Tuesday August 24 1824
SHOCKING MURDER
A murder of
almost unparalleled atrocity was committed last week in the county of
Tyrone. So cool-blooded and fiend-like an act it seldom falls to a
Journalist to detail, at least in our tranquil and civilised province. For
turpitude this homicide may rank with any crime to be found in the annals of
human depravity—a more damning one was never hatched in hell’s black
pandemonium; it would be difficult to conceive of greater demoralisation
than that of which it was the offspring; and it is a humiliating thought
that the monsters by whom it was perpetrated claim kindred to our species.
But it is consolatory to reflect that their detection must be speedy and
their punishment inevitable; inflexible justice which never sleeps is in
pursuit of them, and will drag them to her tribunal; for “there is no
darkness or shadow of death where the workers of such iniquity may hide
themselves.” On the morning of Wednesday the 18th instant, the body of MR.
JAMES MATHEWSON, of Kilmore, was found dead, in a waste house belonging to
MR. McBRIDE, Innkeeper, in the town of Drumquin, where it is supposed to
have been conveyed by the wretches whose ruthless cupidity the deceased was
a victim. CAPTAIN BOYLE, a Magistrate, had a inquest held upon it, three
surgeons being present, who opened it, and deposed that deceased’s death was
caused by strangulation and other violence, marks of which were evident on
his breast and back. MR. MATHEWSON had been collecting rents for
-----ECKLIN, ESQ., whose tenants he had noticed to meet him at Drumquin,
only two miles from his own residence. It appeared on evidence that several
of them had paid him on the Monday and Tuesday preceding, and that the
entire money was seen in his possession on the evening of the latter day;
but when the body was found the money was all gone, a proof that he had been
robbed, and that robbery was the incentive to the deed. A very large reward
has been offered for the discovery of the murderers, and as the Magistrates
of the neighbourhood are all on the alert, we do not think it will be
possible for them to elude the fate which they merit. The deceased was a
most respectable man, upright, industrious, and inoffensive, and he has left
a wife and five children to deplore his melancholy end.