ATTEMPTED MURDER.
SERVANT WITH HAMMER.
ATTACK UPON MISTRESS. . LONDON, Feb. 9. For attempting to murder her mistress by battering her skull with a coal hammer, a London maid-servant named Dorothy Foster has just been sentenced to » year's imprisonment. The case, which first came up for trial on January 10 last, presented some! peculiar features— much so that doubts were raised at the time as to the prisoner's complete sanity. According to the evidence of the in« jured woman, Mrs. Rogers, she first ongaged Foster on December 18, but she was found' to be so unsatisfactory, chiefly on account of her rudeness, that she was given notice. On December 26, at 7.30 a.m., Foster entered Mrs. Rogers' bedroom while Mrs. Rogers was stvjl asleep, awakened her, and said, " I've come •to call you, ma'am, as the r housemaid has gone to Mass." . ' • Mrs. Rogers drowsily failed to observe what the girl was. doing, until suddenly she felt a violent blow on the head. Foster had produced a ooal hammer, and methodically struck her blow after blow.-. " When shfi: struck me firat," paid Mrs. Rogers, who appeared in Court with hem head swathed in bandages, "I thought.it was a bad dream. She kept striking me on the forehead. It. was awful! I thought my skull would be knocked right in." "I screamed at her, ' For God's sake, Dorothy, don't murder :tne " Bat she only said, I'm going to do you in, because you called me a fast woman!' " , v Had you ever called her & fast woman?" the witness was . asked.
Never!" replied Mrs. Rogers, emphatically. Leaving Mrs, Rogers bleeding and, as she, imagined, dead in her bed, Foster went downstairs and calmly rang np the police. "When they ; arrived, she met them at the door with the remark, " You've oom© for me. I knocked the eld lady on the head with a hammer. She's beon calling me a fast woman for a month past." The' doctor who examined Mrs. Rogers said that she had seven wounds in her head. She had made a most remarkable recovery. '
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18631, 12 February 1924, Page 7
Word Count
344ATTEMPTED MURDER. New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18631, 12 February 1924, Page 7
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