Singular Avocation and Mode of Life in London.—
In a case of assault brought before a police-court, a most extraordinary character appeared as a witness. The man is by profession a thorough subterranean rat-catcher, for the supply of those who keep sporting dogs. One-half of his life is spent in quest of prey from the whole range of the sewerage of London. Furnished with a bull’s eye lantern, a good-sized folding trap, and a short rake, he enters the main sewer, at the foot of Blackfriar’s Bridge, and pursues his dangerous avocation, waist-deep in mud and filth of every description. The sewers literally swarm with rats, which he catches by hand, and places them in his cage as easy as if they were young kittens. His underground journeys extend for miles. He has been under Newgate, and along Cheapside to the Mansion House. He has traversed from Holborn to Islington, closely inspecting all the passages that enter the grand sewer of the mighty metropolis. On one occasion, an obstruction occurred to a drain at the foot of Holborn Hill. Terms were speedily agreed upon, and our subterranean explorer started off to the foot of Blackfriar’s Bridge, and in half an hour his voice was heard down the gully-hole; he speedily cleared away the obstruction, and received his reward, thus saving the expense of breaking up the roadway. It is not, however, to the rats alone that he pays his attention; he frequently falls in with a rich prize, particularly in the City sewers. On one occasion he found a silk purse, containing gold and silver; on another a gold watch and seals, numbers of silver spoons, rings and other articles of value. He has been three times attacked with the typhus fever, but rapidly recovered on each occasion.
Death from Separation!—
A London paper tells us, that Mr. Bedford, the coroner for Westminster, held an inquest lately in Millbank Penitentiary, touching the death of Thomas Wilkinson, a convict, aged nineteen years, a clothdresser, who was found one Sunday morning lying dead and bleeding on the floor of his cell, having cut his throat with a razor which was given him to shave, during the momentary absence of the warder in charge. From the question of convict prison discipline having recently been slightly agitated in the public journals, the separate system was inquired into by the coroner, who asked Dr. Baily if he could throw any light on the case, to guide the jury as to the cause of the act. Dr. Baily thought that it was brooding over the length of his sentence, and stated further that, during eighteen years, in that prison, from 1824 to 1842, with an average of 454 prisoners, only three had committed suicide, but then their sentences were only two, three or four years. Again, in the ten years as a convict prison, from 1843 to 1853, there had been thirteen suicides. So that he thought it was more the length of the sentences than the separate confinement, although he must own that the latter would accelerate or aggravate any disease which might be on a prisoner, and also tend to suicide, by giving them an opportunity when they would be brooding over a long prospect of imprisonment. The jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased destroyed himself during a state of temporary insanity, brought on by the separate system!
We have put a few words in italics to mark the absurdity of such a verdict. (1.) No evidence of insanity is stated, except that which the fatal act furnishes. (2.) As favorable an opportunity is offered, during half of every twenty-four hours in a congregate, as in a separate prison. (3.) If it is brooding over an unusually long sentence that produces suicidal insanity, the verdict should be, that the deceased destroyed himself during a state of temporary insanity, brought on by a mistake of the law or of its administrators!
Murders in Philadelphia.—
It is our painful duty to record three deliberate and atrocious murders committed within the bounds of the city of Philadelphia since our last issue.
The first was committed in broad day, in one of the most frequented parts of the city, upon a man in his own store, and was attended with circumstances of ferocity rarely equalled. The perpetrator of the deed has not been discovered.
The second was the wanton butchery of an unoffending man, apparently without any motive, except the indulgence of a blood-thirsty malevolence.
The third was committed upon two unprotected females, and with a ferocity of which we should hope few human beings are susceptible, even in their most savage state. The only apparent motive for the cruel and dastardly deed was a pittance of money. How far the wretched monster on whom the guilt of this double murder has been fixed by the law and the testimony, may have been implicated in other deeds of blood ascribed to him by popular rumor, it is not for us to say, but we suppose there is no doubt that he was not long since a convict in the State Penitentiary at Sing Sing, N. Y., and was pardoned by the Executive of that State!