Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

The French papers state that the submarine electric telegraph between Dover and Calais is to be opened to the public on the 4th of May, the anniversary of the proclamation of the French Republic by the Constituent Assembly.

The Indian Mail brings copies of a new journal published in China on the first day of the present year, and called the Pekin Monitor. It is written in Chinese, and carefully printed, on fine paper. The first number contains an ordinance of the emperor, Toa-kouang, forbidding the emigration of his subjects to California or the State of Costa Rica.

It is stated in the Berliner Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung, that the Jews have obtained a firman from the Porte, granting them permission to build a temple on Mount Zion. The projected edifice is, it is said, to equal Solomon's Temple in magnificence.

The creation of a university for New South Wales is a striking expression of the rapid development of the history of a colony founded, in times comparatively recent, with the worst materials of civilization grafted on the lowest forms of barbarism existing on the earth. The new institution is to be at Sydney; and a sum of £30,000 has been, it is said, voted for the building and £5000 for its fittings-up. It will contain at first chairs of the Classical Languages, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Physiology, and the Medical Sciences; and professorships of History, Philosophy, and Political Economy are to be hereafter added. There is to be no faculty of Theology – and no religious tests.

The late Dr. Potts, inventor of the hydraulic pile-driving process, and other mechanical inventions, expired at his house in Buckingham-street, Strand, on the 23d ultimo. Dr. Potts belonged originally to the medical profession; but by inclination, even from school-boy days, and while a class-fellow with the present Premier and the Duke of Bedford, he appears to have devoted himself to mechanical and engineering pursuits. His name, however, will be most closely associated for the future with the ingenious process for driving piles.

It is said that "among the agriculturists of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire," there is a grand scheme of emigration afloat, which projects the purchase of a million acres of land in one of the Western States of America.

Some of the paper slips dropped by the telegraphing balloons, sent up experimentally by the Admiralty at Whitehall, have been returned by post from Hamburg and Altona, a distance of 450 miles direct.

Box tunnel, London, which is 3192 yards in length, was an object of some interest on Tuesday, the 9th of April, as on that morning at twenty-five minutes past five the sun shone through it. The only other periods that such an event occurs are on the 3d and 4th of September.

An oak tree, forty feet high, with three tons of soil on its roots, has been transplanted at Graisley, near Wolverhampton. The tree was mounted on a timber-carriage, and, with its branches lashed to prevent damage to windows, passed through the streets, a singular but beautiful sight.

The Plymouth Town-Council are about to lay down a quantity of glass pipes, jointed with gutta percha, as an experiment, for the conveyance of water.

The French, Belgian, and Prussian governments appointed a commission in 1848 to draw up the base of an arrangement for an international railway communication; the commission is about to commence its sittings in Paris.

The Russian Geographical Society has decided upon exploring that portion of the Northern Ural which lies between Mount Kwognar and the pass of Koppol; an extent of 2000 wersts, which has not yet been explored by the Ural expedition. The expedition will consist of only three persons – a geognort, who also determines the altitude, a geographer, and one assistant. A great number of attendants, interpreters, workpeople, and rein-deer sledges, have already been engaged. The expedition will set out immediately, and it is hoped will complete the investigation by September.

It is said that nothing indicates the social and moral condition of any community more accurately or impressively than its Records of Crime. The following instances, selected from English journals of the month, will not, therefore, be without interest and instruction.

On the 2d, Thomas Denny was tried at Kingston-on-Thames, for Murdering his Child. He was a farm-servant, and so poor that he lived in a hay-loft on his master's premises, with his reputed wife. In August a child was born, and died immediately. Suspicions arose, and an investigation took place, which led to the prisoner's commitment, charged with murdering the infant. On the trial the prisoner's son, an intelligent boy of eight years old, told the following graphic story of his father's guilt: "We all," he said, "lived together in the hay-loft at Ewell. When mother had a baby, I went to my father and told him to come home directly. When we got back my father took up the baby in his arms. He then took up an awl. [Here the child became much affected, and cried bitterly, and it was some time before he could proceed with his testimony. At length he went on.] My father took up the awl, and killed the baby with it. He stuck the awl into its throat. The baby cried, and my father took the child to its mother, and asked her if he should make a coffin for it. Before he said this, he asked her if she would help to kill it, and gave her the awl. She tried to kill it also. My father gave her the child and the awl, and she did the same to it that he had done. I was very much frightened at what I saw, and ran away, and when I came back I found mother in bed." The woman (Eliza Tarrant) had been charged as an accomplice, but the bill against her was ignored by the grand jury. On the trial she was called as a witness; to which the prisoner's counsel objected, she being a presumed participator in the crime. The woman, however, was called, and partly corroborated her son's testimony; but denied that she took any share in killing her offspring. The prisoner was convicted, and Mr. Justice Maule passed sentence of death, informing him that there was no hope of respite. Subsequently, however, the objections of the prisoner's counsel proved more valid than the judge supposed, for the secretary of state thought proper to commute the sentence. The unfortunate man received the respite with heartfelt gratitude. Since his conviction he appeared to be overcome with grief at his awful position.

A Tale of Misery was revealed on the 3d to Mr. à Beckett, the magistrate Of Southwark police court. He received a letter from a gentleman who stated that as he was walking home one evening, his attention was attracted to a young woman. She was evidently following an immoral career; but her appearance and demeanor interesting him he spoke to her. She candidly acknowledged, that having been deserted by her parents, she was leading an abandoned life to obtain food for her three sisters, all younger than herself. Her father had been in decent circumstances, but that unfortunately her mother was addicted to drink, and owing to this infirmity their parents had separated, and abandoned them. The writer concluded by hoping that the magistrate would cause an inquiry to be made. Mr. à Beckett directed an officer of the court to investigate into this case. On the 4th, the officer called at the abode of the young woman, in a wretched street, at a time when such a visit could not have been expected. He found Mary Ann Bannister, the girl alluded to, and her three sisters, of the respective ages of eight, eleven, and fourteen, in deep distress. The eldest was washing some clothing for her sisters. There was no food of any description in the place. Altogether the case was a very distressing one, and although accustomed to scenes of misery, in the course of his duties, yet this was one of the most lamentable the officer had met with. The publication of the case had the effect of inducing several benevolent individuals to transmit donations to Mr. à Beckett for these destitute girls, to the amount, as he stated on a subsequent day, of above £25. He added that it was in contemplation to enable the girls to emigrate to South Australia, and that meanwhile they had been admitted into the workhouse of St. George's parish, where they would be kept till a passage was procured for them to the colony. More than one person had offered to take Mary Ann Bannister into domestic service; but emigration for the whole four was thought more advisable.

A female named Lewis, who resided at Bassalleg, left her home on the 3d to go to Newport, about three miles distant, to make purchases. She never returned. A search was made by her son and husband, who is a cripple, and on the night of the following day they discovered her murdered in a wood at no very great distance from the village, so frightfully mangled as to leave no doubt that she had been waylaid and brutally murdered. The head was shockingly disfigured, battered by some heavy instrument, and the clothes were saturated with blood. For some days the perpetrators escaped detection, but eventually Murphy and Sullivan, two young Irishmen, were arrested at Cheltenham, on suspicion. Wearing apparel, covered with blood, and a number of trifling articles were found on them. They were sent off to Newport, where it was found they had been engaged in an atrocious outrage in Gloucestershire, on an old man whom they had assailed and robbed on the road near Purby; his skull was fractured; and his life was considered to be in imminent peril. Both prisoners were fully committed to the county jail at Monmouth to take their trial for willful murder.

A Dreadful Murder has been discovered in the neighborhood of Frome, in Somersetshire. On the 3d, a young man named Thomas George, the son of a laborer residing near that town, left his father's house about eight in the evening, and never returned. Next morning, his father went in search of him, and found his body in a farmer's barn; he had been apparently dead for some hours, and there were deep wounds in his head and throat. A man named Henry Hallier, who had been seen in company with the deceased, the night he disappeared, close to the barn where his body was found, was apprehended on the 18th on suspicion, and committed to the county jail.

An act of Unparalleled Atrocity was committed during the Easter week in the Isle of Man. Two poor men named Craine and Gill went to a hill-side to procure a bundle of heather to make brooms. The proprietor of the premises observed them, and remarked that he would quickly make them remove their quarters. He at once set fire to the dry furze and heather, directly under the hilly place where the poor men were engaged. The fire spread furiously, and it was only by rolling himself down the brow of the hill, and falling over the edge of a precipice into the river underneath, that Gill escaped. His unfortunate companion, who was a pensioner, aged 80 years, and quite a cripple, was left in his helpless state a prey to the flames. After they had subsided, Gill went in search of Craine, whom he found burned to a cinder. The proprietor of the heath has been apprehended.

A Shot at his Sweetheart was fired by John Humble Sharpe, a young man of 21, who was tried for it at the Norfolk Circuit on the 9th. The accused, a young carpenter, had courted and had been accepted by the prosecutrix, Sarah Lingwood. She, however, listened to other vows; the lover grew jealous, and was at length rejected. In the night after he had received his dismissal, the family of the girl's uncle with whom she lived were alarmed by the report of a gun. On examining her bedroom it was discovered that a bullet had been fired through the window, had crossed the girl's bed, close to the bottom where she lay, grazed a dress that was lying on the bed-clothes, and struck a chest of drawers beyond. Suspicion having fallen on the prisoner, he was apprehended. The prisoner's counsel admitted the fact, but denied the intent. The prisoner had, he said, no desire to harm the girl, whom he tenderly loved, but only to alarm her and induce her to return to him. The jury, after long deliberation, acquitted the prisoner.

Several shocking instances of Agrarian Crime have been mentioned in the Irish papers. At Glasslough, in the county of Monaghan, a shot was fired into the bed-room window of Mr. John Robertson, land steward to C.P. Leslie, Esq., on the night of the 10th. Arthur O'Donnel, Esq., of Pickwick Cottage, in Clare, was murdered near his own house, on the night of the 11th. He was attacked by a party of men and killed with a hatchet. The supposition was that this deed was committed by recipients of relief whom Mr. O'Donnel was wont to strike off the lists at the weekly revision by the board of the Kilrush union, of which he was one. A man was arrested on strong suspicion. There was another murder in Clare. The herdsman of Mr. Scanlon, of Fortune in that county, went out to look after some sheep, the property of his master, when he was attacked by some persons who had been lurking about the wood, and his throat cut.

Two evidences of the Low Price of Labor were brought before the magistrates. One at Bow-street on the 10th, when W. Gronnow, a journeyman shoemaker, was charged with pawning eight pairs of ladies' shoes intrusted to him for making up. He pleaded extreme distress, and said he intended to redeem the shoes that week. The prisoner's employer owned that the man was entitled to no more than 4s. 8d. for making and preparing the eight pairs of shoes. "Why," said the magistrate, "that price is only sevenpence a pair for the workman. I am not surprised to hear of so many persons pawning their employers' property, when they are paid so badly." The prisoner was fined 2s. and ordered to pay the money he had received upon the shoes within fourteen days; in default, to be imprisoned fourteen days. Being unable to pay the money, he was locked up.

On the previous day a man named Savage, a slop shirt seller, was summoned at Guildhall for 9d., the balance due to Mrs. Wallis for making three cotton shirts. When delivered, Savage found fault with them, and deferred payment. Eventually 1s. 3d. was paid instead of 2s. The alderman said he was surprised at any tradesman who only paid 8d. for making a shirt, deducting 3d. from so small a remuneration; it was disgraceful. He then ordered the money to be paid, with expenses.

Alexander Levey, a goldsmith, was tried at the Central Criminal Court on the 10th, for the Murder of his Wife. They were a quarrelsome pair: one day, while the husband, with a knife in his hand, was cooking a sweetbread, the wife came in, and, in answer to his inquiry where she had been, said she had been to a magistrate for a warrant against him. On this, with a violent exclamation, he stabbed her in the throat; she ran out of the house, while he continued eating with the knife with which he stabbed her, saying, however, he hoped she was not much hurt. She died in consequence of the wound. The defense was, that the blow had been given in the heat of passion, and the prisoner was found guilty of manslaughter only. He was sentenced to fifteen years' transportation.

On the same day, Jane Kirtland was tried for the Manslaughter of her Husband. They lived at Shadwell, and were both addicted to drinking and quarreling, in both which they indulged. Kirtland having called his wife an opprobrious name she took up a chopper, and said that if he repeated the offensive expression, she would chop him. He immediately repeated it with a still more offensive addition, and at the same time thrust his fist, in her face, when she struck him on the elbow with the chopper, and inflicted a wound of which he died a few days afterward. The prisoner, when called upon for her defense, burst into tears, and said that her husband was constantly drunk, and that he was in the habit of going out all day, and leaving her and her children in a destitute state, and when he came home he would abuse her and insult her in every possible way. In a moment of anger she struck him with a chopper, but she had no intention to do him any serious injury. The jury found the prisoner Guilty, but recommended her to mercy on account of the provocation she had received. She was sentenced to be kept to hard labor in the House of Correction for six months.

A coroner's inquest was held in Southwark on the same day, respecting the death of Mrs. Mary Carpenter, an Eccentric Old Lady, of eighty-two. She had been left, by a woman who attended her, cooking a chop for her dinner; and soon afterward the neighbors were alarmed by smoke coming from the house. On breaking into her room on an upper floor, the place was found to be on fire. The flames were got under, but the old lady was burnt almost to a cinder. Mrs. Carpenter was a very singular person; she used at one time to wear dresses so that they did not reach down to her knees. Part of her leg was exposed, but the other was encased with milk-white stockings, tied up with scarlet garters, the ribbons extending to her feet, or flying about her person. In this extraordinary dress she would sally forth to market, followed by an immense crowd of men and children. For some years past she discontinued these perambulations, and lived entirely shut up in her house in Moss-alley, the windows of which she had bricked up, so that no light could enter from without. Though she had considerable freehold property, she had only an occasional female attendant, and would allow no other person, but the collector of her rents, to enter her preserve.

On the 12th, Mrs. Eleanor Dundas Percival, a lady of thirty-five, destroyed herself by poison at the Hope Coffee-house, in Fetter-lane, where she had taken temporary apartments. A Distressing History transpired at the inquest. She was the daughter of a Scotch clergyman, and lost the countenance of her family by marrying a Catholic, a captain in the navy; while her husband suffered the same penalty for marrying a Protestant. About a year ago he and their infant died in the West Indies; she afterward became governess in the family of Sir Colin Campbell, governor of Barbadoes; her health failing, she returned to England in October last, and had since been reduced to extreme distress. Having been turned out of a West-end hotel, and had her effects detained on account of her debt contracted there, she had been received into the apartments in Fetter-lane, partly through the compassion of a person who resided in the house. While there, she had written to Miss Burdett Coutts, and, a few days before her death, a gentleman had called on her from that benevolent lady, who paid up the rent she owed, amounting to £2 14s., and left her 10s. On the evening above-mentioned she went out, and returned with a phial in her hand containing morphia, which, it appeared, she swallowed on going to bed between five and six, as she was afterward found in a dying state, and the empty phial beside her. The verdict was temporary insanity.

Elias Lucas and Mary Reeder were executed at Cambridge on the 13th. Lucas was the husband of the female convict's sister, whom they had poisoned. Morbid curiosity had attracted from twenty to thirty thousand spectators. In the procession from the jail to the scaffold there was a great parade of county magistrates.

Louisa Hartley was charged at the Southwark Police Court, on the 16th, with an Attempt to poison her Father, who is a fellowship porter. On the previous morning she made the coffee for breakfast, on tasting it, it burnt Harley's mouth, and he charged the girl with having put poison in his cup, which she denied; he then tasted her coffee, and found it had no unpleasant flavor. His daughter then snatched away his cup, and threw the contents into a wash-hand basin. But in spite of her tears and protestations of innocence, he took the basin to Guy's Hospital, where it was found that the coffee must have contained vitriol. The girl, who was said to be of weak intellect, and stood sobbing at the bar, being questioned, only shook her head, and said she had nothing to say. At a subsequent hearing the magistrate decided that there was sufficient evidence for a committal.

A man named William Bennison, a workman in an iron-foundry, has been committed to prison at Leith on suspicion of having Poisoned his Wife. The circumstances of the case are extraordinary. The scene of the murder is an old-fashioned tiled house in Leith. Bennison and his wife occupied the second floor of a house, in which also resides Alexander Milne, a cripple from his infancy, well known to the frequenters of Leith Walk, where he sits daily, in a small cart drawn by a dog. Mrs. Bennison, after, it is said, partaking of some gruel, became very ill, and died on Monday, the 22d inst. The dog which drew the cripple's cart died about the same time; suspicion was drawn upon the husband, and he was apprehended, and the dog's body conveyed to Surgeon's Hall for examination. Some weeks before, Bennison had purchased arsenic from a neighboring druggist, to kill rats, as he said. When suspected he called on the druggist, and requested him and his wife not to mention that he had purchased the arsenic. He even pressed for a written denial of the fact, adding that there might be arsenic found in his wife's stomach, but he did not put it there. On the Monday previous to her death it is said he enrolled her name in a benefit society, by which on her death he was entitled to a sum of £6. At the prisoner's examination before the sheriff, the report of the chemists pronounced the contents of the dog's stomach to have been metallic poison. The accused was eventually committed for trial. The deceased and her husband were members of the Wesleyan body, and bore an excellent character for piety. Bennison professed to be extremely zealous in behalf of religion, and was in the habit of administering its consolations to such as would accept of them. His "gifts" of extempore prayer are said to be extensive.

Two Men were shot at by a Gamekeeper lately in a wood belonging to Lord Wharncliffe, near Barnsley. The game on this estate is preserved by a solicitor, who resides near Wokefield, who employs Joseph Hunter as gamekeeper. Both the men were severely injured, and Cherry, one of them, sued Hunter as the author of the offense, in the Barnsley County Court, and the case was heard on the 19th instant. Cherry stated, that on the 23d February he went to see the Badsworth hounds meet at the village of Notton, and in coming down by the side of a wood he saw the defendant, who asked plaintiff and two others where the hounds were. Plaintiff told him they were in Notton-park. These men left Hunter, and walked down by the side of Noroyds-wood. They went through the wood, when one of the men who was with him began cutting some sticks. Plaintiff then saw Hunter, who was about twenty-five yards from them, coming toward them: the men began to run away, when plaintiff said to the other, "He's going to shoot us;" and before he had well delivered the words, he was shot in the arm and side, and could not run with the others. A surgeon proved that the wounds were severe and in a dangerous part of the body. The two men who were with the plaintiff corroborated his evidence. The judge said that defendant deserved to be sent to York for what he had done already. The damages might have been laid at £100 or £1000 had plaintiff been acting lawfully; but he thought plaintiff had acted with discretion in laying the damages at £10 for which he should give a verdict, and all the costs the law would allow.

An Affecting Case occurred at the Mansion House on the 23d. William Powers, a boy, was brought up on the charge of picking a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief. A little boy, who had seen the theft, was witness against him. The prisoner made a feeble attempt to represent the witness as an accomplice; but he soon abandoned it, and said, with tears, that he "did not believe the other boy to be a thief at all." The alderman, moved by his manner, asked him if he had parents? He said he had, but they were miserably poor. "My father was, when I last saw him, six months ago, going into the workhouse. What was I to do? I was partly brought up to the tailoring business, but I can get nothing to do at that. I am able to job about, but still I am compelled to be idle. If I had work, wouldn't I work! I'd be glad to work hard for a living, instead of being obliged to thieve and tell lies for a bit of bread." Alderman Carden – If I send you for a month to Bridewell, and from thence into an industrial school, will you stick honestly to labor? The prisoner – Try me. You shall never see me here or in any other disgraceful situation again. Alderman Carden – I will try you. You shall go to Bridewell for a month, and to the School of Occupation afterward, where you will have an opportunity of reforming. The wretched boy expressed himself in terms of gratitude to the alderman, and went away, as seemed to be the general impression in the justice-room, for the purpose of commencing a new life.