MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR IN LONDON.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1161, 28 September 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR IN LONDON.

The Thames, the grave of so many luckless ones, the silent tomb of so many mysteries, has afforded yet another fearful horror. Among its dead it has just yielded up the corpse of a man named John Down, lately resident near Maidstone in Kent. Medical evidence establishes beyond a doubt that John Down was the victim of a foul and brutal murder. The condition of his lungs shows that his death was not due to drowning. Several wounds on the head and a deep cut over the right eye point to the conclusion that the deceased was first beaten and then thrown into the Thames. There is a curious story connected with the life of John Dow n which has just come to light. It is alleged that about two years ago, while working at the Barmingheatb Lunatic Asylum, he sustained injuries and was induced by a lawyer’s clerk to institute a claim for compensation. Down placed the case in this individual's hands, and from time to time sent him various sums of money as costs. But his ease made no progress whatever, aud, in reply to all his complaints, Down was told that the law was uecessarilly tedious, but that his claim would certainly be settled in due course. The story now runs that, at last, worn out by these endless procrastinations, Down determined on going himself to London for the purpose of confronting his legal adviser, die clerk in question. He left his home in Kent aud entered the modern Babylon, only, however, to disappear mysteriously from the ken of mortals. His body has since been east up by the Thames, and the Scotland Yard officials have the matter in hand. The case is certainly a most extraordinary one.