THE PENGE MURDERERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 489, 22 November 1877, Page 2

THE PENGE MURDERERS.

We have lately hoard a good deal by | means of the telegraph wires about the ; Penge murderers, and of the excitement which prevailed over their trials and sentence to death. The whole- story in very well told by the London corespondent of the Timai'u Herald, and as many of our readers are doubtless in a blissful state of ignorance- as to the nature of tho case, we publish the following particulars, as supplied by the correspondent referred to: This week has witnessed tho conclusion of another legal drama at the Old Bailey, which has exceeded in interest even that famous one of the autumn of 1875, in whic'i Henry Wainwright was convicted of the murder of his mistress, Harriet Line. The facts of the case- which has just been tried are briefly as follows: In June. 1875, Miss Harriet Richardson, aged 'jl—a lady of weak intellect amino great personal beauty, but possessed of about L' 2.000, and entitled in reversion to a hunt L' 2,000 more on the death of an old lady —was married to Louis .Staunton, aged !iL an auctioneer, living at Longborougli Road, in the south of London.

In March, 1870, Airs. Louis Staunton presented her husband with a son, and about the same time a girl named AliceRhodes presented him with a mistress. In August, 1870, Harriet Staunton (vec Richardson) was sent to reside at Frith Cottage, in a lonely spot about a mile from the village of Oudham, Rent. She was t'-ero the guest (or rather lodger, for her husband paid LI a week on her behalf) n f Patrick Staunton, the brother of Louis Staunton, and Mrs. Patrick Staunton, the sister of Alice Rhodes. P,y the end of October, IN7<», Louis Staunton, with the ostensible concurrenceof his wife, had sold her reversionary L' 2.000 for LI,IOO, and had so possessed hiuisilfnf the last, farthing of her property. With the money lie so obta.ncd, lie opened a house at dray's Farms, a mile and more from Fibh cottage, where his wife was living, lie was fond of his brother Patrick, and Alice Ixhodes was fond of Iter sister Mrs. Patrick; it was pleasant therefore that both he and she should reside near Frith cottage. They did reside together at ("Jivy's Farm, and passed themselves oil* as man and wife. It might have been supposed that Harriet Staunton, the real wife, would soon publish abroad the true relationship of her l-.nr.band and Alice R!i. des, for was she not living within a mile of them I Not so, however. Harriet Staunton had c- ased to live in any active sense, and was now confined almost exclusively to one room From tie' time her husband received her last shilling slit! had no communication with the outer world. I'.Mkeilspirited bv insufficiency of food, of warmth and of air, and by her husband's cruel neglect, she was at last eonllned to a wretched bedroom not l'l f.-et square, where there was but one lire for one day only through the whole winter, where the'ro was hard'y any furnitnre, and where the. e was no provision of any kind for washing. This miserable retreat was at nii.'ht shared by the poor lady's one baby, and by the servant girl and one of Mrs. Patrick's small children.

On the St!i <>f April, 1877, little Tommy, Hie dying lady's baby, was taken from her to Guy's' Hospital, where In; was* entered under a falsi! naim\ and entered jnstin time. for ho died the next, niornillLT. On the morning <>f April the 12th, Mr. Louis Staunton look lodgings at Penge for an invalid lady (one of whose symptoms waa a repugnance to food !) whom lie intended to bring up from the eountry for the benefit of fresh medic d advice. On the evening of the same day 1 larriet Staunton, arcompinied l»y her liiihlkiiiil, Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Staunton, and Alice lihodus, arrived at the lodgi igs. Slie was put to bed, and a nurse was sent for and one doctor. The doctor was out at .a dime, and, though lie was sent for repeatedly, no effort was mule tolindany other to tnke his place. Tim next morniiv.r Harriet Staunton died. Tim (ilthv state, of her body, her emaciated condition, and oilier circmnstaneen, having aroused suspicion, an iuqnowt was held. ° Four doctors examined the body, and pronounced that death had been caused by starvation. The post mortem was attended by a surgeon on behalf of the sorrowing widower and his relations, and at the "trial that surgeon was not c-d'ed as a witness for the defence.

The two brothers Staunton, and tho two sisters. Mrs. Patrick .Staunton and Alice Uliodes, where i>nt. upon their trial for murder a*, tin; C nhal Criminal Court yesterday week. From 1 a'l'-P'ist 10 yesterday iiioniiii'4 <iH nearly 10 a I, niidit, with on'v two s'loi't. intervals for refreshment, Mi'. Justice Hawkins was summing up t'>eevideiic\ Rather heforeniidnitrht, t'<e jury returned l<» yive tin ir verdict. Ju lire and prisoners wore sent for. Tlio chatter which, to th.it moment, had provailed in Court, wmh now (piiekly lniHlpMl, and a dead silence, broken unly hy tlio bourse cries of t'i« «i-')it niol) outside, was kept while the Clerk of Arraigns read over the names of t e prisoners one hy one, and to each name the verdict of "Guilty" was returned. Then put on the Mack cun, and pronounced sentence of death. With very nnmco«, s-u-v barbarity. Mr. .Tiihljo s Hawkins lit to dibit", '"' the severest terms that lan-mure could supply, upon 1 he enormity of the offence for which the prisoners were to die; and he ev>n went further, and expressed his own conviction that they had heen «nil»y also of tlio murder <if Mrs. Harriot Staunton's baby, for which they had not heen tried, When he referred to the reommeii lition to mercy which had heen g'v n en-behalf of the two female prisoners, Alice llliud ■ fainted, and Mr§. Patrick Staunton was

supported caadltiW'-t-O-tlie back of the" dock. ._TJien came the sentence itself, coliehed in-the old-pedantic-form of stilted language, cold, length}', and terrible. Whilst it was being delivered, Patrick Staunton twitched convulsively and seemed likely to fall, while Louis stared fixedly in front of him, appearing completely dazed by the terror of his position. The glad tidings of hanging and misery soon reached the street, and as the wretched prisoners were led down from the dock, loud cheers, which their fate evoked from outside, struck upon their ears.

I must be forgiven for dwelling on these delightfully harrowing details. It is part of my education as an Englishman to make the most of such morsels. We spend millions a year to educate the masses by teaching them to read, and then let them feed their minds with such delicacies as their tastes take most delight in. This morning I applied to three street hawkers in succession for the Daily Telegraph and the Standard and could get nothing but the Daily Neics, because the rush of business at the offices of the two former papers had been two great for the hawkers to obtain a single ccpy ! It is observable that the proceedings during this memorable trial wire decorated by the presence of a large number of fashionably dressed ladies, for whom seats were reserved on the Bench and elsewhere. With that delicacy of feeling which so well becomes the wives of City magnates, whose purses are much longer than their pedigrees, these gorgeous females amused themselves in Court by scrutinising the prisoners through their ' opera glasses, reading the last number of Punch, iind offering other signs of their tender compassion for the victims of sin, who formed the centre of the day's sport. When Mrs. Patrick Staunton, on the morning of the fifth day, went into hysterics, and Alice Rhodes made the old Court echo with her convulsive sobs, the City ladies shuddered becomingly ; and when luncheon time ariived they sharpened the edges of ti eir fine appetites and fortifitd their nerves with bumpers of champagne, which they consumed in open Court. What a chronicle ! What a tale of first fruils for the culture, enlightenment, and opulence of the City of London ! !

[lt will be remembered that a cablegram recently announced that Alice Rhodes had been granttd a free pardon, and that the sentence of the Stauntons had been commuted to p«-nal servitude for life.]