, A remarkable murder has been committed this week. On
Saturday a man called at the Star Coffeehouse, Red Lion Street, Holborn, and asked for accommodation for three children, aged six, eight, and ten. They were, he said, going to Australia, but he wanted rooms for them for a few days. He obtained the rooms, saw the children on Monday, and on Tuesday put them to bed, paid all dues, and went away. On Wednesday they did not come down to breakfast, and the housemaid who went to wake them found them dead—poisoned. The rumour which followed reached the ears of a Mr. White, residing in the neighbourhood, who, out of curiosity, went to see them, and recognized them as his own. His wife had taken them away from him, and gone to live with a man named Ernest Southey, a billiard-marker, who, it may be remembered, some time since won 1,100/. from a relative of the Earl of Dudley, sent his mistress. to bully the Earl out of the money, and on her failure in that attempt, and in a subsequent action for assault, published a wild rigmarole about his own life. He had, he said, seduced Mrs. White in order to save her from a bad husband, praised himself for his care of the children, and intimated that his motive in turning billiard sharper was to get money enough to be honest. This man the police now believe to be the murderer.
