"A Constable" writes: - Will you allow me as a constable of the Metropolitan Police Force, to protest against the manner in which our superintendents, without consulting us, expressed to Sir Charles Warren our regret at his resignation? I am expressing the feelings of the great majority of the force when I say that we are extremely glad he has given up an appointment for which he was not fitted. No doubt a few very young men who were lucky enough to come under his order regarding promotion will be sorry; but what about us who happened to be "over ten years service or were 35 years of age," as his orders regarding promotion laid down.
Ought we who have weathered 20 years of storm and sunshine in the streets of London, who understand and are trusted by Londoners, be sorry that we are not retained as a political police, like the Irish Constabulary, to bâton and break the heads of people who presume to meet together in the streets of London for any purpose other than psalm-singing or Salvation Army drilling.
Sir Charles Warren writes to the Times: - With reference to the debate on Thursday in the House of Commons, I trust I may state that I have never to my knowledge in any way contested the lawful authority of the Secretary of State over the Metropolitan police force; and the insinuation that I have in any way contested the administration of the police being subject to Parliament through the Secretary of State seems too ridiculous for me to contradict. In many cases, while accepting directions given me which were to all appearances contrary to the statute, I have entered a protest; and in thus protesting I have acted in accordance with the advice of the legal adviser appointed by the Secretary of State, the late Mr. Davis, formerly stipendiary magistrate of Sheffield. I can only express my astonishment at the statement attributed to Mr. Matthews last night, and I venture to assert that an entirely different impression would be conveyed to the public mind about my action if the correspondence were to be made known.
A demonstration will be held in Victoria-park at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon to commemorate the "legal murder" of the Chicago martyrs, and also Bloody Sunday. Amongst the speakers will be Mr. Cuninghame Graham, M.P., Mr. Conybeare, M.P., Prince Kropotkin, Rev. Stewart Headlam, Mr. H. Halliday Sparling, Mr. John Burns, and Mrs. Parsons, the wife of one of the "martyrs." Vans will be taken to the park to serve as platforms, notwithstanding the refusal of the Metropolitan Board to admit them.
Revenged on "Jack the Ripper."
At Liverpool yesterday a young man named Bramwell was charged with damaging a wax figure at an exhibition. Mr. Raffles asked what the figure was, and he was informed that it was the figure of "Jack the Ripper." Bramwell had only landed in Liverpool two days previously from Canada, and on seeing the figure at the exhibition he expressed a determination to smash it. - He was ordered to pay the damage and costs.
He Says He was Hairpinned.
Alexander Dundrow was arrested with his young woman, Elizabeth Phillips, in a public-house in Ratcliff-highway, where he knocked her down and kicked her. - Mary Ann Barham interfered, and Dundrow said, "I will come round to-night and set fire to your place, as well as rip you up." He then punched her about the head and face, and also hit a policeman. This was Mary Ann's story. Dundrow told the Thames magistrate Phillips was his girl's aunt, and that both attacked him. His sweetheart stuck a hairpin in his face and he hit her aunt by mistake. - The magistrate thought the woman's account of the affair was exaggerated, and inflicted a fine of 20s. or 14 days.
It has just transpired that a young woman named Annie Murphy, living at Sanderstead-road, Croydon, was stopped on Monday night last when in the Brighton-road, near her home, by a tall thin man, who suddenly put his arm round her. She struggled and screamed, and a policeman who was near ran at once to the spot. By the time that he arrived, however, the man had got away. The young woman later in the evening found that her dress was cut and that she had been stabbed in the breast. The police are now searching for the assailant.
The man who committed suicide in Hyde-park yesterday by shooting himself in the mouth with a revolver, has now been fully identified as Richard Brown, a constable of the E Division, belonging to Hunter-street police-station.
Mr. Lumley Matthews, a gentleman who is said to be a nephew of the Home Secretary, is lying in University Hospital with two severe gashes and another great wound in his throat caused by his tearing open one of the cuts with his hands. He made as determined an attempt on his life as there is on record. He lives in apartments at 25 Endsleigh-gardens, Euston-road, and yesterday evening whilst he was alone in his room, he cut his throat with a razor, lay in a bath of blood all night, and then this morning, finding that he had not succeeded in killing himself, he opened the bedroom window and jumped out into the yard below. He was picked up saturated in blood and taken to the hospital. The most extraordinary part of the affair is that immediately after he had cut his throat he seems to have sat down and calmly written down a statement as to what he had done. After this he proceeded to tear open his throat as described.
Adela Packer, aged three, who died at the St. Pancras Workhouse on Sunday last from, it was alleged, vaccination, was the subject of an inquest yesterday. Mr. W. Young, the secretary, represented the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination, and Mr. Purchese, the St. Pancras Board of Guardians. According to the mother of the deceased - now residing with her parents at 5, Brailsford-road, Brixton - she was the wife of William Packer, a theatrical agent, who had deserted her eight months ago. Seven weeks ago she was lodging at 80, Stanhope-street, Regent's-park, with her three children. While there she applied to the relieving officer for aid. Temporary relief was afforded her, and her husband was found, but the Guardians let him go. She was admitted into the workhouse on 9 Oct., with her children, who were then in perfect health. She only remained in the house a week, and then left with her eldest girl. She was able to maintain herself and this child. The other two children, the deceased and an infant 15 months old, remained in the house. When she left she noticed that they looked altered. They were very ill, and her eldest girl told her they had been vaccinated. This was done
Both her children had very inflamed arms. The Coroner: I have just learnt that the baby died yesterday, and the evidence in one case will be applicable in the other. - Witness said her baby got very thin. Thrice previously, at intervals of a month, attempts were made to vaccinate the baby, but they were not successful. After a week she visited her children at the workhouse. The doctor said they were suffering from measles. In the baby's arm a deep hole was visible. It seemed as though the sores had run one into the other and formed one large wound. On Sunday, 5 Nov., the children's eyes were very sore, and their noses were disfigured. "Why," asked the witness, "could I not stay and nurse my dying baby?"
were allowed to nurse their children. - The Coroner: I cannot say; I will ask. - Witness added that she heard of her baby's death last night. She knew it was dying. Healthy children were placed with the infected. A nurse, Mrs. Fleetwood, she thought, told her the doctor said, "I cannot provide a separate apartment for each child." - A juror considered that if a child had been repeatedly vaccinated unsuccessfully it was legally exempted from further treatment of the kind.
The jury returned the following verdict: - "That the deceased children died from stomatitis when suffering from measles, and that the death was accelerated by vaccination that took place eight days before the attack of measles." They added a rider that children in workhouses should not be vaccinated before or while in "quarantine" without the consent of parents.
A story is being widely circulated that the Whitechapel murders were possibly committed by a certain Nicholas Wassili, who is said to have been placed in an insane asylum in 1872, after he had committed a series of crimes in Paris similar to those that have been lately committed in the East-end of London. A certain amount of probability has been attached to this theory, in view of the fact that Wassili was, according to the reports, released from confinement last January. It is doubtful, however, whether such a man as Wassili ever existed. M. Macé, a former Chef de la Sûreté, who is thoroughly posted in the criminal history of France, has said to an interviewer that no such person committed murders in Paris in 1872. The only Parisian case in any way resembling the London aseassinations was one which occurred about 1875. A certain individual terrified the women in the Rochechouart quarter by repeated assaults. He was captured after five or six of these outrages, and was pronounced insane. He was a foreigner, but not a Russian, and in any case he killed none of his victims.
At Wandsworth Police-court yesterday Mr. Edward Yates, landlord of the Winstanley Arms, Winstanley-road, Battersea, was fined 40s. and costs for supplying a police-constable with liquor while on duty. The constable said he was asked by the manager to look round the premises with his lamp, and after doing so he was supplied with half a pint of ale. For the defence, it was urged that at the time the premises were closed and business suspended. A licensed victualler's responsibility, said counsel, must come to an end some time or other. Mr. Plowden said in his opinion the responsibility of a landlord was never at an end.
At Bow-street yesterday, John Cooper, manager of the Chancery Tavern, was summoned for serving a police-constable with a cigar while he was on duty. The constable said he told two gentlemen which omnibus they should take to go to Walham-green, and they asked him to have a drink; he refused, and they said they would leave the price of a cigar for him at the public-house. It was this he called for, first taking off his armlet so that the barmaid should not know he was on duty. - Mr. Bridge said really there was no case. He did not think the smallest blame attached to the landlord. It was not for him to say whether any blame attached to the constable, but he did not see it.
The statement that Mr. Richard Mansfield is contemplating the early production of a new play is, that gentleman tells me, incorrect. The fact is "Prince Karl" has hit the public taste between wind and water, and when Mr. Mansfield migrates to the Globe on the 22nd Dec., his clever piece is likely to remain on the bill for some time to come. Looking in at the Lyceum the other night I found the house crowded, and the piece going with the smooth velocity of a switchback. The sentiment pleases the women and the fun the men, while the combination of the two ingredients of romance and farce ought, as a daring dramatic novelty, to please the captious critic. This quaint amalgam, by the way, is an idea of Mr. Mansfield's, to whom all the sentimental element in "Prince Karl" is due. He has thus reversed the process of Frederick Lemaitre, who converted "L'Auberge des Adrets," originally a commonplace romantic melodrama, into a world-famous, epoch-making success, by adding to the romance an element of farce.
Mr. Mansfield intends to take advantage of the three weeks' interval between his departure from the Lyceum and his opening at the Globe by playing at Liverpool, perhaps at Manchester, and certainly at Derby, where the performance will be in aid of building fund of his old school. It is a significant mark of the improved status of actors, that the head master of Derby School, the Rev. Walter Clark, should take great pride in the success of his old pupil. Contrast with this the prejudice shown by the late Dr. Kynaston, of St. Paul's, who would not allow the name of Elliston, a famous old Pauline, to be mentioned in his hearing, because Elliston's fame was gained on the stage.
SIR, - Having read in your paper Mr. Matthews' reply to Mr. Graham's question in regard to last night's meeting on Clerkenwell-green, I trust you will give space in your esteemed journal for a few statements I wish to make as an eye-witness. First, as regards the young man arrested for an alleged attempt to prevent a parcels post van from passing through the crowd. I was standing close by and saw the whole of the proceedings, and must say I could see no attempt on the part of the accused to stop or turn the van, but, on the contrary, he was assaulted by the man who in my opinion really did appear to be stopping the van; and that man turns out to have been a policeman in plain clothes. Then several constables rushed forward to make the arrest, striking right and left with their fists.
When I hear it said that the police made no attempt to break up the meeting, and, in fact, had no collision with the people, my blood boils. I was standing on the pavement opposite the police-court when the meeting had come nearly to an end; and hearing a band strike up I looked in the direction the sound came from, and saw that the band headed a procession coming towards where I was. I waited; and when the band arrived right in front of me I saw several constables rush at the foremost men in the procession, and I particularly noticed that one constable attacked the banner-bearer and struggled with him violently until he had succeeded in wresting the banner from him and breaking it to pieces. The other constables attacked the people in all directions, knocking them about with their fists and ultimately drawing their truncheons. As to the reason being that the horses of the mounted police became restive, I can assure you, sir, that the mounted men did not move from the place they were stationed (opposite to where I stood) until the constables on foot had brutally and without provocation attacked the people as I have stated and forced them into a state of disorder. Unlike the men who called upon Mr. Graham I should be glad to make this statement anywhere. - Yours, &c.,
98, Clarence-buildings, Kentish Town, N.W.
14 Nov.
