A SHOCKING END.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2312, 14 August 1880, Page 3

A SHOCKING END.

Mr W. Carter, coroner, bold an inquest lately at the Oakficld Tavern, St. James’s road, Croydon, on the body of Jane Berkeley, an eccentric lady of property, residing at 2, Alfred villas, Thornhill road, Croydon. The deceased was found lying dead in her back parlor. It appears that she once called herself a poetess, and was in the habit of describing her dining-room as a study. During the last two years she seems to have given way to drink, resorting to the brand}'-bottle to a fearful exleut. She is known to have harboured tramps and other objectionable characters in her house, an old man named Charlesworth coming to the house daily to light the tires, make the breakfast, run errands, and do odd jobs. This old man had been trusted with money up to £SO notes, and it is also well known that the deceased once sent a girl whom she picked up out of the streets to London to get change for a £SO note, and gave the girl £5 on her return for her trouble. She only appears to have had one friend, a Mrs Handier, who it appears, however, had refrained from visiting the deceased lately because of the scandalous state of things that prevailed. In the front room gold was found, and upstairs, in a piece of paper, other money was found. There was also found a credit note from the London and Westminster Bank, Lothbury, for £I3SC ; , paid in by the deceased on the previous Friday. In the room where Mrs Berkeley was discovered were found two brandy bottles, one ompty and the other containing brandy.

The medical evidence showed that death had been caused by suffocation,through deceased falling upon her face, and that the fall was either owing to a fit or to intoxication. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with this testimony.

Five Chinamen have been arrested and remanded on suspicion ot being implicated in the Kyeburn murder. A strongly supported indictment for a revolting murder against one or two pig-tailed aliens from the bowery land might afford an interesting tost for the weak nerves of a squeamish Dunedin jury. Should they fail to hang a Chinaman, a ferocious member of the canine breed might next he tested in the dock, and should the citizen jurymen still decline, then the police had better abandon the defrauded hangman to his fate. A rather important error was made in the figures relating to Mr MeGuinness’ sweep on the C.J.O. Handicap last evening. The amounts to be divided among the starters and non-starters should have been £ISOO instead of £SOO.