27 MAY 1871, Page 3

A girl named Agnes Norman, a nursemaid, is under examina-

tion at the Lambeth police-court on a most extraordinary series of charges. The theory of the prosecution, which has been in- stituted on behalf of the Treasury, is that this young woman is a connoisseur in murder, has murdered five children in succession, and tried to murder a sixth, and that while in service she was constantly killing canaries, dogs, cats, and so on. The evidence is as yet incomplete, but there seems reason for the suspicion that we have here one of those strange cases of homicidal propensity which the world now-a-days explains on a theory of madness.