The Sun. — 1853-08-25 (London, England)

MURDER AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.  Yesterday afternoon, between two and three o'clock, the inhabitants of Goodman's-fields, St. Botolph, Aldgate, City, were suddenly thrown into a state of great excitement in consequence of a most dreadful and deliberate murder of a married female named Catherine Mobbs, aged 46 years, by her husband, Nathaniel Mobbs, aged 43, a wine cooper and porter, residing at No. 7, Enoch- court, Goodman's-fields, Minories, who afterwards cut his own throat with a table-knife. The man Mobbs had been in the service of Messrs. Walter Howell and Hale, the wholesale wine-merchants of Water-lane, Great Tower-street, City, but for some time past he has been leading a life of dissipation, and while intoxicated he would return home in a state of excitement, and cruelly ill-treat his wife. They had a family of four children, two boys and two girls, the eldest being about ten years of age. Mobbs went out in the morning, and returned about half-past one in the afternoon apparently quite sober, and told the children to go out and play in the street, and nothing was heard of the man or his wife until about a quarter to three o'clock, when one of the landlord's daughters who was sitting in the front parlour, heard a cry of " murder," which was accompanied by a desperate struggling noise in the first floor room. The girl went on to the stairs to listen, when she met Mrs. Mobbs rushing down with a frightful wound in the front of her neck. Her hands were covered with blood, and her dress was also saturated with gore. Mrs. Mobbs reached the front of the house, and fell on to the stone pavement, where several neighbours, who had been attracted to the spot, raised her up and placed her in a chair, while several persons ran for medical assistance. By this time a young man named John Reader came to the house, and was asked by one of the family to go up stairs and see where the man Mobbs was, when a most dreadful scene presented itself to his view. The man was lying in a corner of the room with a severe wound in the throat, and the flooring boards of the apartment were literally covered with blood, which in some parts had gushed on to the walls and boxes round the room. There were two knives besmeared with blood lying on the table, and a piece of grindstone, on which the husband had sharpened the weapons before he cut his wife's throat, and used the second knife on his own person. The room was in a state of great confusion, as if the deceased and the wretched man had struggled together for several minutes.  Mr. Rawle, of the Minories, and another medical gentleman, were soon in attendance, and no time was lost by them in temporarily dressing the wounds ; but such was their condition that it was deemed expedient to place them in separate cabs, which was accordingly done by city police constables 526 and 577, who conveyed them to the London Hospital, where Mr. H. K. Debenham, the house surgeon, rendered every possible attentirn, but the female expired as she was being placed on the surgery table. The man was sensible, but his wounds were not so extensive, although the windpipe is partially cut through. No hopes were given of his recovery when he was first examined. As the man was being carried to the cab he exclaimed, •' I did it, I did it." The wound in the neck of the female is very long and deep, extending from ear to ear. The house surgeon ordered the body of the female to be conveyed to the deadhouse, and the man, after his injuries were dressed, was taken into the ward, where he was placed under the care of two nurses and a policeman of the city force. Mobbs was a most desperate character, and was called in the neighbourhood, among the lower class of persons, " General Haynau." Mobbs is a man about 40 years of age and a jobbing wine-cooper by trade. His wife was of about the same age. The children of the murderer were removed by the city police to the unionhouse, where they will be much better taken care of than they ever were during the lifetime of their unfortunate mother. They appear to have been most grievously neglected, and were the objects of much sympathy. Their cries on hearing of the horrible fate of their mother were most heartrending.