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way, consisting of himself, his wife, an infant son 14 weeks old, and an apprentice-was found murdered between twelve and one on Sunday morning. It appears from the deposition of the servant girl, that she was sent out on Saturday night about twelve, to purchace oysters for supper, and to pay the baker's bill; in about 20 minutes she returned, but found the shutters closed, the door fast, and no appearence of light. Alarmed at not obtaining admittance, she imparted her fears to a watchman, and Mr. Murray, pawnbroker, the next-door neighbour: the latter immediately made his way into Mr. Marr' shouse, through the back door, which was open: on the landing-place he was struck with the horrid spectacle of James Gohen, an apprentice, 14 years of age, lying on his face at the further part of the shop, with his brains knocked out, part of them actually covering the ceiling. He immediately called out for assistance; and on further search, Mrs. Marr was found lying on the floor near the street-door, and Mr. Marr behind the counter, both weltering in their blood from dreadful wounds about the head, but without any signs of life. Even a child in the cradle, not four months old, found in its infancy, innocence, and incapacity of impeaching the assassins, no protection from their barbarous hands. It was discovered with its throat cut from ear to ear! With such silence were these murders committed, that not the least noise was heard by any of the neighbours, except Mr. Murray, who heard a noise which appeared to be on the shop floor, and resembled the pulling of a chair, and the sound of a voice, as if proceeding from the fear of correction, like

a boy's or woman's. The watchman reports that a little after twelve, he found some of the window-shutters not fastened, and called to those he heard within to acquaint them with it, and received for answer, "We know it." This answer must have been given by the murderers, after the accomplishment of their work of death! The murders must have been per. petrated in less than half an hour

a short space for the accomplishment of such atrocious deeds! To this cause it may be attributed that nothing was taken from the house, though 152. in cash were found in a tin box, besides four or five pounds in change in Mr. Marr's pockets. The ill-fated heads of this family were under 25 years of age, and had been married only two years. The assassins left behind them a large shipwright's maul or mallet, its head weighing two or three pounds, and its handle about three feet long; a ripping chisel of iron, 18 inches long; and a wooden mallet, about four inches square, with a handle of about 18 inches.-A coroner's inquest was held on Thursday the 10th instant, who returned a verdiet of "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown."

Between eleven and twelve o'clock on Thursday night, Dec. 19, the neighbourhood of New Gravel Lane was alarmed by a cry of murder from a person in his shirt, at No. 81, who was descending from a two-pair of stairs window by the sheets of his bed knotted together. On his reaching the bottom, he informed those who were assembled, that murderers were in the house, committing dreadful acts of blood on the whole family.-An alarm was instantly

given, and two resolute men, one named Ludgate and the other Hawse, armed themselves and broke open the door, when, horrid to relate! they first found the mistress of the house and the maidservant lying one on the other by the kitchen fire quite dead, with their throats cut from ear to ear.—On continuing their search, they proceeded to the cellar, where they found the master of the house quite dead, one of his legs broken, and his head nearly severed from his body. The scene of this bloody deed was the King's Arms publichouse; and the unfortunate persons murdered are Mr. and Mrs. Williamson (the landlord and landlady), and their maid-servant, an Irish girl. The person who descended from the window is named Turner; he was a lodger, and deposed before the magistrates that he returned home about eleven on Thursday night; the family were at supper; he wished them a good night, and went to bed :-he slept about half an hour, when he was alarmed by the cry of "We shall all be murdered!" He cautiously went down stairs, and looking through the glass window of the tap-room, saw a powerful wellmade man, six feet high, and dressed in a drab shaggy bear-skin coat, stooping over the body of Mrs. Williamson, apparently rifling her pockets. His ears were then assailed by the deep sighs of a person in the agonies of death. Terrified beyond description, he ran up stairs, and not being able to find the trap-door, he went back to his own room, and escaped quite naked, as above mentioned. The niece was in a sound sleep during the whole time the murders were perpetrating.It is evident from Mr. Williamson's appearance, that he must have

made a vigorous resistance. The house of the decesed was not two streets distance from that of Mr. Marr; and in the rear of both is a large piece of waste ground, belonging to the London Dock company, which seems to have been, on both occasions, peculiarly favourable to the escape of the murderers. At the coroner's inquest on the bodies of the Williamsons, the coroner (Mr. Unwin), previously to taking the depositions of the several witnesses, delivered the following excellent charge to the jury:

"The frequent instances of murder committed in the eastern part of the metropolis, which no vigilance has been sucessful to detect; in a vicinity where the population of the lower classes of the community greatly preponderates, increated by the number of strangers and seamen discharged from time to time at the East and West India and London docks, and the influx of foreign sailors from all parts of the globe-imperiously call for the solemn attention of those more immediately intrusted with the administration of government; for the late and present murders are a disgrace to the country, and almost a reproach on civilization: while the exertions of the police, with the ordinary power of the parochial officers, are found insufficient to protect men's persons from the hand of violence; and the coroner has to record the most atrocious crimes, without the possibility of delivering the perpetrators to justice and punishment; our houses are no longer our castles, and we are unsafe in our beds. These observations, strong as they are, will be found warranted by the events which have lately taken place within a short (L4) distance

distance from the spot where we are now met, and by the numerous verdicts of Wilful Murer which, during the last three months, have been returned by juries against persons unknown, not one of which has yet been discovered, Until some more appropriate remedy be pointed out, it appears advisable, in the present agitation of the public mind, that parties of the military, under the direction of the civil power, selected from the militia or the guards, should patrole this disa ict during the night, Your verdict, I am sorry to say, will, in these cases, be given generally on the evidence, as the perpetrators are unknown; but it may be hoped, by the aid of that Divine Providence which seldom permits murder, in this life, to go unpunished, with the exertions which will be used, these inhuman monsters nay be discovered and brought to justice. Your verdict will be "Wilful murder against some persons

unknown."

Large rewards, amounting to nearly 1500. have been offered for the discovery of the murderers, by government, and the parish of St. George, &c. Several persons have been examined on suspicion; and very strong evidence has been adduced against an Irish sailor, named John Williams, alias Murphy. This man, it appears, lodged at the Pear-tree public-house, kept by Mrs. Vermilloe, from which the very maul Mr. Marr's family were massacred with had been missing. It had been left there by John Peterson, a ship-carpenter, with a chest of tools, all of which were marked J. P. The maul was taken by the magistrates to Newgate, where Mr. Vermilloe confined for debt; who, on being interrogated, said, that though he

was

could not positively swear that it was the same, yet the confident certainty he entertained of its identity was very much confirmed by the circumstance of its being broken, which he remembered having done in breaking up some fire. wood. The testimony of Mrs. Ver, milloe before the magistrates tend. ed toconfirm this fact; as well as one of her nephews, a child who lived with her, who recollected having played with it, and that it was bro ken at the point. The woman who washed the prisoner's linen, on her examination stated the fact of a shirt of his having been bloody and torn: which the prisoner attempted to account for by his having quarrelled with his companions, and having his mouth cut. O her witnesses proved him to have been seen near Williamson's house on the night of his murder; and that he was well acquainted both with Marr and Williamson. On the 27th, Mrs. Vermilloe was again examined. She positively denied that she had any suspicion of Williams's associates. The first she knew of him was his going out in the Dover Castle Indiaman, and when he came home he lodged at her house. He then went a voyage in the Roxburgh Castle, and had been home twelve weeks before the murders. She never suspected him till the maul and stockings were produced; when she remarked that he had cut off his whiskers. Mr. Lawrence, a publican, and his daughter, and Mr. Lee another publican, prov ed Williams's making very free at their houses, meddling with their tills, &c. and expressed their dislike of his conduct, and their wish to avoid his using their houses. John Harris, a fellow lodger with Williams, proved his coming home about one o'clock on the night of

Mr.

Mr. Marr's murder. In the morning he told Williams of it, who was still in bed. He replied surlily, "I know it." When he found the muddy stockings behind his chest, suspicion struck him, and he informed Mrs. Vermilloe. From this circumstance, and from Williams's general conduct, he was persuaded he was concerned in the murders. Williams was much agi. tated, seldom sleeping. One night since the murder, he heard him say in his sleep, "Five shillings in my pocket-my pockets are full of silver." [It was proved he had no money before, having borrowed sixpence of his landlady.]-Cuthperson, the other fellow-lodger, proved the same facts, of his restlessness, and talking to himself in his sleep. Cuthperson, on the morning of the murder, was in bed, but not asleep: the watchman was crying past one: he was positive that the prisoner said, "For God's sake put out the light, or else something will happen;" but he was not certain whether it was the same morning he heard of Marr's murder.

We regret to add, that the ends of justice are defeated as far as relates to this Williams, against whom such strong suspicions of guilt have appeared. On Dec. 27, on his cell at Cold-bath-fields being opened in the morning, it was discovered that he had hanged himself with his neck handkerchief. This last act of his life warrants the inference that he was concerned in these atrocious murders: but he most probably had accomplices, who, we hope and trust, will yet be discovered, and brought to justice.

CORONER'S INQUEST ON WILLIAMS,

THE SUPPOSED MURDERER.

On Friday a coroner's inquest

was held at the house of correction, in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, on the body of John Williams, who was found dead in his cell, in the Cold-bath-fields prison, before John Wright Unwin, esq. one of the coroners for the county.

Thomas Webb sworn.-Iamsurgeon to the prison; I was called to the deceased this morning-I found him in his cell, lying on his back on the bed, where he had been placed by the person who cut him down-he was dead and cold, and had been dead many hours—on his neck, on the right side, is a very deep impression of a knot, and a mark all round the neck as from the handkerchief by which he had been suspended-the handkerchief was still on the neck-I saw no other marks of violence on his body-I have no doubt he died from strangulation; he told me, the day before yesterday, he was perfectly easy and satisfied, for that nothing could happen to him.

THOMAS WEBB.

Francis Knott sworn.-I am a prisoner here; I saw the deceased alive and well yesterday, about half-past three in the afternoon; he asked me if he could see his friends? I told him I did not know. This morning, about half-past seven o'clock," Joseph Becket, the turnkey, came to me in the yard, and desired me to go up to the cell of the deceased and cut him down, for that he had found him hanging. I went up immediately, and put my arm round his body, and cut the handkerchief, part of which was round his neck, and the other part was fastened to the rail which the bed and clothes are hung upon in the day-time-the rail is six feet three inches from the ground. I laid him on his back on the bed; he was cold, and seemed to have

been

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Joseph Beckett sworn.-I am turnkey here; I locked the deceased up about ten minutes before four yesterday afternoon; he was then alive and well; I asked him if he had wanted any thing-he said No; he has said during his confinement, he hoped the innocent would not suffer, and that the saddie might be placed on the right horse. Between seven and eight this morning I unlocked the door of his cell, I discovered him hanging to the rail in his cell, with his feet nearly or quite touching the ground, with a white handkerchief round his neck, which handkerchief I had seen him wear; I called Knott and Harris, and saw him cut down.

JOSEPH BECKETT.

Mr. Unwin, the coroner, then addressed the jury: "The miserable wretch, the object of the present inquiry, was committed here on suspicion of being one of the perpetrators of the late alarming and most inhuman murders, and that suspicion is greatly increased by the result which has taken place: for how much augmented is the suspicion of guilt against a man, who, to escape justice, has recourse to self-destruction! All homicide is murder till the contrary shall be shown. The law ranks the suicide in the worst class of murderers, and this is a case of most unqualified self-murder.

"I have applied my attention to the conduct of those intrusted with the custody of this wretched

man, as a subject interesting to the public mind, and I leave it with you: I think there is no culpability attaching itself to them. It only therefore remains that we consign the body of this self-murderer to that infamy and disgrace which the law has prescribed; and to leave the punishment of his crimes to Him that has said, "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay."-Verdict Felo de se.

Was there no culpability attaching to the keeper or his deputies for permitting such a man, as Williams is represented to have been, to escape the due course of law? Was he to be left alone sixteen hours on a stretch? If he were the guilty man, and even under the suspicions that attached to him, he ought not to have been left an hour or a minute. Had there not been warning but two days before of another man detained on suspicion, having taken away his life in a common watch-house? and yet the keeper of Clerkenwell New Prison permit Williams to do the same! The life of this man, if he were guilty, was of the utmost importance to the public, whose alarms will not now subside for months or perhaps years to come. It is however possible that he was not guilty. Admitting only the possibility of his innocence, and is there no culpability in shutting a fellow creature up in a cold cell for sixteen hours, in the depth of winter, without fire or candle, under the weight of the heaviest charge that a human being can stand under? Such was the temper of the public, that it would have been almost impossible that a man accused and indicted could have had a fair and impartial trial; and might not an innocent man, knowing the exasperated state of the public mind, and being left to

his

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