The inquest on the body of Dr. Kirwan, who was
found strangled on Wednesday, October 12th, in a court out of White. crossStreet, in the Borough, ended on Wednesday in a verdict of wilful murder by strangling against the three men, Balch, Waller, and Noble, who were seen with him just before his death. The case is, in many ways, a very mysterious one, and seems to point to the existence in Southwark of some- thing very like Thuggee. At about 1 o'clock on the day of his death, Dr. Kirwan entered the Lord Clyde public-house with four men. They stayed till half-past 2, and, before leaving, one of the men called for "a pot of mild and bitter," part of which Dr. Kirwan drank. He and the four men then went up a court near the public-house. The next thing known is that he was seen by a boy and girl belonging to the neigh- bourhood "lying on the ground with his head under his legs." When the police arrived, they found a white tie tied tightly round the dead man's neck, but apparently not tight enough to cause death. The post-mortem showed strangula- tion to be the sole cause of death. Later, the men who had been with him were arrested, and on one of them were found pawn-tickets which had belonged to Dr. Kirwan. Either Dr. Kirwan was drugged, or else the murderers must have been very expert stranglers. If a man resists, it is by no means an easy thing to strangle him in broad daylight.
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