A Real Destructive.
In the middle of the day, on Wednesday last, the neighbourhood of Trueman-street was in a state of extraordinary excitement, in consequence of an occurrence rather mysterious. The alarm was first occasioned by the breaking of a few squares of glass in Mr Helsby’s parlour window. A crowd quickly collected, and, while they idly gazed, smack went a pane in the first floor window, and anon a brace of similar glasses cracked and jingled in the attic. Up went the eyes of the wondering crowd, and, while bent thitherward in search of the cause, bang went a company of squares in the parlour casement.
Mr Helsby was quickly in the street, but he could not satisfy the hundreds who, in one breath, inquired the cause of such extensive destruction, and immediately all the sapient old women declared that there was a ghost in the house. “There!” they exclaimed, and smack went another pane, and the mob involuntarily drew back. “Nonsense,” cried a bystander, “send for a constable.”
In a few minutes Ainsworth – and there could not have been obtained a better officer – was on the spot, and at once his eyes and ears were satisfied by the smash of another pane. He looked wide, until the jingle of a whole column of squares startled him, and he went into the house, about the house, concealed himself in the nieghbouring houses, in the opposite houses, and on the roofs of the houses, but still the remaining panes went crack! crack! in irregular succession.
Ainsworth expressed his inability to fathom the mystery, but suspected that some evil disposed person was at work with an air-gun. “‘Tis no such thing,” said Bacheldor, who happened to be passing by; “don’t you see that the mischief is done in the inside? There!” and he rushed in, and pointed out the mark of a blow on the window blind.
Subsequent examination confirmed this view of the case, and suspicion quickly fell on Eliza Oates, a little girl, about 15 years of age, who had been just one hour inducted into Mr Helsby’s family as a servant. Batcheldor begged to take care of her, and on Saturday, she was placed at the bar before the sitting magistrate. Mr Helsby stated that the number of panes of glass destroyed was 47; the value of which he estimated at 50s. the prisoner denied having broken more than one pane, which, however, happened to be the one which Bacheldor discovered her in the act of thrusting at.
The father of the prisoner here came forward, and said that he would replace all the glass which had been broken. Under these circumstances, the magistrate said that he would remit any other punishment, as he conceived that if she were sent to Kirkdale, possessed of such aptitude for mischief, she might acquire more branches of education, which would not tend to increase her future felicity. the business was shortly after settled between Mr Oates and Mr Helsby, and the girl was discharged. – Liverpool Albion.
Sun (London), 14th October 1835.