that he was gone to India to his wife. The unhappy girl (for she had only just turned 20 years of age) was frantic at this unanticipated blow; for the heartless wretch had induced her to believe that he would marry her upon the death of his mother. Upon the receipt of the intelligence of her pro. raised husband's desertion, she was almost distracted, and offered to make away with herself, but was prevented by the wife of the groom who had lived for some time with the captain. She removed to Southampton, where she stated it to be her intention to let lodgings. On Friday night she arrived at Winchester, accompanied by her child, four years old, where she remained that night and the following day, and after breakfast on Sunday morning took a fly to Owslebury Cottage with her litile boy. James Alexander (the groom) and his wife behaved in the kindest manner to their visitors, and did not observe anything extraordinary in her behaviour. She took a second breakfast, and said she had seen the captain, and was going to Australia with him. She then requested Alexander to fetch letters she had written to him, but as he expected they would be brought he only pretended to go. He had scarcely reached the gate, when he heard a scream and a smash, and upon returning he found that the wretched woman had precipitated herself and child down the well, having a depth of 20 feet of water. Assistance was obtained as quickly as possible, but when the bodies were taken out of the well life was quite extinct. The evidence in every particular justified the verdicts of felo de se as regarded herself, and that of wilful murder of her child.— Hants' Guardian.  BAD SEWERAGE, DRUNKENNESS, AND THE CHOLERA• —A coal whipper, 34 years of age, living in Wapping+ London, died of Asiatic cholera, on Thursday week. He was taken ill on Wednesday about noon, and died on the following morning. Sarah Grace, deceased's sister, stated that for two days previous to the Wednesday deceased had been drinking freely. Juror : Have you not complaints in your neighbourhood of the sewers being in a very bad state ? Witness : Yes, sir. Both the sewers and the drains are in a shocking condition. When there are heavy rains the ground-floor of the house he lived in overflows with filthy sewerage. which comes out of the common sewers and drains. The smell is so dreadful that they are obliged to shut the door and windows. The foreman of the jury and several of the jurors stated, that between ocrval ts.tl nine o'clock or an eve,ii,,,, the elTluvlui. 4>laC neighbourhood was most dreadful. A sewer passed down Wapping wall and entered the river Thames, adjoining the house in which the deceased lived, and at the above time it is believed the refuse from the bone factories of Messrs. Cohen and Parker, in Old Gravel-lane, was sent into the sewer. The whole of the neighbourhood was sufferingfrom the defective state of the sewers and the drains, in consequence of which the most serious apprehensions prevailed among the inhabitants. _