Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book II

Mr. Meates said that a man in the position of father and husband, such as prisoner was, must be able to bring an enormous influence to bear on the witnesses, traces of which there had been all through the hearing. He must, therefore, adhere to what he had already said, and prisoner would be committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The Illustrated Police Budget, London, May 27, 1899.

Appendix K

“The Bonapartes have been very much in view lately on account of a book, recently published, consisting of reports of Louis XVIII's secret agents in Paris during the Consulate in 1802 and 1803. This period is one of the most interesting in French history. Napoleon was in the very prime of his vigor and genius. His power was felt by the whole of Europe, while at home he was rebuilding what the Revolution had overthrown.

Napoleon's private character is painted in the blackest colors, in a way that only certain pages of the press with regard to Dreyfus today can equal. Hortense Bonaparte, wife of Louis, and stepdaughter of Napoleon, forms the subject of a report, her child being said to be the son of her stepfather. Talleyrand's marriage is related very spiritedly.”

Society, July 22, 1899.

(See Relation Secrète des Agents

de Louis XVIII. Paris, Plon, 1899.)

Appendix L

CONDEMNED TO DEATH.

Montbrison, 18 June.

Bordes, a workman in a foundry, has been condemned to death by the assize-court of the Loire. He murdered his daughter aged ten, and his wife. Bordes had incestuous intimacy with the little girl and unnatural connection with his wife. The assassin lived sixty-five days alone with the corpses of his victims, and it has been plainly shown that he slept on the dead body of his daughter.

The culprit feigned not to know what impulse he had obeyed killing his wife and child, but the medical testimony was unanimous to his entire responsibility.

Les Droits de l'Homme, June 19, 1899.

(For the benefit of my readers I may add that this revolting criminal was beheaded on the morning of August 7, and he died with great courage. He asked for a mass to be performed, confessed his crimes; asked for pardon; had a cup of coffee; lit a cigar, and boldly ascended the scaffold of the guillotine.)

Appendix M

A HORRIBLE CRIME.

Charleroi, July 3.

(From our own correspondent.)

Charles Lechien, a tinker, living at Jumet, was the father of six children, three being girls.

For several years past he had indulged in criminal intimacy with the eldest of his daughters, Marie, nineteen years of age.

Yesterday Lechien met his daughter at the fair of Gesselies, in the company of a young man. This caused him to be terribly jealous.

Last night, all the family were asleep in three beds, in the same room.

Lechien got up and fired three shots of a revolver at his eldest daughter, wounding her in the temple. Marie was killed instantaneously in her sleep and died without making a movement.

Her mother and the other children jumped out of bed and tried to disarm the father, but Lechien had had the time to put two bullets in his head and he then shot his last cartridge at his wife, but missed her.

The pistol now being empty, the murderer, covered in blood, wished to force one of his sons to give him some more cartridges, but he, on the contrary, got the weapon away from him.

Lechien had strength enough left to take to flight; he went and threw himself in the canal of Sars-les-Moines. His corpse was recovered this morning.

Le Petit Journal, Paris, July 4, 1899.

Appendix N

“Jean had been a master at Rocton, my father's school; he had left suddenly, and rumour said because he had been over-attentive to my mother. Jean Messel, my lover, had been, according to the gossip, my mother's lover also. Possibly it was only an idle tale, but as I watched the urbane Mr. Osborne placidly smoking his cigarette, I could not think that he was the man to speak lightly and at random on so serious a subject. Then again, Jean's hitherto inexplicable terror of my father; everything seemed to fit in. It was all very horrible, and my brain reeled as the thoughts rushed through it. I tried hard to disbelieve, but more and more surely the conviction became strong in me that it was true, and that this man, whose kisses had been so sweet upon my lips, had, twenty years ago, kissed the lips of my mother, the mother whose remembrance I cherished, through all my wickedness, beyond anything else on earth. The image of Jean, smiling, debonnaire, and handsome, swam in the misty curtain that hung before my eyes, and a great loathing for him rose up in my heart.

“The vision of the old red schoolhouse at Rocton, and the sundial garden, with its carven hedges, where I used always to imagine my mother walking, was continually with me; but now there was another figure in the garden-Jean, as I imagined him to have been twenty years ago, as handsome as a man could be. And then his arm came to be about my mother's waist; but, oh! the picture was too dreadful, and ran about the room in despairing efforts to distract my mind.”

“The Confessions of Nemesis Hunt.”

Society, London, August 12, 1899.

Appendix O

At the assizes of Troyes, Carlier, for indecently assaulting daughter who he had forced to be his mistress for nearly six years was condemned to twelve years penal servitude.

Le Journal, Paris, August 12, 1899.

Appendix P

AWFUL STORY OF A DAUGHTER'S SHAME.

One of the most horrible stories of immorality that could possibly be conceived was unfolded at the village of Cleasby, before Dr. J. S. Walton, coroner, Northallerton. It appears that a young woman named Margaret Eleanor Stott, aged twenty-three, was delivered of twins a fortnight ago, alleging the paternity of them to her father, a decrepit-looking old man of seventy-four years. Whether they were born dead or alive was open to question, but it seems that they didn't live long, for they were in the first instance placed in a box under the bed, then removed to an outhouse, and finally the whole circumstances revealed owing to the mother going to the vicar to ascertain if they could be properly buried in the church-yard. A sister, who should have proved an important witness as to the disposal of the bodies, and in fact as to whether the children were born alive, died the previous day. How it was the police were so long in obtaining information is rather strange, seeing that the affair has been the common gossip of the village for nearly a fortnight; in fact, the strange doings of the family have frequently been the cause of a good deal of gossip.

After briefly stating the facts to the jury, the coroner called:

Margaret Eleanor Stott, who stated that the children were hers by her father. They were born a fortnight ago that day, and at the birth the only person present was her sister Martha, who had died the day previously, and with whom she was sleeping. Witness had had another child two years ago, and it was still living, but the father of that was a young man at Darlington. Witness sent another sister for Mrs. Tumbull, but she was too busy to come, and no one else was sent for. This last sister referred to was but fourteen year of age, and she was sleeping with her father at the time. There were two rooms in the house, with beds in each of them. The occupants of the house were her father, herself, and two sisters and two boys. The sister who had died was nineteen, whilst the boys were aged four and two respectively. As the newly-born children did not move, her deceased sister picked them up, and put them in a little box under the bed, where they remained a day or two, after which her father buried them. Witness did not see him, but the sister who is dead told her. Witness dug them up last Monday night, and put them in a little house. In the afternoon of the same day Mrs. Smedley warned her that she would get wrong, and she then went to the vicar and asked if she could bury them in the churchyard. In reply to the coroner, she said she did not think the churchyard was the proper place at first. The boy in the house two years of age was hers, whilst the other boy belonged to an unmarried sister, Mary, aged twenty-one.