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two years later.

       THE ROAD HILL HOUSE MURDER

      26 April 1865

      Yesterday afternoon Sir Thomas Henry, the chief magistrate of Bow-street, received information that Miss Constance Kent, formerly of Road-hill-house, near Frome, had arrived in London from Brighton for the purpose of surrendering herself to the officers of justice as the perpetrator of the above memorable crime.

      The circumstances of this mysterious murder have never been forgotten, – how, nearly five years ago, the body of a male child, which had been missed from its cot, was found in a privy outside the house, and how, suspicion having been directed towards Miss Kent, the eldest daughter of Mr. Kent by a former wife, she was examined before the local magistrates, at the instigation of Inspectors Whicher and Williamson, of the London Detective Police, and acquitted of the charge. It is hardly a secret that nearly a year afterwards, in consequence of an alleged confession of the crime by Miss Kent to one of her relatives; another attempt to investigate the matter was made by the detective officers, who had incurred the censure of a large proportion of the press and the public for their proceedings in the case. They found it unadvisable, however, to act upon the fresh information which had reached them, and it subsequently transpired that Miss Kent had been sent to a convent in France. Nothing more of a reliable character was heard of the case until yesterday, when the startling intimation was conveyed to the chief magistrate that Miss Kent was in custody upon her own confession upon the terrible charge, having been accompanied to London by the Rev. Mr. Wagner, of St. Paul’s, Brighton, to whom she had revealed her guilt.

      Shortly before 4 o’clock Mr. Superintendent Durkin and Mr. Williamson, chief inspector of the Detective force, conducted their prisoner to the private room of Sir Thomas Henry. Miss Kent was attired in deep mourning, and wore a thick fall, which almost screened her face from view. She is slender, and much taller than she appeared to be when before in the custody of the officers. She spoke firmly, though sadly, and occupied a seat during the inquiry. She was attended by the Lady Superior of St. Mary’s Hospital, Brighton, in which establishment she had been a visitor during the last two years, and she appeared about 21 years of age.

      In 1860, Britain had been transfixed by the investigation of the murder of three-year-old Saville Kent, whose body had been found with his throat cut in the outdoor privy of his well-to-do family’s house in Wiltshire.

      The suspicions of the detective in charge of the case, Jack Whicher, had centred on the child’s half-sister, Constance, who was 16 and thought to be angry that her father had remarried. The public, however, and indeed newspapers such as The Times, thought that the police’s ideas were driven by class prejudice. Scotland Yard was forced to call off the inquiry and Whicher’s reputation never recovered. The events inspired books by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

      Constance Kent was sent to France, but in 1865 she told a clergyman, Arthur Wagner, that she had committed the crime. Although many had doubts about the validity of her confession, she was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment. After her release in 1885, she emigrated to Australia, where she died aged 100 in 1944.

       THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

      27 April 1865

      The following official telegram from Mr. Secretary Stanton has been received by the United States’ Legation in London:-

      (Via Greencastle, per Nova Scotian.)

      “Sir, – It has become my distressing duty to announce to you that last night his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was assassinated, about the hour of half-past 10 o’clock, in his private box at Ford’s Theatre, in the city. The President about 8 o’clock accompanied Mrs. Lincoln to the theatre. Another lady and gentleman were with them in the box. About half-past 10, during a pause in the performance, the assassin entered the box, the door of which was unguarded, hastily approached the President from behind, and discharged a pistol at his head. The bullet entered the back of his head and penetrated nearly through. The assassin then leaped from the box upon the stage brandishing a large knife or dagger, and exclaiming ‘Sic semper tyrannis!’ and escaped in the rear of the theatre. Immediately upon the discharge the President fell to the floor insensible, and continued in that state until 20 minutes past [7] o’clock this morning, when he breathed his last. About the same time the murder was being committed at the theatre another assassin presented himself at the door of Mr. [William] Seward’s residence, gained admission by representing he had a prescription from Mr. Seward’s physician which he was directed to see administered, and hurried up to the third story chamber, where Mr. Seward was lying. He here discovered Mr. Frederick Seward, struck him over the head, inflicting several wounds, and fracturing the skull in two places, inflicting, it is feared, mortal wounds. He then rushed into the room where Mr. Seward was in bed, attended by a young daughter and male nurse. The male attendant was stabbed through the lungs, and it is believed he will die. The assassin then struck Mr. Seward with a knife or dagger twice in the throat and twice in the face, inflicting terrible wounds. By this time Major Seward, eldest son of the Secretary, and another attendant reached the room, and rushed to the rescue of the Secretary; they were also wounded in the conflict, and the assassin escaped.”

      Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April 1865, as the American Civil War was nearing its end. His murder was part of a conspiracy aimed at the leading members of the government of the North, including Secretary of State William Seward.

      Its leader was John Wilkes Booth – a relation of the radical British politician – who came from a theatrical family in Maryland and was increasingly well-regarded in his own right as a brilliant actor with striking good looks. Then aged 26, he had supported the Confederate cause and, with a group of half-a-dozen accomplices, had already made at least one prior attempt to kidnap the President.

      The Latin tag that Booth shouted as he jumped onto the stage – ‘Ever thus to tyrants’ – was the motto of Virginia. Twelve days after his escape, he was tracked down to a farm there and killed by Union soldiers. Seward survived his wounds, while the third target, Andrew Johnson, succeeded Lincoln when the intended assassin got drunk instead of carrying out his attack.

       THE OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL

      19 November 1869

      The estimates of the cost of the undertaking which he [Ferdinand de Lesseps] himself had put forward had been doubled, and on every occasion when it became apparent that the money which had been provided was insufficient, the burden had been cast upon him of persuading the capitalists of the world to have faith in his promise, and to throw their gold into the sands where so much had been lost. All this he had gone through in the strength of his belief. Even at last, when the moment of realization seemed imminent, there arose a rumour of a new difficulty. The most careful watch that had been possible had been insufficient for the Arab and Egyptian workmen, and it was announced that a rock had been discovered in the Canal between Ismailia and Suez which would be a fatal impediment to navigation until its removal was effected. But on Wednesday the thing was done. The morning arose big with the promise of the coming event, yet, if we judge the character of M. DE LESSEPS aright, it found him undisturbed. He had been too long possessed of the certainty of faith to be tremulous on the day of fulfilment. The visitors were doubtless moved by different feelings. Some of them were not impossibly anxious for their own safety; others were flurried and nervous about the success of the scheme; all must have scanned narrowly the banks and sidings as they performed the fifty miles from Port Said to Ismailia. There is no country in the world which has seen stranger processions than the Desert between Suez and the Mediterranean, yet this most ancient of lands saw something totally unlike all that it had ever seen before in the procession of Wednesday. Forty steamers followed one another in single file along