THE MYSTERY OF A CAB.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5532, 6 April 1896, Page 2

THE MYSTERY OF A CAB.

MUEDEK OE SUICIDE. A LOiNDON SENSATION. [From: Octb Cobbespondent.l LONDON, Peb". 14 The story." of Alfred Chipperfield, the 3'oung city clerk who was sentenced to death last: Pi-Hay for the murder of his week-old bride;, would form a promising foundation for a Zolaesqno novel of the " Theresa JJaquin" sort. Chipperfield is a cockney of cookneys, a dull unimaginative man, a fair clerk^ quiet and inoffensive at home. Dissipation of the ordinary kind was too expensive for him, but like many of his species he spent a great part of his leisure moments loafing in city bars and,, as.; he -would say, " carrying on " with. the baunaids. These danißelß are in the main exceedingly knowing, and " wide awake. They seldom part with the smallest- favour; save for a substantial consideration, and fcherr grand" end and aim in life is <to get well settled. The settlement need not necessarily be a very ambitious one. Ay clerk with £300 or ,£4OO a year would J>e quite a good match for an average' barmaid, and 1 this no doubt was what Chipperfield represented himself. After various; pbilanderings young Alfred fell head over ears in love with the barmaid at the Star Hotel in Islington. Sho finally brought him to book so effectually that he stole.*Bls of his employers' money to marry hen Tha pair were wedded in Ireland, and- then went to stay some days with the bride's foster, father at Leightbn Buzzard. ; All.this time, of course; Mrs Chipperfield thought she had done' exceedingly well for herself. Alfred seemed to hayAJ plenty of - money, and told Her he had taken rooms . for them in London. As a matter of fact HE HAD KEITHER MONET. NOB BOOMS. When they reached Euston he leant on ••' the broken reed of borrowing from a' friend, and this failing, became absolutely desperate. In such difficulties creatures of Chipperfield's chiss nearly always fly to. liquor. So the newly-ruarried pair trailed . about in a four-wheeled cab from one • publichouse to another, Alfred getting t drunker and drunker till, at length, in a jfit of frenzy, he cut his wife's throat and. ; his o-wn. Before the trial there seemed to . ;be nothing in the ghastly story of this : deed to entitle it to a distinctive place in ; the annals of crime. It was simply a hatei ful story of senseless, motiveless murden, committed apparently in the frenzy or perhaps rather, the stupour of intoxica, tion.. Its horrible details were read with a shudder and with the desirethat they might be as soon as. possible" forgotten. No other conclusion was - suggested, at the coroner'sinquest than that at which yesterday's jury have finally arrived. But the defence . gave the horriblo murder a momentary fascination. To forensic ingenuity, sup«ported, as it somehow always is, by medical opinion, these details were made to f urnisht a plausible theory of suicide. In fiction,, something has been made of the mystery of a hansom cab. By raising the- dottbfc whether -this crime was a murder too hideously vulgar in evevy detail to have a single point' of interest, or a, case of suicide, -..the lawyers suggested that there was, here 1 A MTSTEET- OF -A . FOXTR-TCHEEIiED- CAB. '•'The behaviour of Chipperfield when he brought his bride home- to- London was mysterious and alarming. It. gave no promise of happiness to- her. There seemed ]to be every reason to doubt whether she 'was to have a London home. Her husband stopped afrpubUc-houSftß,. leavinghet in, the ;cab. She was left for an hour alone in the four-wheeler;' and was, driven to confess misery and hunger to the driver,. Counsel^, for the defence were In possession bf the ugly fact that the man who in this way treated his newly - married wife was liable to arrest for embezzlement. He was clerk to a firm of Bermondsey' merchants, and -from them he had stolen a cheque and appropriated the , money. The theory of the defence was that at last, when nerved by alcohol to his' purpose of suicide, the young man confessed to his wife he was a thief, and tried to end his existence with a razor. The young woman, already in despair, took the instrument and followed his example, as the only way she saw out of her distress. This theory would hardly have borne a moment's examination, but for the evidence .of two doctors, who gave reasons for their opinion that the woman's wound was self-inflicted. This, evidence was^he more impressive, because one of the doctors had previously expressed a different opinion, and had found in- fresh' circumstantial evidence a reason for changing his mind. No doubt Dr..Bond's greater experience in forensic medicine was not the only reason with" the jury for preferring this theory of murder. The woman's screams after she was wounds", and her frantic efforts to gel; out of tK *jab were worth more than all the nT"" I theories. There was also an impro ' ii'ityof her having used her left han- . The jury put a speedy end to the mystery of the four-wheel cab, and declared it to be no mystery, but a murder. The conduct of the prisoner when sentence was passed suggests one charitable supposition—the man may be mad.