Catherine made the puddings; but remarked, during the process, that the dough would not properly adhere, and when she departed she left them in a kneading-trough. The brothers, not suspecting that any mischief was intended, boiled one of the puddings for dinner, and when properly done, sat down to partake of it; but before they had swallowed three mouthfuls, they were seized with violent vomitings. Suspecting that the pudding was poisoned, they threw a small piece of it to a sow in the yard; which she had scarcely swallowed, when the poor animal was taken sick, and after lingering a short time died.
The elder brother, by the application of proper medicine, soon recovered; but the younger lingered for a long time ere he regained his health. The pudding was now analysed by a professor of chemistry, who found it to contain a large quantity of corrosive sublimate of mercury, and no other poisonous ingredient,—a fact which destroyed the defence set up by Whiting, that he had laid some nux vomica for rats, some of which he supposed had got among the meal.
For this offence Whiting was indicted at the Isle of Ely Assizes, on Thursday the 5th of March, 1811; when, in addition to the above facts, it was proved that, in the event of the Langmans’ death, he would come in for their property, in right of his wife, as the next heiress of her brothers.
The trial lasted till six o’clock in the evening, when the jury retired, and, after a deliberation of ten minutes, found the prisoner Guilty, when he was immediately sentenced to be hanged.
HARRIET MAGNIS.
TRIED FOR CHILD STEALING.
THE offence for which this woman was tried was one which, at the time of its commission, attracted a very considerable degree of attention. The child stolen was the offspring of a respectable couple living in Martin’s-lane, in the City, named Dellow; and it appears that he was playing with his little sister in the neighbourhood of his mother’s house, when he was suddenly missed, and all tidings of him were lost. A woman, it was proved, had been seen in the neighbourhood immediately before the child was lost, and suspicion rested upon her; but although the most vigilant search was made, her person could never be identified.
Suspicion first fell upon an innocent lady, the wife of a surgeon in the navy, and, after two examinations of several witnesses, all of whom mistook her person, she was committed for trial at the Old Bailey.
On her trial, however, she was acquitted, as indeed there appeared to be no proof of her identity, and the case was still pervaded by the same uncertainty as before.
At length the mystery began to develop itself. The first information received in London was from a magistrate in Gosport, acquainting Mr. and Mrs. Dellow of the discovery that their child was safe there, and ready to be delivered to its parents. The father instantly set off, and soon after returned home with his son, when he was required to appear before the Lord Mayor of London, where he found William Barber, the keeper of the Gosport prison, ready to give evidence against a woman of that town of the name of Harriet Magnis, in whose possession the child was found.