Mr. Vaughan, at Bow Street, has before him a case
in many respects unique. A clerk in the Dead-Letter Office recently opened a letter which struck him as so extraordinary that he re- ferred it to his superiors, who communicated with the police. Inquiries were made, and it was discovered that a Mrs. Helen Snee, aged thirty, whose husband is abroad, had advertised for a medical man, promising to pay liberally, for professional assistance in an interesting experiment. The advertise- ment was answered by a Mr. William Kimpton Vance, a medical student, and it appeared from the letter, and from a number of other letters subsequently seized by the police, that the lady wanted poison either to kill herself or some one else, and that the gentleman forwarded to her prussic acid, chloral, and minute directions how to use them without raising suspicion or causing an inquest. Mrs. Snee asserts in her letters that she intended to destroy herself, and Mr. Vance writes entirely on that supposition ; but the police evidently sus- pect an intention to murder, and are producing evidence as to property to be acquired in a certain event. It is needless to say the crime, as far as Vance is concerned, would be the same in either case. The trial will probably be a cause calibre, the hiring of medical assistance in that way, whether for suicide or murder, being new in our criminal annals.
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