Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/419

12 8.1. MAY 20, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

413 Churchyard, under date 1785. The mystery attaching to the origin of Major Charles Marsac, or Marsack, and how he was able to amass a fortune in India, within a period of about ten years, which allowed of his purchasing Caversham Park from Earl Cadogan "on the nail" at a luncheon party given by the Earl, would be very interesting to clear up. I have already gleaned a great deal of information about him through 'N. & Q.,' and perhaps we may arrive at still more.

The name of Marsac is certainly derived from Marsac in the south of France. Was there ever a family of this name settled in England?

(12 S. i. 289, 358).—The Manchester Courier, quoted in The Times on Feb. 22, 1843, stated that on Feb. 9 an old man, aged 74, named John Holden, the uncle of the man who was hanged, living at a very disreputable place called Egypt, on the right-hand side of the road between Leigh and Chowbent, finding himself on the point of death, confessed to two women, whom he called to his bedside for the purpose, that he was the perpetrator of the murder. On the following day the old man died.

A few days later (Feb. 28) The Times inserted the following:—

" The paragraph which has gone the rounds of the newspapers, stating that a man named Holden, recently deceased at Egypt, near Chowbent, Lan- cashire, had confessed before his death to two women that he was one of the perpetrators of the horrid murder at Pendleton in 1817, is entirely a fabrieation, no such confession having been made. We have seen a letter from John Pem- berton, the constable of the place, who, after making every inquiry from the two women referred to, and other parties, states that not the slightest grounds existed for such a statement, and the whole affair must have been another of the number of fabricated truths with which the Manchester Anti- Corn Law League abounds."

The letter from the constable to which The Times refers is as follows. It was printed in The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Feb. 25, 1843, p. 6, col. 7 :

MURDER TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO. - DEATH-BED CONFESSION OF A MURDERER. To the Editor of the ' Manchester Courier:

SIR, In the Manchester Courier of the 18th instant, is a paragraph which has been copied into the Globe of Tuesday 21st, and which paragraph contains an account of a man who died at a dis- reputable place called Egypt, between Leigh and Chowbent, and who, finding himself at the point of

death, called to his bedside two women, to whom- he confessed that he was the perpetrator of the- murder committed at the house of Mr. Littlewood,. at Pendleton, on Sunday the 26th of April, 1817, and for which murder the Ashcrofts and William Holden were executed at Lancaster, in the- Sep- tember following. Sir, as constable of the town- ship mentioned above, I wish to inform your readers that the statement is incorrect. I have made every inquiry in connection with the subject, and the- two women referred to positively deny that any such statement was ever made Besides, the man's^ name was Thomas and not John, as stated ; he was brother and not uncle to the William Holden who was executed ; he was not sixty years of age, and it is stated that he was seventy -f our ; it is ; also stated he died at Egypt, the fact is he resided at Egypt, which is on the Leigh and West- houghton Road, until a few weeks previous to his ; death, when he removed to a place called How- bridge, in the said township, which is Chowbent within Atherton, where he died on the 9th instant.

Requesting you will have the goodness to insert this letter, you will oblige yours,

JOHN PEMBERTON.

Chowbent, Feb. 23, 1843.

[This statement, which appeared in the last week's Courier, reached us from three different sources r each being quite consistent as to the material facts with the otner. We cheerfully give insertion to the above letter, and hope that everything therein* stated may turn out to be true ; but we, neverthe- less, consider it our duty to make further inquiries 1 into the matter. ED. C.]

I do not find any further correspondence in later issues of the Courier, so the matter ended here. A. L. HUMPHREYS.

187 Piccadilly, W.

ROCHARD, ARTIST IN WAX PORTRAITS- (12 S. i. 208). Franois Rochard was bom in France in 1793. He received in London society the nickname of " Mahogany Rochard " from the peculiar dull red he was^ so fond of using in the face. Both he and his brother were clever painters, and their miniatures are dainty in execution, accurate in drawing, but a little hot in effect. He died in 1858, his brother Simon, also a clever miniature painter, having died about eight years before. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

MACK SURNAME (12 S. i. 165, 278). There was a Col. Joseph Mack in the Hungarian- army in 1848-9. He was born in Budapest,, and died in exile in the United States in 1868..

L. L. K.

" LA BETE DU GEVAUDAN " (12 S. i. 267, 315, 350). On p. 315 MR. AUSTIN DOBSON says a picture of the beast appeared in The St. James's Chronicle for June 6-8, 1765.. This picture was reproduced in ' The Pic- torial Press : its Origin and Progress,' by Mason Jackson (Hurst & Blackett), 1885. ARTHUR BOWES*