DREADFUL MURDER OF A WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN IN A CAB, IN LONDON.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 161, 12 February 1864, Page 3

DREADFUL MURDER OF A WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN IN A CAB, IN LONDON.

SUICIDE OF THE MURDERER. (From the Some Netvs.J The horrible circumstance of finding three dead bodies in a cab in a crowded thoroughfare of the metropolis, has excited intense public interest, while the press have been expatiating on its atrocity, and endeavoring to develop the mystery which enshrouded it. The following is a detailed narrative of the event, which is described as one of the most appalling, though at the same time, one of the most deliberate and methodical of modern murders : —lt appears that on the evening of November 7, a cab-driver at the Shoreditch station was hailed by a middle-sized man dressed in black, with whiskers and moustache. This man, with a lady and two children, got into the cab, which proceeded towards the Royal Oak, Paddington. Passing through Bishopgate-street, the man ordered the cabman to pull up at the sign of the Green Dragon, in order to get him a pint of half-and-half, and whatever he pleased for himself. The cabman got the beer, gave it to the man inside, and then went to his horse’s head. The pint pot was emptied, and the cabman observed that the man turned it upside down just as he gave it back. The cabman got on the box and drove on. But at the top of Holb'orn-hill the man put his head out of the window, stopped the cab, stated that he should not accompany the lady and children to the end of their journey, paid their fare to the Royal Oak, adding a bonus for the driver, and without a word more walked slowly away, in a direction down Holborn-hill. No words passed between him and the woman or the children. The cabman drove on to the Royal Oak. There he stopped. He approached the door, besides which it appears another cabman was happened to be standing. “ Look here!” he exclaimed, “ there is something very queer here.” And no wonder, for ho saw the woman and child lying at the bottom of the cab. The woman had the oldest child—about seven—in her arms. The cabman took one of the children in his arms. Its head fell back, and it was apparently dead. A doctor was at hand, who after a brief examination pronounced the woman and both children dead ; but the bodies were still warm. It was apparent that they had been sick, and the medical man detected a strong smell of prussic acid. The bodies were at once conveyed to St. Mary’s Hospital. There was no pulse in either. The bodies were quite passive. Had they died from violence ? But who was to commit murder in the streets of London ? If murder had been perpetrated, who was the perpetrator ? If any one had done the fatal deed it was probably the man who had left the cab at the top of Holborn-hill. And who was he ? Three days passed without any trace of his existence. At length, late on the night of the third day two inspectors of police, having discovered that a person, precisely answering the description of the man who had hired the cab lived at Ann’s Cottage, Wellington-road, Cold-harbor-lane, knocked at his door. After some time the door was opened by a man, and the inspectors entered. The man attempted to rush off, as if for a light, but was prevented by the inspectors, who told him they had one. The party went up stairs to a bedroom on the first floor, when the man began retching. He denied having taken poison, saying his heart was affected. Being asked about his family, he said that he had a wife and two children—the one eight years of age, and the other four; but his wife, he said, was 27. So that the description tallied mainly with that of the three who were found dead. At the same time he insisted that his family had left for the country four days previously to visit the wife’s uncle at Southampton. The neighbors, we are told, reckoned their absence only for three days. The inspectors insisted upon his accompanying them to the station house. On his way thither he spoke of his wife accused her of drunkenness and infidelity, and declared that he had been frequently obliged to leave his bed and walk the streets. During all this time the retching continued, and when he had reached the station it became so violent that a medical man was sent for. He tried to administer emetics, but it was only after a struggle that the patient consented to swallow them. In the meantime he had become so exhausted that he sat down whilst the description of the women and the two children was read to him. His fortitude or his obstinancy presently gave way, and he exclaimed at intervals, as the inspector read “ That is them.” The retching continued —the exhaustion increased—he lay down. Being asked what he had taken, he replied, “ I think it was something in the glass which was not spirits and then said, “ I know what my wife died of now—it’s prussic acid, and it was in the house. I might have taken aconite. I think I did,” a botile containing aconite has since been found in his house. Having slept some time before he awoke, he called for writting materials, and having addressed an order to a Mr. Cullooh to pay his wife and children the money due to him, ho expired before he could sign the document. It appears that this wretched man’s name w as S. W. Hunt; that for a considerable time he held the situation of traveller to a wholesale chemist; and that the only difference between the appearance of Hunt and of the man who got out at Holborn-hill on Nov. 7 was a moustache. It is true that Hunt was not in the habit of wearing a moustache, but a cab-

man has recognised the dead bbdy as a person whom he took on Not. 7 from Camberwell to Shoreditch. It may be that the moustache was assumed for the occasion. At all events, there can be no resonable doubt that this man murdered his wife and children, whatever may have been the motive which prompted him to commit the act. The singular thing is this„that he seems to have made no attempt at escape. He went back to his own house, and there waited his fate. Whether he swallowed the poison whilst the inspectors were thundering at the door it is useless to inquire ; such a fact is highly probable. But the feeble effort, almost in the agonies of death, to disguise his identity with the murderer of his wife and children, furnishes a singular illustration of the weak inconsistency of degraded humanity. He had neither self-possession enough to fly, nor yet strength to confess his iniquity. [At an inquest held on the wretched man,' the witnesses examined detailed the facts of his capture and the circumstances of his death much as they are narrated above and the jury returned a verdict of felo de Si s. His remains, in conformity with the law of the land provided in such cases were on November 13 conveyed in the custody of the coroner’s officer and Inspectors Smith and Meloy, to the Garret-lane Cemetery, Tooting, where they were interred at 12 o’clock at night. The verdict on his unfortunate victims was that they died of prussic acid, maliciously and deliberately administered.—At the inquest on the bodies of Mrs. Hunt and her two children, Harriett Blake, the unmarried sister of the former, handed to the coroner a packet of letters which she had received during the previous twelve months from the murdered woman. These letters prove beyond a doubt that from the commencement of the year down almost to the period of the murder, the unfortunate Mrs. Hunt had been apprehensive that such would be the end of her career, consequent upon the repeated threats and brutal violence of her husband. That some such suspicion was ever present to the poor creature’s mind is evident, as, in addition to her, statesment as to Hunt’s attempt to poison her, she almost invariably concludes with an injunction to her sister to keep her lett|rs. It is a singular fact that she never, in any of the letters, says one word about her children.]