THE MYSTERY OF THE ROAD MURDER EXPLAINED. MISS KENT A GRANDAUGHTER OF THE DUKE OF KENT.

Evening Post, Issue 166, 19 August 1865, Page 3

THE MYSTERY OF THE ROAD MURDER EXPLAINED. MISS KENT A GRANDAUGHTER OF THE DUKE OF KENT.

Thp Daily "Review, in thp following short revelation, clears up much of the mystery which ha- shrouded this most extraordinary murder, giving at once a moMve for the commission of the crime, ami a canse for the idiosyncracy which characterises the alleged murdoress : — The confession of Constance Kent, and the other circumstances brought to Hunt in connexion with this extraordinary case, leave the mystery still in a great measure unexplained. There is an explanation current in the locality which cctninly gives a more consistent account of the dreadful tragedy, but which we have hitherto refrained from publishing on account of the painful delicacy of the disclosures it makes. As the story is sure, however, to come abroad sooner or later, we can find no good reason for longer withholding it. The circurti9fanccs as they are reported to us are these : — Mr. Kent, who is an illegitimate sou of H.R.H. the late Duke of Kent, was provided for by appointment as Inspector of Factories. While going his rounds, he formed an intimacy with a factory girl of singular personal attractions, and having had her educated as a governess for his children, he made her Mrs. Kent after the death of his first wife. The step-mother, it is said, exhibited even less consideration for the children of the first marriage than is ordinarily expected in like circumstances, humiliating them by requiring of them the most menial domestic duties. Constance Kent, who hnd been brought up at a boarding school, was of a more stubborn spirit, and rebelled against the regimen provided for her. The conflict came to a crisis on the day preceding the murder, when, it is said, Mrs. Kent whipped her severely ; and it was while smarting under the pain and indignity thus inflicted that she conceived the fell revenge of murdering her step-mother's darling child. As the story goes, a domestic, to whom local suspicion has all along been attached, met Constance on her return from committing the frightful crime, and then became aware of what had been done. She was induced to keep the secret, and the father and mother had each, of course, their own reasons for adopting the same course. It is frightful to think that a self-accused murderess, known to be such by her own father and other two members of the household, should have been living in the family with them so long after, her daily presence at the table constantly reminding them of the awful secret they held in common ; and if this account is true, it certainly cannot be wondered at they took the earliest opjiorsnnity of getting her removed out of their sight.