SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN LONDON.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4738, 11 December 1886, Page 4

SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN LONDON.

Intense excitement prevailed in the neighborhood of Fulham on 16th October owing to the report that a woman had thrown her four children into the Thames off Fulham meadows,and had also drowned herself. The name of the woman is Frances Leader, aged 32, wife of a butcher, living in Denmark road, Camber well. It appears that Mrs Leader had a slight quarrel with her husband, in consequence of which she left home with her five children, aged nine, seven, five, and three respectively, and a baby in arms. It is stated that she took a steamboat to Chelsea and proceeded to the bank of the River Thames, near Broomhouae-lane, Fulham. When she arrived there she turned to her children and said " We all have to die," and then walked into the river with her baby. The little ones left standing on the riverside were greatly alarmed, and two of them followed their mother, who had already disappeared under the water. The two other children who were left on the shore called to their brothers to come out, but without avail. One of them then said to the other, " Come in ; we have all got to die. We can only die once." The boy replied, " I shan't go in." Hia brother thereupon pushed him in, but he succeeded with great difficulty in scrambling out. The brother then walked into the river and was drowned with the rest. Thus the mother and the four children perished. The boy who escaped is aged seven. He wandered about Fulham for some time, wet and crying. The attention of some people waa soon drawn to his miserable appearance. They asked him the cause of his grief. He described to them, a3 well as he could, the awful tragedy he had witnessed. The people, on hearing this statement, which they hardly credited at first, had him conveyed to the police station. The police set to work as soon as possible to try and find the bodies by dragging the river at that part pointed out by the boy who escaped. In a ahort time the body of the boy Harry, aged nine, waa recovered, and subsequently the body of the third boy, a^ed five years. The body of Frank, aged three, was found near Putney Bridge. The bodies of the mother and baby could not be found. The four hats belonging to the children have been picked up. The husband of the woman, on hearing about the aftair, was terribly distressed. He never dreamt she had thoughts of killing herself, for they had lived happily together. Some people with whom Mr and Mrs Leader had been living said they never knew them to quarrel. Mrs Leader, it was stated, was a dull, melancholy woman, and would not speak except when spoken to. She always seemed very fond of her children, and Mr Leader had been heard to say, "There is not a more devoted wife and mother than mine." Mr Leader was also spoken well of. The only reason Mr Leader could assign for his wife's conduct was that some days proviously, when he went to her mother's house, some one said, " I saw Mr Leader and your brother out with some ladies. " Though it was only said in a joke it appeared to upset Mrs Leader. He believed that his wife took the conversation as serious. All sorts of rumors as to the real way the mother and her children met their death were afloat. By some it was auggested that aho threw the children into the water first, and then, with her baby in her arms, jumped in after them, but there seems to be some truth in the statement of the littlo boy Robert, who scrambled out.