Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/238

 230

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xii. SEPT. 19, 1903.

account for death, but one of the doctors fancied he smelt prussic acid. The stomach was submitted to chemical analysis, and prussic acid was found in it. The chemist who had supplied Tawell with prussic acid was discovered, and thus the chain of evidence was complete.

After his conviction Tawell admitted his guilt. He stated that he put the prussic acid into the porter, and that he attempted the crime the previous September, not by prussic acid, but by morphia. The statement that he was the first criminal arrested by means of the telegraph is probably correct. Suspicion having attached to him, he was followed and seen to enter a first-class car- riage at Slough in a train going to London. Information was given to the man who worked the telegraph at Slough, and signals were made to the effect that a person would arrive at Paddington (his appearance and the car- riage he was travelling in being described) who was to be watched. A policeman, in disguise, met the train, saw him leave the carriage and get into a New Road omnibus, where he was joined by the officer. At the Bank he alighted and went to the Jerusalem Coffee- House, thence down Gracechurch Street and over London Bridge to a coffee-house in the Borough. After a time he came out and went to a lodging-house in Scots Yard, kept by a Quaker. There the oilicer left him, and next dav, resuming his watch, found that Tawell riad gone. He was, however, found shortly afterwards at the Jerusalem Coffee- House, and there he was arrested. His reply to the charge was, " My status in society places me above suspicion. Thou must be mistaken in thine identity"; or, as another version has it, " you must be mistaken as to my identity." The apprehension of a mur- derer by telegraph made a great sensation, and I well remember that for a year or two afterwards jocose persons when accosted by friends replied, " Thou must be mistaken in thine identity." J in -HARD WELFORD.

MR. WELFORD is perfectly correct. The murder by Tawell, at Salt Hill, Slough, was that of a woman by poisoning. I have read a good deal about the case in the course of years, but have never seen in print a circum- stance which I was some time since assured was true, namely, that Tawell (who was a man of considerable fortune) was so confident of acquittal that he ordered his carriage and pair to be in waiting near the Assize Court at Aylesbury to convey him away after his trial. My informant stated that he was at Aylesbury at the time, and could vouch for it of his own knowledge. I need not add

that, in fact, Tawell was convicted and hanged. W. B. H.

In the Illustrated London News (vol. vi., January to June, 1845, pp. 11, 25, 46, 67, 173, 183, 199, and 203) will be found particulars of the murder of Sarah Hart by John Tawell. There are no revolting details ; he gave her prussic acid in a glass of Guinness's stout. According to the Illustrated London News, he was not originally a Quaker, but was con- verted. On his transportation for forgery, at about the age of thirty, the Society of Friends expelled him, and on his return from Australia, some years after, with a good deal of money, they declined to re-admit him, because they did not believe in the genuine- ness of his repentance. U. V. W.

The 'Annual Register' of 1845 (* Chronicle,' p. 1) commenced its record of the crime of Tawell thus :

"A murder of a very shocking character, from the cool deliberation and the mercenary motives from which it was planned, and from the position and creed of the perpetrator, was committed at Salt Hill."

And there are circumstances in the subse- quent narrative which, apart from the point that death was caused by prussic-acid poison- ing, justify the use of the word " revolting," as describing how the murderer treated his victim. A. F. R.

You were assuredly right in asserting that Tawell poisoned his mistress under circum- stances of " revolting cruelty." I have heard the details from a most trustworthy source, but they were of a kind I cannot commit to print or even to writing.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

[We insert communications representative of others we have received from those who think they know. We maintain our assertion. The full particulars of Tawell's crime were never divulged in print ; no newspaper dare give them. Not even in the "decent obscurity of a dead language," and certainly not in written or spoken English, could we convey what we know. Our readers must be content to take our assertion and that of MR. PEACOCK on trust, and seek to obtain no further information on matters that are worse than revolt- ingunutterable. ]

THE LETTERS OF DOROTHY OSBORNE (9 th S. xi 319, 385, 445 ; xii. 81). The Dr. William Rant mentioned by COL. PRIDEAUX was buried at Thorpe Market, Norfolk. The inscription to him says that after he had exercised his art with much honour and success for full twenty years, upon the 15th (nee 9th) day of September, 1653, and in the j forty-ninth year of his age, he finished the