A TERRIBLE STORY OF MISERY.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 65, 28 December 1878, Page 2

A TERRIBLE STORY OF MISERY.

A si 1 and shocking tale, indeed of human misery nr-pmwton. and suffering is that afforded by the history of Ellen Lanigau. She was recently sentenced at liiver|HXil to l>e hung, and who, unless the ttoyal prerogative of mercy be exercised ill her favour, will most undoutedly on the Monday after next be delivered, over to the hands of Mr. Marwood. At this season of the year, when most of us are resting from toil and trouble, and yielding ourselves up to the divine enjoyment of fresh aii ami blue sky and crisp seabreeze, it is, perhaps, as well that a simple history like that of Ellen Lanigan should bring US back again to the stem, gi-im, cruel realities of life—to the " sound of iron-footed years, and all the oppression that is done under the sun. - ' For Ellen Lanigan the mills of the gods ground exceeding small.

When, where, or how she was bom we are not told. The assize calendar —the one record of her history—describes her as being thirty years of age and of imperfect education. The former statement is conjectural merely. It means that sorrow nnd misery and want have so ground the woman down that, in ail appearance, and to the sympathetic eye of police and gaol warders, she looks thirty or thereabouts. " Of imperfect education " says more. It means that she but just knows her letters —possibly knows but few even of those—certainly can neither read nor write, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. She is, in other words, a wretched, miserable, uneducated Irishwoman—such as may be seen by hundreds in the reeking courts and alleys of our huge towns and cities —a ragged unkempt creature, who found life hard anil dreary, and who, if she over troubled her poor weary head about the scheme of the universe and the existing order of things must have sadly wondered for what good purpose she wits ever born, and why her uiisoralile existence was a thing tor which she ought to be thankful. Young, of course, she once must have been, and perhaps—like many of her nation — pretty, in spite of bare feet and rags, and the general squalor of her surroundings and of the foul Liverpool court, where sin- was born in the garret, played in the gutter and finished her education —(rod help her!—at the beer-shop and ginpalace. Girls of tilisstampif they marry at all. marry while thev are still young, and before the grace of girlhood is wholly battered and stamped out of them by the hideousatmosphereof degradation, poverty and vice in which thev move. And so. probably, while little more than a child. Ellen Lanigan married, and of this marriage—as would run the announcement had she been wife of a peer, instead of an Irish costermonger—there was issue two sons and two daughters. Of her married life we-know nothing. There was her husband and there were her four children. Perhaps Lanigan was, after the manner of his class, good to her. Perhaps she was beaten and illtreated. We are not told. All we do know, and all We need know, is that the life of a poor Liverpool Irishwoman, who has upon her hands not only her husband but four children, is a sort of salvery of which none am haveeven the conception save those who knowits great and exceeding bitterness. Trouble, too, there must have been ; for Lanigan—good husband or bqtl —became afflicted in a strange and" terrible manner, and four or more years ago, in 1873, was committed to the county asylum a hopeless lunatic. At first his wife, having her children to support, seems to have made a bravo and resolute struggle. We find her keeping a little shop, ami striving on as best she could, rate, however, and fortune were against her. A scoundrel named M'Loughlin, described as " a drunken worthless man," fell in her way, came to lodgo in her house, took charge of her shop wasted her little store, sold her few eH'octs over her head, brought her to misery, shame, and ruin, and so went his way —as such villains do—leaving her to starve. . While in this desperate plight, on the 30th of April last, she, in the Liverpool workhouse, gave birth to twins—two daughters —and was thus encumbered with a yet more hopeless and crushing burden than before. Penniless, destitute, broken down in health, with her goods sold over her head, without relation or friend to watch after or protect her, she found herself left, with six young children to face the world as best she Could. Desperation came upon her. Where was she to look for help? Her husband was a hopeless lunatic. M'Loughlin had spent her money, sold oil' her stock-in-trade ruined her, body and soul, and had gone his way. Her four children by her husband were in the charge of a certain Mrs. Fletcher, and to Mrs. Fletcher the luckless creature went for help. There she stopped three days, and on the third she left at noon, taking with her the two newlyborn infants, and accounting for her departure by saying that " she was going to put them to nurse with her own sister." Need wo tell the rest of the sad, tale I Next day the miserable woman returned without the two babes. Asked alMiut them, she answered that they had been " well looked after." " Woll looked after,;' indeed ! Two days after their bodies were found that of the one in a stagnant jukil in a deserted brickfield ; that of the other in a foul heap of ash and refuse. ('barged by the police, the womans answer was simple enough. " 1 wish,'' said she, " to tfll the truth. It was poverty and distress jiiot cruelty that made me drown my children. I put them in a imhil of water in a field off Stanley-road. I took one out soon after and thought she was not dead, but

foundshe was. I put the Wj intheashpi' of Tliisliane sheet, whan it was faun 1 remained in the fi"ld crying all uight and I have ci ied about my children every day since. 1 was destitute ; I had no huiue or lied to lie on. After my husband, Edward ljinigan, was taken to the lunatic asylum at liainhill, rive years next September, I did my utmost to Biipport my four children. 1 kept a shop, 2-t, Richmond-road, where 1 sold gingerbread and sweets. IjiM June I had a lodger named James M'Lnighlin, a plasterer anil lie took advantage of mo. I lived with him but he gave me no support, and 1 was obliged to sell everything I had. He deserted me seven weeks before the children were bom. I feel easier now that it has been found out, and I hope I may be mercifully dealt with."

There was not, wo are told and can well believe, a dry eye in court as this simple statement was read by the clerk of arraigns. Even strong men broke down before so plain, so utterly simple and hideous a tale of misery and wretchedness. The jury, it is true, had their duty to do. They returned a verdict of guilty, as they were bound by their oaths, and could not, indeed avoid doing. But they coupled with it a strong recommendation to mercy, and Sir Alexander Oockburn, before whom the case was tried, remarked that he should forward their finding to the proper quarter, together with a similar recommendation on his own account. We can hardly believe that to these representations due effect will not be given.—-English Exchange.