Murder and mutilation by a maniac.

A horrible case of murder and mutilation by a madman has occurred at Preston, near Weymouth. At that village dwelt an aged couple, named Cox, and with them a son, a wild and violent character. This man had had a fit, followed by brain fever. Insanity followed, and he was ordered to be removed to a pauper lunatic asylum. Mr. Puckett, the medical officer, and Mr. White, the relieving officer, proceeded to the parents' cottage. They met the old man, who said, “Be you going to take John away?” They answered that they were. The old man said, “You’d better not, or mischief will be done.” Mr. White went away in order to procure a conveyance, and Mr. Puckett sat down and endeavoured to keep the maniac in conversation. The latter, however, soon became violent and then the father also went away for assistance. The maniac then used such violent language that the doctor went into a small garden in front of the house. The madman went into a back bedroom, tore down a bed-post, followed the doctor, and with this instrument struck him down. He then ran into the house for the purpose of getting his gun (for he was a poacher by occupation), but not readily finding it, seized a saw, rushed to the still insensible doctor, and deliberately sawed his head off. He then sawed off one of the hands and one of the feet; and then, putting on a shirt and an old coat, but without his trousers, ran to the stables of a neighbouring inn, and hid himself in the stables. Here he was in a short time secured by one of the county police.

Accidents to ladies by machinery.

 The newspapers have lately recorded the deaths of several ladies by careless approach to machinery.

The Bedlington Iron Works, situated near the scene of the Hartley Colliery disaster, having been closed for a long time, had recently been taken and reopened by Messrs. Dixon and Mounsey, two gentlemen well known in connection with the iron trade of the north-eastern counties. The family of the latter had subsequently taken up their residence in Bedlington. The new firm had greatly enlarged the works, and added also some new rolling and saw mills. 

These new works having been opened on the 31st January, Mr. Mounsey took his wife, with their three eldest children and some lady visitors, down to see them in full operation. Having examined the other portions of the works, the party came into the rolling and saw mills, where they saw the circular saw in full operation, and were proceeding to leave for another portion of the works. To do so they had to cross a spindle, connecting the circular saw with the engine belonging to the rolling mill by a leathern belt, and which spindle, being made of two pieces of iron, was connected together in the centre by nuts.

Mrs. Mounsey had stepped over the spindle, which was flying round at a rapid rate, but the bottom of her dress was unfortunately caught by one of the bolts or nuts described. In a moment she was thrown over, and though seized hold of by Mr. Dixon who was accompanying her, her limbs and the lower part of her person were as instantaneously drawn through an aperture only six inches between the revolving spindle and the ground, literally crushing her out of all form up to her breast. She had not time to scream, for she was dead in a moment. The engine was immediately stopped, and the workmen ran from all parts of the factory to help. The ladies and children, a minute before constituting the happy group, now paralyzed with terror, were taken away as rapidly as possible, and, the spindle being unscrewed, the remains of the deceased were got out as speedily as practicable, in a condition too horrible to describe. The poor lady was the mother of six children.

On the 11th February, the town of Birmingham was thrown into a state of excitement, occasioned by the frightful and melancholy death of Mrs. Stanley, the proprietress of the Stanley Saw Mills, Hesinsforth Street, which happened under the following circumstances.

This unfortunate lady was in the act of stepping over a spindle in the mill when, her dress being caught, she was dragged into the machinery. Her son, who was standing close by at the time, immediately took hold of her, and prevented her being carried round by the shaft, and raised an alarm.

The engine being stopped, the poor woman was extricated from her awful position. It was then found that her body was almost severed in two, and that death must have been instantaneous.

On the 14th February, another similar accident occurred at Birdsall, a Wold village, a few miles from Malton. The sufferer, on this occasion, was Mrs. Hudson, the wife of Mr. Hudson, a shopkeeper at Burythorpe, a neighbouring village, who went to Mr. Walton's farm at Birdsall, where a corn-thrashing machine was in use. In attempting to step over the “tumbling shaft," which revolves rapidly, and presents sharp angles very likely to catch and retain hold of a dress brought within its reach, Mrs. Hudson's dress was caught in this way, and was instantaneously wrapped several times round the shaft, the wearer being, of course, brought down with it, and, to the horror of all present, whirled round and round with every revolution. The machinery was stopped as quickly as possible, and when the unfortunate woman was extricated, it was found that her knees were dislocated, and that she had received many wounds and very serious injuries.

A few days later, the Yorkshire Wolds were again the scene of a similar accident. As in the previous case, a thrashing-machine was at work, when Miss Charlotte Boulton, daughter of Mr. F. H. Boulton, of Acklaun Lodge,the occupier of the farm, was standing near, looking at the machine at work, when the wind carrying her dress too near the “tumbling shaft,” she was drawn in and whirled round and round repeatedly. So soon as the machine could be stopped, it was found that, in addition to other serious injuries, both the young lady's legs were broken.

Singular deaths on the Grand Junction Canal.

Formerly the boats on the Grand Junction and other canals were propelled through the tunnels (which were not much larger than sewers) by the process of "legging"; that is, by the power of men who lying on their backs push with their feet against the walls. Lately this primitive system has been superseded by steam-tugs, which, however, have disadvantages in the smoke and vapour they leave behind in the tunnels. On the Grand Junction Canal near Blisworth is a tunnel, more than a mile in length, and with only one shaft for ventilation. On the 6th inst. two of these steam-tugs entered this tunnel, in which the air had probably been already vitiated. The funnels of these boats poured out into the narrow and low passage such volumes of steam, smoke, and decomposed air that the people navigating them became insensible, and before the boats emerged to pure air two men were quite dead. One of these was roasted, by his body having fallen on the engine.

Pupil beaten to death

A very shocking incident has occurred at a private school of the highest class at Eastbourne. This establishment was restricted to the reception of a few pupils, the sons of persons in a high rank of life, willing to pay a large sum for the best instruction of their children, with the accommodation and treatment suitable to their position and prospects. The principal was a Mr. Hopley, a person of high attainments and of irreproachable character. One of the youths committed to his charge was Reginald Channell Cancellor, aged 15, son of Mr. Cancellor, a Master of the Court of Common Pleas. As the position of this gentleman was such that his son might expect hereafter to belong to one of the genteel professions, he spared no pains or expense to give his child an education such as would fit him for his aim in the struggle of life. He sought out for him a school of reputation and a master who had the credit of being a man of high attainments and a successful teacher of youth. Mr. Hopley was to receive 180l. a year with his pupil, and there was every incentive, therefore, to the tutor to endeavour to do his best by the boy.

Unfortunately, he did not understand the lad who had come under his control. Young Cancellor was labouring under disease. He had water on the brain. He was stolid and stupid, and he could not learn. He was silent when asked to repeat a sum in arithmetic which he had just been taught, and he did not know, or, as his schoolmaster thought, affected not to know, the difference between a sixpence and a shilling.

This was a case for medical custody and gentle treatment. Mr. Hopley took a pedagogue’s view of it, and thought it was a case of obduracy, to be broken down by force. He flogged the boy, and, as it did him no good, he told the father that the punishment must be increased until the authority of the school master was established. Up to this point there is not much to be said. The fate of the poor brain hampered, heavy, mindless boy, urged and flogged to work operations in his confused and formless intellect, must have been very wretched; but Hopley probably believed that all boys are alike, some brighter and some duller than others, but that all could take in the ordinary quantum of knowledge with more or less trouble if they pleased. At first he seems to have thought it his duty to conquer the boy’s obstinacy; but, as the contest went on, there appears too much reason to believe that it became a question of temper with the school master, and that violence and cruelty were the effect of vindictiveness and irritation.

One morning young Cancellor was found dead in his bed. The body was carefully covered over. It had white kid gloves upon its hands, and long stockings drawn far up over the thighs; nothing was visible but the face. Hopley suggested that the boy had died of disease of the heart, and wished a certificate from the surgeon and immediate burial. At one moment it appeared likely that the whole affair would be hushed up. But mysterious stories of midnight shrieks and blood-stained instruments of punishment began to be whispered about. The servants had seen blood upon the linen in Mrs. Hopley’s room, and had heard sounds which convinced them that the miserable wife had spent the night in the frightful task of preparing the body to pass a superficial investigation, and in getting rid of the traces of violence which would testify against her husband.

Then came the real investigation. The gloves and the stockings were stripped off, and the legs and the arms of the corpse were found to be coated with extravasated blood, “the cellular membranes under the skin of the thighs were reduced to a perfect jelly; in fact, all torn to pieces and lacerated by the blows that had been inflicted.” There were two holes in the right leg about the size of a sixpence, and an inch deep, which appeared to have been made by jabbing a thick stick into the flesh. The appearance was that of a human creature who had been mangled by an infuriated and merciless assailant.

All these appearances coincided but too faithfully with what was now learnt of the conduct of the schoolmaster. A servant girl who slept next to the pupil-room heard the boy crying and screaming under blows, and her master talking and beating. She listened at 10 o’clock, when the torture was going on, and she awoke at 12, and it was still proceeding. Then the cries suddenly ceased, and nothing after was heard during that unquiet night but the stealthy movements of the wife, who was, with womanly devotion, doing her fearful task of hiding the traces of the tragedy. Others of the servants had heard or witnessed part of the sufferings of the unhappy victim—had heard the blows, the exclamations—the midnight screams —and then (if the expression may be allowed) the horrid silence. They heard the steps of the unhappy wife, the pouring out of water; they witnessed the stained fluid, the wetted clothing, the gore spotted flooring and carpet, and, in the morning, the wild attempts to conceal the tragedy of the night. The narrative of these uneducated women told the tale of horror with a dramatic force beyond the reach of art. The superficial attempts of the awe-stricken family to give a natural appearance to the death could not impose upon persons who had witnessed the sufferings and heard the cries of the victim, and the shocking result became bruited abroad.

The brother of the poor lad (a clergyman) came to Eastbourne to inquire into the truth of the rumours current of his relative’s death. It would probably be uncharitable to remark too severely upon the statements made by the conscience-smitten man to conceal his crime; it may well be excused to a man placed in so terrible a position by the consciousness of unpardonable cruelty and the dread of the consequences to his good name, that he should represent in a non-criminal light the circumstances of the deed; but he said that when, as his latest act, he again fetched the rope and inflicted punishment, he himself burst into tears, and that then the poor lad placed his head upon his breast and asked to be allowed to say his lesson, and that he then prayed with him before he left him. Afterwards, he clasped his hands together and said, “Heaven knows I have done my duty by that poor boy.” The inquiries of the brother necessarily developed the whole miserable story, and Mr. Hopley was given into custody. The details of the evidence before the magistrates sent a thrill of horror through every family group throughout the kingdom.

The prisoner was tried at Lewes on the 23rd July, and the whole horrifying details having been repeated, he was found Guilty, and sentenced to four years penal servitude.