Year: 1869

murderer AT one period Of the
Investigations a young man, who
had been heard to make mysterious
observations on tho murder, was
arrested as an accessory; but the
evidence against him amounted to
nothing, and he was discharged.
though the police kept a watchful
eye upon him till they, in common
with the public, forgot the matter.
The public were not long in forget
ting it.


"The authorities, however, be-
licving that "murder will out" kept
the evidences of the crime in spirits
of wine, that they might be forth
coming whenever they might bs
wanted. 1t was believed that q
murder had been committed, and
that a young woman was the victim
but only one thing was held to be
satisfactorily proved, and that Was
that the murdered female was not
an inhabitant of Norwich at the
time of her decease.


"Seventeen years and a half
passed by, and rot ray of light
had been thrown upon the mystery
up to Saturday last. On that day
telegram from London informed
the Norwich magistrates that q
respectable inhabitant of their city
had made voluntary confession
that he had murdered his wife on
the 18th of June 1851, by cutting
her throat; that the body was cus
up, and some portions preserved in
spirits; and that they would know
all about it at Norwich. This pre-
cisely tallies with the facts of tho
half-forgotten mystery. The date
is six days before the first discovery
of the hand by Mr.. Johnson's dog,
and accords singularly with the
guess which the medical men made
during the succeeding week as to
the time which had elapsed since
the body was alive and healthy.


''It is at once admitted by those
who we're concerned in the investi-
cation that nobody suspected She
ward. A quiet, inoffensive and re-
spectacle citizen, he was going about
among them, actually disposing of
the mangled pieces of his wife's body
while they were discussing what the
| frightful mystery could mean. How
it came about that the disappearance
| Of Mrs. She~ard was never marked
or that being marked, it was satisfac
torily accounted for to her friends
and neighbors, does not yet appear.
| At the time, he seems to have given
it out that she had gone on jour.
ney, and to have been believed at
once. But how did he account for
her non return Did he give it out
that CHE had died on her journey,
or that she had made one of those
sensational disappearances of which
we often hear? He seems at any
rate to have lived free from all sus-
picion. and as he spoke of this vic
tim as his first wife, is to be presum.
ed that he had even married again,
and carried his frightful secret all
through the festivities of a bridal.
GLOW it was that nobody ever
put together the two facts of Mrs.
Stewards sappearance and the
finding OF female body, ana how
the authorities arrived at the mis-
leading certainty that nobody living
in Norwich had been slain, remain
to be seen. A respectable woman
certainly disappeared just at the
time that the remains Of one were
found; it was understood that her
husband said she was gone on a long
journey, and he was believed. She
never came back, and no inquiry
was made, but whatever tale her hus
band told was again taken on trust !;
and it now turns out that the hus-
band was the murderer for whom
the police were searching, and that
the hideous relics in their hands
were all that remained of one who
had been their neighbor and friend"