The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1850-07-16 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DOUBLE SUICIDE IN NEIVGATE—It is not often we have to record a more awful effect of crime than that which took place on Saturday. The two convicts, Walter Watts, late lessee of the Olympic Theatre, and Donald Blackstaff Donovan, who was convicted of having thrown his wife out of the window, committed suicide in Newgate, both in a similar manner. The first-named W. Watts, bad been ill for the last few week of his confinement, and had been an inmate of the ward infirmary. The unfortunate man had suffered severely from diarrhoea, and was in the habit, during the night, of going to the water-closet. A fellow-prisoner, who slept in the adjoining bed, having perceived his absence on Friday night for an unusually long period, thought that something wrong might have taken place, and, having gone down to the water-closet, discovered the deceased hanging to the bar of the windowsill by a piece of rope attached to his cravat. He was immediately cut down, and Mr. M`Murdow, the prison surgeon, was called in, but the unfortunate man had breathed his last. The deceased (Watts) for a long time before he became mixed up with theatrical speculations, was looked upon as a most singular and somewhat extravagant person. He kept his town house and also a country establishment : the latter was near Brighton, and when he came to London, which was generally of a morning, he would have his carriage and servant in waiting at the London Bridge terminus ready to drive him to the Globe Insurance office, or any place he might wish to visit. Although he enjoyed a good salary, it was a matter of astonishment to many how he could keep up such an rip pearance, more especially as he was in the habit of giving, on frequent occasions, champagne breakfasts and other expensive entertainments. Prior to taking either the Marylebone or Olympic Theatre, he mixed frequently with betting men, and, according to his own account, was lucky enough to win considerable sums of money. From what has since transpired, there is every reason to belive that, instead of his gaining such large sums as he had represented, lie was a considerable loser by his speculations. His defalcations to the Globe Insurance Company reached, it is said, to nearly £BO,OOO, a small portion of which will have to be made good by his bondsmen. The career of Donovan, who was termed an ex-pugilist,is shortly told. His life wai one of great dissipation and riot, and in a moment of great pass on he attempted to destroy the life of his wife in the brutal manner already fully described in the report of his trial, 11 throwing her out of the window. After th 3 sentence of death was recorded against him he passed the convict Watts on his way to the prison. He was then placed in the cell appropriated to prisoners after trial, and was visited several times by the officer in attendance. About three o'clock the officer, upon going into the cell, discovered that he had hanged himself by tying his neckerchief to the iron bar of the window, and then jumping from the beadstead. Winn taken down, ke wag quite dead.—London Paper.  , . FUNERAL OF ThE LATE CAPTAIN AND' MR4: M'NEIL AND THEIR Two DAUGHTERS, LOST iN