A WORRIED PRIEST.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 28, 2 August 1906, Page 3

A WORRIED PRIEST.

♦— ' Quite out of the common was a case heard at Willesden Police Court, Loni don, on June 11, as a sequel to an application by a Roman CathoUc priest. Gretta Crawford, 26, school teacher, of Burlington Gardens, Acton, was oharged on a warrant with threatening Henry William Casserley, in charge of the Harlesden Roman Catholic Church. She is an Irish girl, and she oarried a huge bundle of letters and a large document. She said her name was Howard. Crawford was the name she assumed when Father Casserley desired her to represent herself as a widow some years ago. The Magistrate : Did you threaten Father Casserley. Prisoner : Why, I would not hurt a hair of his dear head, which is no reflection on him, because he has not got any. Father Casserley said that eight years ago he was visiting chaplain at St. Mary's Hospital, and whilst there prisoner was brought in suffering from tiie effects of poison, self-administered. He took an interest in her case. Since that time she had .consistently annoyed him by letters. On Saturday he received the following from her, and on that a warrant was granted : — " And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain." "And so even my telegram, the money for which I had to borrow, you wUI not answer. Very well; I keep no oath to God or man. "I have no one to disgrace. My mind is made up. I take poison. Igo into your church. I -shall clasp you tight when you don't know, and neither CampbeU, police, nor Marshall will undo my clasp until I am broken in bits. So then my name and yours will be linked, for ever, and God will send you to HeU to me because of my going there, I long for full exposure of my misery. Do your worst, you and your detectives. Angee between us is worse than Portland or Hell. May every reverent mother's love be cursed and may thousands of curses rest on any woman you have caressed or ever will. I will scream in your church, false, perjured priest. Yet one kind word, 'I forgive,' will save you. I have run to the door at every sound. For weeks I have not slept or eaten. Curse you and the day I was born J Sunday is my birthday and my deathday also. I will be worthy of my Royal namesake. The tragedy will make England ring. Since Saturday Father Casserley said he had received other open letters and postcards. On one of the envelopes was written : " I will be next, and am terribly desperate and reckless." On another postcard she said she was the priest's cousin ; on another postcard she said : "Cruel insulter of a woman who has oeen your friend.f or years. There shall bo silence for a time, and then awful thunder." Witness said he had no alternative but to prosecute. He did not, however, wish to bo vindictive, and his opinion was that the girl was mad. Prisoner : False ; you know you love another girl, Harry ! Witness said the last letter was sent because the prisonerfwas not appointed teacher in his school. Prisoner : Absurd ! He loved me once, and I loved him ; and then he caressed other women. Have you not allowed me to love you, Harry ? Prisoner was arrested by DetectiveSergeants Spencer and Chandler, and she said to them : " You come from Father Casserley. I have written some more to him to-night." The Magistrate (to prisoner) : Can you find bail or sureties ? Prisoner : No, sir. WiU you please send these keys to the school where I am engaged, because I know I shall be suspended. The Magistrate : WiU you promise to discontinue this sort of thing ? Prisoner : Yes ■/ not because I am afraid, but I am sick of the miserable coward. My sister is a nun. I, too, stayed at Father Casserley's convent at Harlesden, and there I learned he was a Don Juan among priests. AU the women were mad about him. But he is my property^ He has had the best of my life. I was only eighteen when I attempted his life. Let him teU you why I did it. The Magistrate : You will be bound over in the sum of £20 to be of good behaviour for twelve months. Prisoner : I wiU do it no more.