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From the Borough of Greenwich Free Press, 14 June, 1862.
Sad affair.
Sergeant Best, 21 R., of Sydenham Station, apprehended Edward Webb,
of Willow Walk, Sydenham, beer-shop keeper, tor attempting to commit
suicide, by shooting himself with a rifle. It appeared his wife
seeing him in the act of pulling the trigger of the gun, caught hold
of it to get it away from him, when it went off, and the shots
passing through her right hand, carried away the first two fingers;
she is in the hospital in a dangerous state. Some of the shots
struck the prisoner's face, which is dreadfully scorch; and it is
doubtful whether he will not lose one eye. He is remanded for one
week. His statement was, that he went to the Derby and got drunk,
and has been drunk ever since. It is reported he did it through
jealousy.
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Sydenham Times, 17 June 1862.
Attempted Scicide.
At the Greenwich Police Court, on Friday last, Edward Webb,
landlord of the "Lads of the Village" beershop, Willow-road,
Sydenham, was charged with attempting to commit suicide by
discharging a loaded gun at his head, and by which he and his wife
narrowly escaped with their lives. The facts of the case are of an
extraordinary character. The wife of the prisoner, in the year 1847,
married a man named Thomas Sabin, the son of a farmer, by whom she
had four children. Her husband deserted her six yean afterwards and
went abroad, where it was supposed he had died. In 1857, Mrs. Sabin
deeming herself a widow, was married to the prisoner, by whom she
has a family of five children. To her astonishment about three
months since, the first husband returned to this country from Italy
to claim some property, which had been long a subject of dispute in
the Court of Chancery, and had, it appears, expressed a desire that
himself and wife should come together again. This came to the
knowledge of the prisoner, who, in his supposed wife's presence took
a loaded gun, held the muzzle of it to his head and discharged its
contents. The woman, seeing what was being attempted, ran forward,
and seizing hold of the muzzle of the gun, received part of the
contents in her hand, several shots entering the face of the
prisoner, and others penetrating the ceiling of the room in which
the affair took place. They were both subsequently attended by
medical gentlemen, and the injured woman was conveyed to Guy's
Hospital, where it was found necessary to amputate one of the
fingers of the right hand. The prisoner, when taken into custody by
police-sergeant Best, 27 R, behaved very violently, struck the
officer a heavy blow behind the left ear, and destroyed his uniform.
The prisoner, who had nothing to say in answer to the charge, was
remanded for a week.
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