Lynchburg Virginian

DOMESTIC.

Philadelphia, Sept. 21.

On Saturday morning, about nine o'clock, the neighborhood of Thirteenth and Broad streets was thrown into the utmost consternation by the report of a woman, named Rebecca M'Kinley, having attempted to kill her husband with a knife. Pae, the constable of the district, was immediately applied to by the neighbors, and on entering the house of M'Kinley, found the latter lying on the floor, the blood pouring in torrents from a wound of the most desperate description on his right side just below the arm. The prisoner, his wife, who was standing by, instantly confessed that she had done the horrid deed, on which the officer removed her to Arch street prison, though contrary to the urgent request of the husband, who begged that she might be allowed to stay with him.

M'Kinley, after being examined by a surgeon, who pronounced the wound of the most dangerous character, was taken to the Hospital in a hopeless situation. When he reached the operating room of that institution, the bandages which had been hastily applied to the wound, were removed and the blood spirted out upon the floor a distance of several feet, until immediate measures were adopted by the skilful surgeons of the establishment to staunch the bleeding. It now appeared that one of the principal arteries of the body had been severed, and that the patient lay in a condition of extreme danger.

This morning, Rebecca M'Kinley was brought before the Mayor, to undergo an examination on a charge of attempting to kill her husband. She appeared to be about fifty years of age, of tolerable good appearance, and seemed to be but little affected at the dreadful situation in which she found herself. The foregoing facts, in evidence, having been obtained from Pae, the officer who committed her, the prisoner was called up to the stand. She said her husband had been in the habit of beating her in the most brutal manner, even when she was in the most delicate situation; that her friends, when they came to visit her, were violently abused by her husband, who, on one occasion, threw a shoemaker's hammer at two of her female acquaintances as they were going upstairs, and with such force as to knock off a large splinter from the staircase. He had, only last winter, been committed to prison for a brutal assault upon her. When asked how she came to stab her husband so severely, she stated that on Sunday morning, just as they were sitting down to breakfast, her husband beat her violently in the face, on which she said to him, "John, if you hit me again, I'll stick you." Her husband then approached her in a menacing attitude, on which she picked up a case-knife from the breakfast table, and covering her eyes with one hand, held out the knife in the direction in which he was approaching. He came in, and receiving the knife in his heart, immediately fell on the floor. She said nothing was farther from her thoughts than desiring to injure her husband, and that she committed the deed entirely in self defence. There was no one in the room with them at the time. Her husband's name was John J. M'Kinley, and is a native of the State of Delaware. Prisoner was born in Philadelphia, and has a mother who lives at Darby.

The prisoner was ordered to be committed to prison, to wait the event of her husband's life or death, and was at the same time directed by the Mayor to have her two young children provided for by some of her friends. One of them is seven years old, the other an infant of about twelve months. She was then conducted out of the office, to all appearance very little affected by the serious charge preferred against her—probably owing to her ignorance of her real danger.

Tuesday, Sept 22.—John J. M'Kinley died last night at 11 o'clock, at the Hospital, from the effects of the wound received at the hands of his wife on Sunday morning. A coroner's inquest was held over the body in the course of to-day. The wife still remains in prison. To add to the horror of her situation, she is within a few months of confinement.

[Chronicle.]