Some pretty horrible cases found their way into the courts of the Victorian metropolis, and quite of few of them make horrifying and uncomfortable reading even today, separated as we are from those long ago events by the passage of over a hundred years.
The Bristol Daily Post, in its edition of Thursday the 13th of September 1860, carried the following account of one such case:-
A FEMALE CANNIBAL
A woman named Catherine Simpson, apparently about 33, was charged before Mr. Knox, at the Worship-street Police Court, London, with the following atrocious outrage:-
About three weeks ago the prosecutrix, a married woman, named Anne Atkins, was in the London Hospital, and it was thought that she could not survive her injuries.
ANNE ATKINS IN COURT
On her now attending from the hospital she was so ill and exhausted that she was obliged to be seated while giving her evidence, the whole centre of her face being covered with a surgical bandage, and that again by a handkerchief.
On catching sight of the prisoner she leant forward, turning from her, repulsively, and the sound of the prisoner’s voice so affected her that Mr. Knox asked her not to turn her head towards the dock, and ordered an officer to stand between them.
HER TESTIMONY
The poor woman, who sobbed hysterically, said:-
“I live in Dorchester-street, Spitalfields, and at one o’clock of the day when this occurred I came down stairs to shake a small carpet, and the prisoner came to me and asked me how I came to be with her husband the night before. I told her that I had spoken to a young woman who was talking to a man, but that I did not know he was her husband.
She called me everything vile that she could lay her tongue to, to which I answered that I was a married woman. She upon that spat in my face, for which I smacked her face, went into the passage, and said no more.
She followed me, saying nothing, but came before me suddenly, and then bit my nose right off.
I was taken to the hospital directly, and have remained there ever since.
Two persons were present when she did this.
I bled frightfully, suffered the greatest pain, and am going back to the hospital as soon as this examination is over.
CROSS-EXAMINED BY THE PRISONER
The prisoner cross-examined her, in order to prove that she (the prosecutrix) was frequently talking to the defendant’s husband, that she did so on the night in question, that the prosecutrix struck her twice, and that she did not spit in her face.
The prosecutrix, however, positively denied all this, and declared that, though she spoke to the man while he was talking to the young woman, she did not know that the man was the prisoner’s husband.
The witness was then carried back to the hospital.
THE DAUGHTER’S EVIDENCE
Elizabeth Atkins, prosecutrix’s daughter, said:-
On coming home I found my mother and the prisoner quarrelling, and the prisoner accused my mother of going to a bad house with her husband.
My mother offered to fetch the girl who was talking to the prisoner’s husband, but I said I would do so, and did so, and the girl herself told the prisoner it was she who had been talking to him.
The prisoner immediately spat in the face of my mother, who slapped her’s; and the prisoner, who pulled off her bonnet, followed my mother, stood face to face with her, and said, “Perhaps you will slap my face again?”
My mother told her that she would if she struck her again, and the prisoner instantly placed her hands on my mother’s shoulders, and bit her nose clean off; I picked up the nose in the passage, and gave it to the police, who took it to the hospital.
My mother fell, and the prisoner, whose own nose was dashed over with blood, was secured and held by my father till a constable could take her.
MRS. COX’S TESTIMONY
A married woman named Cox said that the prosecutrix slapped the prisoner’s face from irritation at the imputation she cast upon her, and, after describing the quarrel in somewhat similar terms to those of the other witnesses, added, “I saw the prisoner open her mouth, and then I saw the prosecutrix’s nose in her mouth.
I directly put my hands before my eyes to hide the sight, and screamed and ran into the street for a constable.
I went to the hospital with the prosecutrix, who was bleeding very much.”
THE DOCTOR’S EVIDENCE
Mr. George Payne, house surgeon to the London Hospital stated that:-
“The prosecutrix was brought to our hospital bleeding very much from the face, which was greatly lacerated; her nose was gone entirely down to the bone, and I should say from a bite.
She fainted, and I had her carried instantly to the wards.
She went on well for two days, but then became delirious, and, as erysipelas had set in, I much feared she would lose her life.
She has since gradually recovered, but is not now out of danger, and has only just got out of bed to come here.
There had been a great loss of blood before she was brought to the hospital, and on getting there she was nearly pulseless.
THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
The prisoner’s defence was, that she did it in self-defence, and that the prosecutrix had her arms up to bite her; but Mr. Knox remanded her for the formal completion of the depositions.
A PROPENSITY FOR BITING
It was mentioned at the first examination that the prisoner had been punished on some former occasion for severely biting an officer, and that her husband had separated from her in consequence of her biting propensities.
HER FINAL SENTENCE
Later that month the case was heard at the Old Bailey, and The Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette reported on the outcome in its edition of Thursday the 27th of September 1860:-
The female cannibal, who was brought up at one of the London Police-courts the other day, on a charge of biting off the nose of another woman, was on Thursday tried at the Central Criminal Court, and sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour in the House of Correction.