Justice has been done at last upon a vitriol-thrower. Mrs.
Peacock, wife of a jeweller's assistant, was on 6th January walk- ing down Museum Street, when some one flung vitriol in her epee, totally destroying one eni1 so injuring the other that any cold may make her totally blind. A man named John Wainwright, a den- tint, was accused, who had known the prosecutrix, and had, it was believed, written to her husband most offensive letters about her. At the trial on Thursday, before Mr. Justice Lush, a man named Deacon came forward, stated that he also was intimate with Mrs. Peacock, whom he had met in Oxford Street, and one evening on parting with her vitriol was thrown in his face, and he became totally blind. Marks of the acid were also found on prisoner's clothes. The jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. If it be really true, as seems from the evidence probable, that Wainwright had blinded both Deacon and Mrs. Peacock, the crime was worse than murder, the malice being deeper and longer sustained, and the injury at least as great.
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