THE PLUMSTEAD TRAGEDY.

Evening Star, Issue 8364, 15 November 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PLUMSTEAD TRAGEDY.

A SON MURDERS HIS MOTHER’S PARAMOUR,

SERGEANT STEWART STABBED,

[From Our Special Correspondent.J London, September 2G.

The story of the Plumatead muiAer, which is at present engrossing the attention of toe poor folk of South east London, is of such a peculiarly shocking and sordid character that I have been rather doubting whether it would not bo better to pass it over altogether. At any I propose avoiding details. The bare facts are as follows :

On Saturday fortnight Mrs Lyons, the elderl. widow of an engine-fitter at Woolwlch Arsenal, who appears to have left her and two sous (now grown up) a freehold cottage and other property (which made them pretty well off for their class) resolved in an evil moment to take a holiday and go and see the military sports. On the common sho met Quartermaster - sergeant John Stewart, of the olst Field Battery of Royal Artillery, a fine strong man of thirty-three, who had been fifteen years in the service and bore an absolutely unblemished character. The sergeant, witli military gallantry, scrapsd acquaintance with Mrs Lyons, and, attracted by her good looks, escorted lu r around, Sho, for her part, was highly delighted at being in such elegant company, and presently invited the soldier home to tea. The pair must have got on at at a great rate, for Mrs Lyons declares that in the course of a few hours it was arranged she should marry the sergeant and accompany him to India when the battery sailed in November, They talked of matrimony the whole evening till, as Mrs Lyons says, she almost imagined the ceremony had come off, and when bod-time arrived there really seemed nothing specially irregular in the gallant sergeant proposing to anticipate the privileges of the coming honeymoon and share the widow’s couch. Unfortunately,

the happy pair had barely retired before the eldest son, Walter, a lad of twenty, <nven to violent fits of passion, and on this particular evening, rather drunk and quarrelsome, arrived home. On being informed by a lodger of his prospective father-in-law’s presence, Walter grew extremely angry, and chose to view the circumstances from a prosaic and moat unpleasant standpoint. Hushing upstairs, the youth hurst into his mother's room, and commenced assailing her and tho soldier with such objurgatives as tho exigencies of the situation and an intimate acquaintance with the worst class of Whitechapelc.se suggested. His mother, however, stuck to it that she and the soldier were going to be married next morning, and ordered Walter olf. As for the Sergeant he merely laughed, remarking he could kill the angry boy with a blow if he chose, and therefore shouldn’t touch him. Both Stewart and Mrs Lyons, however, eventually rose and left the house together after some further disputing. Walter Lyons was by this time mad with passion. Arming himself with a long, sharp-tipped carver lie found in tho kitchen, the young man set out to follow his errant parent. He came up with the pair just as the Sergeant was indulging his buxom partner with a fond caress, and viciously lunged at them. Quick as light the soldier whisked the woman safely behind him. “ Don’t stab yonr mother !” he cried, “ if you must stab anyone, stab me.” At the same moment ho tried to wrest away the carver. Lyons, however, was too quick for him. With a mighty thrust ho buried the knife in the heart of his adversary, who sank without even a groan to the ground, stone dead. The woman fell on her knees by the side of the corpse, and Lyons’s frenzy leaving him as suddenly as it came on, he gave himself up quietly to the police. The sympathy of a virtuous British public is entirely with young Lyons, and if the Woolwich roughs could have lynched the unfortunate widow on the Monday they would have done so. It is characteristic of tho moral obfuscation and general muddleheadedness of a certain section of by no means ill-meaning women of the lower class that Mrs Lyons cannot be made to understand that her conduct was in any way outrageous. She clings to the fact or fiction that she and the soldier were going to ha married. That being so, it was surely nobody’s business but their own if they chose to anticipate matters somewhat. Certainly poor Walter’s coming home out of temper was bad luck. Still, “ knowing as his mother was a respectable woman as alius ’ad been a respectable woman he ouahter have took our word as it was alright,” says the widow. She admits imprudence ; but nothing more. Walter Lyons entrenches himself behind tho strong question, “ What would yon do if you found your mother in bed with a soldier ? ” This had such an effect on the coroner’s jury i that they openly regretted being obliged to return a verdict of “wilful murder,” and i added thereto a strong rider recommending i Lyons to mercy on the ground of the strong provocation he had received.

Do not judge a man by the coat he wears. God madb and the tkDWr the bfbefr.