I came across the following strange tale as I was perusing the Victorian newspaper archives.
It appeared in The South Wales Echo on Thursday the 3rd of February, 1887:-
AN EAST END MYSTERY
Yesterday afternoon, at the Shoreditch Town-hall, Mr. Wynne È. Baxter, coroner for the Eastern Division of Middlesex, held an inquest upon the body of a woman unknown, whose dead body was found in the Regent’s Canal on Saturday morning last.
Inspector Will watched the case on behalf of the Commissioners of Police.
THE HUSBAND’S TESTIMONY
John Peter Rice, a commercial traveller in the employ of a firm of City wine merchants, deposed that the body was that of his wife, Elizabeth, aged 28.
They had been living in furnished apartments at 192, High-street, Camden Town, but were turned out last Monday week through inability to pay the rent.
They were unable to get another room, and deceased had walked the streets for two days and nights with her baby.
He last saw the deceased alive at Lockhart’s Coffee Tavern in Charterhouse-street on the morning of Thursday last.
Witness went to sleep, and when he awoke his wife had disappeared.
WAS HE CERTAIN?
The witness was here asked by the coroner as to whether he was sure that the body in the mortuary was that of his wife, and upon his answering “to the best of his belief,” the coroner’s officer (Mr Banks) was directed to again take him to the mortuary to look again.
MARY CROUCHES EVIDENCE
Mary Crouch was then called, and she deposed that she was the landlady of the house in which Mr. and Mrs. Rice had lived.
They stopped with her for about seven weeks, and left last Saturday week.
IT WASN’T MRS. RICE
The body which was in the mortuary was not that of Mrs Rice. The latter was a small, thin woman, whilst the body in the mortuary was a big, red-faced woman.
HE WAS ALWAYS DRUNK
The man Rice was always drunk, and he had broken his wife’s heart.
Rice had been locked up for being drunk and disorderly since he left her house, and upon being taken before the magistrate last Thursday, he was unable to pay the fine.
He bad been very cruel to Mrs Rice, and she was nearly starved.
His wife was well-educated.
SHE COULD PRODUCE HER
The Witness last saw Mrs Rice alive last Monday atter she (witness) had been to the mortuary to see if she could identify the body.
Mrs Rice took tea with her, and she (witness) Could produce her at any moment.
GROSS PERJURY
The man Rice having returned, the Coroner asked him if the body was that of his wife, and was again answered, “To the best of his belief.”
The Coroner stated that there had been gross perjury committed in this case, and that he would have it in the hands of the police.
AN OPEN VERDICT
In summing up, the Coroner observed that the case was a very extraordinary one, and advised the Jury to return an open verdict, and this was accordingly done.