The Great Coram-Street Murder.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 183, 13 May 1873, Page 7

The Great Coram-Street Murder.

(Auckland Evening Star.) "£2OO Reward. —Murder." Such ia the n nouncement made by a Urge poster on the Jotice-board at the police-station in High{reefc. The bill goes on to say :—"Whereas Jarriet Bu swell, aged 26, was found with i 6 r throat cut, at No. 12 Great Coram-street, j„ s aell-square, London, on the 25th Decemur' 1872 : The murder is supposed to have jgen committed by a man of the following

legcription, who was seen in company with jj 6 deceased on the evening of the 24th, and fl leave the house at seven a.m.. on the 25th : „Le, 25; height, sft. 9in.; complexion urarthy, red spots on face, black hair, no thiskers or moustache, btat not shaved for ;(to or three days. Stout build, dress dark, light-fitting coat, dark billycock hat ; a oreigner (supposed German). Two hundred Winds (£200) reward will be paid by Her

Majesty's Government to any person who ihall give such information and evidence as iball lead to the discovery of the murderer, md the Secretary of State for the Home department will advise the grant of Her Majesty's most gracious pardon to any accom,lice, not being the person who actually comnitted the murder, who shall give such evilence as shall lead to a like result." A few acts of the case as gathered from the London tapers may not be uninteresting. Harriet foswell lived at a house in Great Goram-st., ]loomsbury, and belonged to the numerous ;lass of the demi mond*. On the evening of [be 24th of December last, she betook herjelf to the Alhambra, where she got in company with a " dirty-faced, low-looking German," who went home with her. She obtained a sum of ten shillings from him, when ihe proceeded down-stairs to pay her landlady the rent, and—ghastly thought—to stir the Christmas pudding/or luck. In the early lawn of Christmas Bay the man is heard meaking down the stairs, banging the door rfiji'iid him, and eventually making off. \fiin the time comes for making merry in Ms dreadful house, it was noticed that Har■iet Buswell did not rise, and that the door ras locked into the bargain. The apartment ifas forced, and the wretched woman was liscovered with her throat cut from ear to >tr. How splendidly De Quincey would have leseribed the double picture on Christmas Rve in this terrible Great Coram-street mansion. Downstairs the victim, thinking no lonbtof her home and innocent days, stir-•ingtheplum-pudding for luck; and overhead lecrnel pimple-faced murder, crouching like \ naked animal for his prey. The detectives ire quite puzzled so far, and the absence of jut object in the crime has baflled them considerably. Why a man who presents a womn with half a sovereign should desire to rnirder her for the sake of a shilling and pair 31 jet earrings must for ever, it appears, renain a mystery. The following men have icen apprehended as the supposed murderers, by which it will be observed that the police lave not been idle:—Peter M'Kinnon, a native of Prince Edward's Island, who enlisted shortly after the date of the murder, Hid expressed a desire to be sent out on foreign service as early as possible. He was arrested on suspicion, but the various witnesses having failed to identify him, he was discharged from custody. On the same morning of his discharge, a Frenchman named Jnvet Julien, partly answering the description of the murderer, was arrested at Pirbright, six miles from Guildford. When questioned he was very reticent, but read ibud in English the reward-bill, and ex ilaimed at the close, " Hal ha!" He was subsequently paraded with a number of other men before the various parties who had seen Harriet Buswell in company with the man an Christmas Eve, and they failed to identify bim. He was therefore discharged. Three tayk afterwards a man was taken into cus tfS at Watford for being drunk and disorderly. At the station he said he might as well make a cle.m breast of it, and that he ifas the murderer of the poor girl. He was therefore removed to the House of Detention, irherehe gave the name of Frederick Defame, of North Germany. After a remand, I ail right name was found to be Frederick George Williams, and he could only account jjir making the statement by the fact that he had been drinking. The witnesses were brought to see him, and they all declared he was not the man, and he was discharged with a caution. Two more days elapsed, and a miserably-dressed man, who gave the name M John King, but whose name turned out to be George Cooper, gave himself up at the Hackney Police Station as the murderer of Harriet Buswell. He was drunk, and said hat a colonel had given him £IOO to do the W, then took him to the Alhambra, and pnmted the girl out to him. He went home •tin her in an omnibus to Islington, and 'here asked her to give up certain papers, which she refused to do. He then struck lle r on the head, and made her insensible, "Ml ultimately cut her throat. He told the inspector that if he would search the cokeWar of a neigbouring hotel, he would find "'ere a p a i r 0 f earrings, a brooch, and a knife. March was made, but without result. When jMRed at Bow-street, the prisoner treated ne matter with apparent good humour, and •ated that he was very sorry for having been »stupid. He had been drinking whisky and 'W ale for a week, and had a touch of deli- ""» tremens. When confronted, none of je witnesses identified this vagabond, but ne magistrate remanded him for enquiries as °nis character. A week later he was brought J a gaiD, when he stated that the imprisoned had so affected him that he would abJWfroru taking too much old ale and whisky jj tf ie future. He was then discharged. r 'W to the committal of the murder, the

German emigrant ship Wangerland put into Ramsgate harbour damaged, having been in collision with the much-dreaded Goodwin Sands, and she remained there about three weeks, repairing. The apothecary on board (named Carl Wohlebbe) unfortunately, from the blotches on his face, answered to the description of the supposed murderer. The " active and intelligent officers" of the Ramsgate police at once effected his arrest, and telegraphed to London for the witnesses to come down with a view to identification. [These witnesses, by the way, must have had a precious time of it, as, in addition to the foregoing, they were forced to attend the coroner's inquest, which was adjourned some eight or nine times.] On the arrival of the witnesses at Ramsgate the prisoner was paraded with some twenty other Germans, amongst whom was the pastor of the vessel, one Dr Hessel, who volunteered his services. Judge the worthy pastor's surprise when all the witnesses but one without hesitation selected him as the culprit, and this one witness thought him like the man, requested to hear him speak, which was complied with, and then asserted positively that he was the man. The apothecary was accordingly liberated, and Dr Hessel removed to London and lodged in the House of Detention. After remaining in custody for over a fortnight, and under strict surveillance, this martyr to mistaken identity was returned to the arms of his newlymarried wife, the Magistrate remarking that he left the Court without a stain upon his character. But by this time the good ship Wangerland had departed. There is no doubt that the German pastor is deserving of commiseration for having been seriously inconvenienced by an almost inevitable legal system, for he has certainly suffered seriously from the obtuseness of the witnesses. It seems hard that a gentleman should have been detained and inconvenienced because a maidservant thought she was clever enough to detect the presence of Wellington boots under the trowsers of a man walking on the other side of the street, for so she actually stated in evidence. Sam Weller's difficulty of seeing through a door and a brick wall was evidently scouted by this young woman, who was so "awfully clever" that she could detect Wellington boots on a passing foreigner. From their point of view the witnesses did their best, and exercised as best they could the common sense entrusted to them in a limited degree, and stupidity and officiousness will have their victims. As the reward bills, with the description of the supposed murderer, have been scattered all over the civilised part of the globe, we shall watch with interest how many more persons will be apprehended on suspicion, or as the self-ac-cused murderer of the once gay and fascinating, but unfortunate Harriet Buswell ("still, for all slips of her's, one of Eve's family").