Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 29 August 1890

Notes and Comments.

The terrible tragedy at Conisborough—resulting as it has in the loss of two lives—recalls vividly to mind the ghastly affair which occurred some years ago at the neighbouring village of Bolton-on- Dearne, and that occurrence has been the subject of a good dual of gossip in the parish since the announcement of the Conisborough transaction.

In the case of the Bolton the motive was different. Reading “between the lines,” one would imagine that the deceased young man at Conisborough shot at his late landlady because of jealousy but in the Bolton tragedy the mind of the murderer was mercenarily inclined. He knew that the old man and woman who kept the Post Office and carried on the business of grocers, had private means: that they were, indeed, very comfortably circumstanced, financially. Thus it was that he in the evening of a cold winter’s day, visited the premises to put his diabolical deed into execution.

The circumstances are vividly fresh in the minds of many Boltonians to-day. They tell how the villain entered the shop and enquired for some article which was sold there and that, while the aged postmaster had his back turned in order to get the commodity, the ruffian struck him to the floor by a violent blow on the top of the head with a soldering iron.

The old lady was in a room close by and heard the noise and she had no sooner hurried into the shop than she was butchered in a similar way. What a deed! The murderer took to flight, and justice was defeated.

It shows clearly enough how greed and lust blinds the eyes and deadens the senses as to ulterior consequences: the enormity of the crime is not seen till the hands are steeps in blood and the victim lies at one’s feet. The same base spirit which caused Cam to slay Abel is still abroad—though on the decrease, let us trust.