A REAL HANSOM CAB MYSTERY. ROBBED AND POISONED IN A MANCHESTER CAB. Conviction of the Murderer. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 366, 8 May 1889, Page 6

A REAL HANSOM CAB MYSTERY. ROBBED AND POISONED IN A MANCHESTER CAB. Conviction of the Murderer. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

London, March 22. It must have been with mixed feelings MiFergus Humo on Wednesday morning read of v bhe conviction of the Manchester murderer, Charles Parton, for a crime precisely analogous to that described in the " Mystery of a Hansom Cab." Charles Parton was (though but 18 years of age) described by his pals as a "loose fiph" anda "badegg." Heloafedaboubpub-lic-house bars and billiai-d-rooms, spending his time balking, "sharping" and swiping, and bore the enviable reputation of being up to any villainy. Some six weeks ago Parton scrapod a bar-parlour acquaintance with Mr Fletcher, a florid, elderly gentleman of bibulous tendencies, who drank more gin-and- water and wore more jewollery than was at all safe or prudent, Parton noted this jewellery, and turned over various schemes in his mind for gaining possession of it. The plan he finally adopted was indeed simplicity itself, and not — one ought in fairness to remember — intentionally murderous. Mr Parton merely waited till he met his victim "three sheets in bho wind," when he first "hocussed" him with a dose ot chloral in some beer and then got him into a cab. To strip the old man of his jewellery and empty his pockets was a simple matter, and co slip out ot the cab unobserved comparatively easy. The crime was, indeed, so ingeniously planned and cleverly executed that but for two circumstances— one attributable to Parton's own imprudence, the other to pure accident — it might have escaped detection, and the estimable young man have gone j scot free. Mr Fletcher, says the "Telegraph," in an interesting analysis of the evidence, was sufficiently given to indulgence in intoxicating liquors to justify the assumption that he had died of alcoholic poisoning, the result of habitual intemperance. As a matter of fact, that wa3 the view taken of the cause ot his death by the house-surgeon of the Manchester Infirmary, who first examined hid body when it was brought to that institution. Dr. Barker deposed on oath that, " had he not been told by the public analyst that traces of chloral had been found in the corpse, he would hare formed the opinion that death was due to alcoholic poisoning." Dr. Reynolds, another member of the Infirmary medical staff, who took part in the post-mortem examination, stated that the deceased was a bull-necked man, who had undoubtedly consumed avast quantity of ardent spirits, and whose liver was that of an habitual gin-diinker " in an early stage." Neither he nor his colleague, Dr. Barker, would swear that Mr Fletcher had not died from alcoholic poisoning. Thus, it might have been impossible for the prosecution to prove Parton'b guilt, despite his suspicious behaviour on the night of the mutder — when he sported the spoils of his victim in a Manchester publichouse bar — had not the two circumstances above referred to brought it home to him with fatal directness. The first was his theft of a bottle of chloral from a chemist's shop in Liverpool, just a week before the murder. He was identified by the tradesman in question as the very person who, on February 19th, had applied to him for forty grains of chloral, on the pretence that his mother was suffering from angina pectoris. The dose was too large to be supplied to any applicant, save on the authority of a medical prescription. The chemist, however, ultimately consented to let Parton have ten grains, and took a bottle of chloral down from a shelf for the purpose of serving him, placing it upon the counter. Whilst he was writing out a label, Parton caught up the bottle, ran off with it, and disappeai'ed. After his arrest, on suspicion of having murdered Mr Fletcher, the Liverpool chemist picked him out from among &e\en other men at the Manchester police oftfee. Possibly the fact that Parton was in popeession of a pound of chloral, obtained by nefarious means, at the time when he persuaded Mr Fletcher to drink and ride in a cab with him, might have been regarded from the strictly legal point of view merely as a piece of strong presumptive evidence in his disfavour, considered in conjunction with other incriminating matters that came to light in the course of his trial. All doubt as to his culpability, however, was removed by the testimony of a -witness who had held aloof irom the magisterial investition preceding Parton's committal on the capital chaige, but who came forward at the assizes to swear that he had seen the prisoner furtively pour the contents of a phial into one ot the two glasses of beer with which Mr Fletcher and Pai'ton were supplied at the Three Arrows public-house on the evening of the 26bh ultimo. This witness, Mr Edward Phillips, bookkeeper to the Manchester, branch of the London Dres& Company, whilst himself partaking of refreshment at the tavern bar, noticed Parton and the deceased gentleman "sitting between twotables." They called for beer, and after they had been served he saw Parton empty a small bottle, containing yellowish liquid, into one of the glasses, both of which he subsequently held up to the light, and "looked at," finally setting them down, one on each table. Mr Fletcher was talking at the time, nob looking ab his companion, and, besides, was so placed that he could not possibly have seen what Parton was about. It appears to have struck Mr Phillips that Parton was taking a dose of medicine in his beer, probably todisguise its disagresable flavour, and he gave no further thought to the occurrence until the proceedings in the Police Court, consequent upon Parton's arrest, obtained publicity. Gathering from the report that the prisoner had conveyed Mr Fletcherfrom the fish-shop outside which he had engaged him in conversation to the Three Arrows, wherehe had remained with him forsome twenty minutes, and had thence driven off with him in the cab in which the murdered man was found, later on, all but dead, Mr Phillips Avent down to the police office, and there identified Parton as the person whom he had observed pouring liquid from a small phial into a glass of beer on the occasion above , referred to. The witness had wibhheld his evidence, on the ground thab he " did nob wish to be mixed up in the case," until — the Manchester detectives having ascertained from the landlady of bhe Three Arrows that he had noticed "something sus- j picious " in connection with Parton's be- i haviour in that tavern — he was taken in hand by the authorities, and called upon bo make bhe statement which he repeated in Court on Monday last. His evidence practically cleared up the "Manchester Cab Mystery," and scaled' bhe fate of Parton. The jury added bo bheir verdict i of guilty a recommendation to mercy on ! accounb of the prisoner's youth. Whether that compassionate rider produces any t effect or not, it does not lessen or extenuabe i bhe heinousness of the crime itself, ■ Hobbs— Don't you think Quobbs quite a i promising writer ? Blobbs — I should say so, Every time he sends me a letter he promises bo pay.