An extraordinary case of heartlessness was tried on Wednesday before
Baron Cleasby. Frances Alice Whimper, aged 18, was on 11th April a nurse in the house of Mr. Brehm, grocer, of Spitalfields, and in company with Ellen Toohey, a girl of 15, employed as housemaid, went up to her mistress's bed-room, opened the drawers and took out some money, and then broke open a box in the assistant's bed-room. There seems to have been some difficulty about this box, for Toohey, who seems to have been at first a consenting party, exclaimed, "This is a judgment upon us !" Thereupon Whimper remarked that she should murder the assistant, whose box it was ; and on Toohey dissuading her, said she should fire the house, clearly to get rid of the evidence. She did fire it, without removing two children, her charges, who were sleeping near, and who were saved by Toohey, who subsequently gave information to the police. Whimper, who seems to have committed arson, and very nearly murder, because, as she said, "she would rather take poison than be sent to prison," was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, and Toohey was acquitted.
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