THE CHISWICK MYSTERY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6789, 28 February 1890, Page 2

THE CHISWICK MYSTERY.

♦ Suffocated on New Year's Morning. The Leprosy Fund. [Froh our London Correspondent.}. London, Jan. 10. A mystery, which threatened a few days ago to provide us with a particularly ghastly murder horror, has been strangely and yet conclusively unravelled. The following are the facts recapitulated by a Daily Telegraph man. He says : — Mrs Bryden, aged thirty-nine years, was found dead in her house at C bis wick on. the morning of New Tear's Day. She had been recently separated from her husband, who was a window-blind manufacturer, and in consequence she lived alone, except for the companionship of a female servant. ! No. 30, Linden Gardens, Chiswick, may be Bupposed not to be a very desolate neigh' bourhood, and, as a matter of fact, there was a house bo close to the one which the lady in question inhabited that a conversation going on in the hall or on the doorstep was overheard by persons next door. Three dayß before the end of December the female servant is permitted to go to Scotland to attend the funeral of a relative or friend. On the last night of tb» year Mrs Bryden is seen by a Bervant at the next house standing on her own doorstep, apparently frightened by something Mrs Bryden attracts her attention, and asks the girl if she is going into High street to tell a. policeman that he is wanted at No. 30 — Mrß Bryden'B residence. " I want to speak to him about something Very particular/ were her words ; butsnodid noi disclose to the girl what the cause of her anxiety might be. The servant posts a letter, and, not meeting a policeman, comes back. She no longer finds Mrs Bryden on, her own threshold, but the door of her house was open, and " she heard her talking to a man ; the sounds seemed to come from the drawing-room." What these sounds were is partly explained by the evidence given by Police-Constable John Hewitt. This officer was going down Linden Gardens in plain clothes, whon the I deceased called to him, aud asked him to send the first joliceumn he saw. He at once informed her that he himself wa3 a policeman, and then Mrs Bryden asked him if "he could get Bomebody to stop in the house with be, as she was alone." She added : " I have done a foolish thing. I allowed my maid to go down to Scotland on Saturday to bury a friend, and left myself alone without her." The police-officer told Mrs Bryden that ho hiuiEelf could not Bleep in the house ; and, as far as his evidence goes, it would seem that he did not make any suggestion for securing any substitute who could guard the house until the ' next morning. Unhappily the sequel of this strange story proves conclusively that Mr 3 Bryden was well justified, jn seeking protection, and in considcxing her solitude as a direct peril to her personal safety. Next day, being New Year's Day, her servant returned from Scotland about noon, and, on opening the front door with a latch-key, was surprised to find the gas still burning in the hall. On going upstairs, a terrible sight was presented. In a bedroom which Mrs Bryden had not been in the habit of using her dead body lay, undressed, and on the bed, but with no bed-clothes on it. "Her night-clothing was disarranged, and a linen bag, which usually contained her night-dress, was stuffed into her mouth." Her hands were clasped on her breast, and she was stark and cold." So far -we move within the region of some barbarous history of murder. The Bcene next shifts to the dissecting room of Dr Dodsworth, one of the police burgeons. The discovery is made that, although the body is extensively diseased, the actual cause of death is suffocation, produced by the accidental swallowing of false teeth. The whole aspect of the caso is changed. The suggestion now is that the deceased lady retired to her room with the intention of going to bed, and that, after partially undressing, she seated herself on the edge of the bed, wishing to remove her teeth. "Unfortunately they slipped down her throat, aud she then, appears to have placed her night-dress case into her mouth, as the easiest means within reach to enable her to get hold of the teeth which were choking her. Before she could effect her purpose she sceins to have been suffocated, the general unhealthinesa of her body being such that eveu a slight obstruction to breathing was sufficient to cause death. Thero is something bo incongruous in the contrast between the anticipations of murder and the real facts of the case that it is impossible not to have Bomewhat mixed feelings in reference to the catastrophe. We are sorry for the sufferer, but we cannot avoid congratulating ourselves on the issue. It would be well if all the mysteries of the Metropolis were capable of so simple an explanation. There has been enough and to spare of" gloomy tragedy in the streets of London ia the past months. A SPLENDID SUBSCRIPTION. At the subscription dinner in the Hotel Metropole, on Jan. 13, the Prince of Waleß, who had been carefully primed with facts by the indefatigable Sir Soiners Vine, made a capital speech, in the course of which he appealed to the present company to put their hands in their pockets and help the fund. His Royal Highness wound up by stating that he had just heard that a young Roman Catholic lady, a Proteßtant clergyman's daughter, was going out to Molokai forthwith to nurse the lepers. Ifc would not, he thought, be inappropriate for them !to wish her " God-speed." Sir Andrew Clark, the Bishop of London, and Mr Jonathan Hutchinson (tho famous surgeon) also spoke at some length. Meanwhile Sir Somers Vine (whose faculty for conjuring coin out of unwilling pockets is something extraordinary) canvassed the diners individually for subscriptions, and collected no less than .£2500. The Prince of Walea's expressive countenance was all smiles when the amount was announced, and he paid "our zealous aud indefatigable Secretary" a well-merited compliment. Sir Somers, blushing bashfully, then announced the fund amounted to .£7OOO, and that the Committee only wanted J25000 more to carry out their plans satisfactorily. Altogether the dinner was a great success, and a big feather in Sir Somers Vines' cap.