PATHETIC TRAGEDY IN LONDON.

Evening Star, Issue 15140, 24 March 1913, Page 9

PATHETIC TRAGEDY IN LONDON.

A etranee discovery was made at a house at Upper Sydenham, London. Tradesmen .■who had called for several days in «,c----ceesiort having failed to obtain anv response, informed the police, and the "front door ins forced. At the foot of the stairs the police found the body of a servant a woman ot about fifty. Proceeding upstairs, the officers discovered the occupier of tho house, lire Sarah Wood, a bedridden lady ot eighty, lying on the-floor in an emaciated condition. She di«l shortly aft-erwards. It is believed that thoeervant fell down the stairs, and that the old lady, by a. supreme effort, left her bed, but fell on tho floor, where she lay helpless, and without food. The servant was evidently on her way upstairs with a meal when she fell, for broken crockery and food lay all abound. The two women were the scis occupants of the house. —The Inqueet.— At tho inquest, Mr Herbert Jacobs represented the executors of Mrs Wood, who •war. a daughter of Mr James Bremner. engineer, of _ Wick, Caithness, who was associated with Brunei, the famous engineer, and was of independent means. The body of Mrs Wood was identified by Miss Helen Halsall Bell, Ichtham.Kent, as that of her great-aunt. She last eaw her on December 21, when she was in Rood g»aith. She always spent the winter in bed, cut could get up without assistance. Miss Leason had been -with her twentyfive years. Dr Hugh Beadles, a police surgeon, said Mtb Wood had a few small bruises cm the right leg. The body was very emaciated. The stomach showed signs that she had •not had food for a considerable time. Death was due to exhaustion from want of nourishment. Mi-ss Leason, tho servant, had her left wrist and the second and third ribs on the left side broken. Death had been instantaneous. His opimion was that she t.ad been dead from three to five days. Tho cause of death was shock following a broken neck and injury to the spinal cord. Tho jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence in the case ofrMrs Wood, and in that of Miss Leason one of accidental death