1871 - Proceedings of the Old Bailey (2)

From International Robin Hood Bibliography
Record
Date 1871
Topic Victims of theft at Pindar Place (Grays Inn Road)
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The Pindar of Wakefield (328 Grays Inn Road), now The Water Rats.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-01-16. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-08.

Record

[10 Jul. 1871:]
JOSEPH WILKS (Policeman G 234). On 27th April, about 10.45, I was called to 9, Wicklow Street, and saw Mrs. Bailey and Dr. Purcell—the prisoner was there; he smelt very strong of drink, and appeared very much excited—I saw the deceased lying on the floor, on her back, with her hands and feet quite straight—while the doctor was examining her neck, the prisoner said to him "I will tell you just how it was, Sir. This was a mutual arrangement between ourselves; last night we were both going to hang ourselves, but Mrs. Bailey came in, so we went to bed and agreed to get up and do it in the morning; about 7.30 I went to the Pindar of Wakefield, to get some rum, because we were going to have something to drink before we did it, and when I came back I found she had forestalled me; and seeing my wife dead, I then tried to make away with myself, but I found I could not do it in the bed room, so I went down in the washhouse and tried to do it there; but Mrs. Bailey came in and prevented me, and I am very sorry for it, because we both meant to die together, because we had been making away with other people's things; and, to avoid an exposure, we made up our minds to hang ourselves"—I took him down stairs, and be tried to force his way up stairs again several times, while the doctor was examining the woman—I asked him what he wanted to go up stairs for, and he said to see what they were doing, because the witness and the doctor might make any tale against him—in the first part of the conversation, he said "If you will follow me, I will tell you how we were going to do it the night before"—I followed him to the washhouse; he got the piece of wood, went up, and placed it crossways on the canopy at the top of the bedstead, and said "I was going to hang at one end, and she at the other" pointing out that he was to hang agin the door, and she agin the fire-place, which was at the side of the bed—I believe the wood was strong enough for them to have done so, but I think the canopy would have toppled over.

Cross-examined by MR. STRAIGHT. Q. The Pindar is about 200 yards from where they lived—he was very much excited, and his breath smelt of rum, or some spirits—I am certain he said that they had arranged to do it the day before, but Mrs. Bailey had interrupted them. [1]

Source notes

IRHB has silently regularized the use of spaces before punctuation marks in the quotation and corrected the HTML text at Proceedings of the Old Bailey from the PDF of the original printed edition.

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