Morning Advertiser (London)
18 October 1888
FATHER M'FADDEN.- A demonstration and torchlight procession was announced to be held this evening at Donegal, in honour of the release of Father M'Fadden, and it was intended to burn an effigy of Judge Webb. The authorities have, however, prohibited the holding of any such demonstration.
LONDON PAUPERISM - the number of paupers in London on Saturday last, exclusive of lunatics in asylums and vagrants, was 92,234, as compared with 91,098 on the corresponding day of last year, 88,147 in 1886,and 86,626 in 1885. The vagrants relieved on the last day of last week numbered 1,295, of whom 1,011 were men, 236 women, and 48 children under 16 years of age.
THE MILITARY STAFF IN IRELAND. - The Commander-in-Chief has appointed Colonel the Hon. H. Parnell, C.B., to the command of the 18th Regimental District, at Clonmel, Ireland, in succession to Colonel Macgregor, with effect from the 23rd inst. Colonel Parnell was in the Crimean campaign in 1855, and also served in the South African war of 1879.
A Spitzbergen dog smelt out yesterday under the partially constructed police headquarters at Whitehall, the left foot and part of the left leg of a woman, the remains forming part, there is little doubt, of the body, the torso of which was recently found in the same underground vault.
At Tottenham yesterday morning, a pecuniary dispute between a painter, named Henry Elliott, and his brother-in-law, a turf cutter called Morris, ended in the former shooting the latter in the head with a revolver, and then blowing out his own brains. Morris, dangerously wounded, lies in the Tottenham Hospital.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS.
There will be no evidence forthcoming, it is said, likely to connect with these crimes the homicidal lunatic who was taken into custody at the King-street police-station on Tuesday. The latest information tends to prove that he could have had no part in the tragedies. In July last the man was brought up at Lambeth Police Court on a charge of being abroad as a person of unsound mind, and the magistrate ordered his removal to Lambeth Infirmary. He subsequently left that institution, and since August the 15th he has lodged at a coffee-house in the Westminster-bridge-road. The keeper of the house states that the man has slept there every night, without exception, up to Monday of the present week. The suspected person is said to be a man of superior education, and well connected.
A Press representative had an interview yesterday with the landlady of the house, 22, Batty-street, Whitechapel, which place was alleged to be the resort of the owner of the blood-stained shirt. The lodging house is kept by a German woman, the wife of a seaman. She denied that the man for whom the police were searching was one of her lodgers, and asserted that he simply had his washing done at the house. He was a ladies' tailor, working for a West-end house, and did not reside in the Leman-street district. She explained the presence of blood on the shirt by saying that it was owing to an accident that occurred to a man (other than the one taken into custody) who was living on the premises, and that the police would have known nothing of it but for her having indiscreetly shown it to a neighbour. The woman denies that the detective are still in possession of her house.
THE WHITEHALL MYSTERY.
Yesterday morning a further discovery of human remains was made on the site of the police-buildings in course of construction at Whitehall. Mr. Jasper T. C. Waring obtained permission of the police and the contractor to use a Spitzbergen dog in making a search of the premises ; and, with the dog in his charge, Mr. Waring arrived on the site at half-past eleven o'clock. The dog was taken into the vault where the trunk of a woman was discovered a fortnight ago, and in a very short time it began sniffing at a mound of earth which had been thrown back from an excavation over a drain made eight or ten weeks ago. A labourer who was with the search party was at once directed to throw over some of the soil, and at a depth of about a foot from the surface something was found and at once seized upon by the animal. An examination proved it to be a portion of a human leg. Decomposition was far advanced. The limb, when found, was lying eight or nine feet from the spot where the woman's trunk was discovered. Police-constable Rutland, the officer on duty at the works, sent information of the discovery to the King-street police-station, ordering that digging should in the meantime be discontinued. Sergeants Rose and Ferris, representing the Criminal Investigation Department, quickly arrived, and Dr. Bond, of Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, who was one of the surgeons who made the post-mortem examination of the trunk, was summoned. On his arrival he pronounced the limb to be that of a finely-developed woman. It was the left leg, and had been severed at the knee, and the doctor's opinion was that it had been in the vault for a period of about six weeks. As the earth in which the leg was found had been thrown back for eight or ten weeks, Dr. Bond's estimate of time is no doubt correct. After the medical inspection, orders were given that the remains should be taken to the mortuary at Millbank. In the presence of Inspector Peters and several constables, Sergeant Rose enclosed the limb in brown paper, sealed the parcel, and then conveyed it in a cab to the mortuary. The person, or persons, by whom the limb was deposited must have had some difficulty in carrying it to so secluded a part of the premises, as there are several subways that must be traversed before reaching the vault. During the past fortnight the strictest gaurd has been kept by the police, and access to the premises could not have been attempted within that time without certainty of detection. This is further confirmation of the theory as to the length of time which must have elapsed since the remains were hidden away.
After the departure of Sergeant Rose to the Millbank mortuary the digging in the vault was resumed, three or four constables being present. The unearthing of other buried remains was expected to be speedily effected, but the search was unsuccessful, and at half-past four o'clock the police gave directions that the work should be discontinued for the day.
Dr. Bond will make a further examination of the remains, which there is no reason to doubt will be found to belong to the body recently discovered in the same place.
