Experiences of an army surgeon in India / by C. A. Gordon.

  • Gordon, C. A. (Charles Alexander), Sir, 1821-1899.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiences of an army surgeon in India / by C. A. Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    ]]7 inquire into the state of the man's mind. I was President of the Board so assembled, and perhaps on that account was selected by the unfortunate soldier to listen to the sad tale he had to relate. His name was Brown, at least that was the name by which he was known in the 3rd Dragoons. According to his own account, he and a bricklayer's ap- prentice of the name of (assumed or real) of Eaton, one Sunday night in 1845, while walking along Wandsworth Common, met a drunken sailor. Both of them were at the time hard up. They had been drinking, and the sight of the sailor, who seemed as if he had come olf a long voyage, tempted them to think of robbery and murder. The double crime was speedily carried into execution, and Brown related to me in all their minuteness the means by which they were perpetrated, adding that the proceeds amounted to £40 in money, together with a gold watch and chain. He further informed me that the money and watch were retained, but the chain disposed of in a shop in one of the streets near Drury lane Theatre. In order to dispose of the body a spade was robbed from a house at some distance, a grave dug, and during the darkness of night the evidence of the crime committed to the earth. But one of the murderers, haunted by his crimes, fled first from one place, then from another; and the war in the Punjaub then being in progress, enlisted, as he said, in the hope of being killed in battle. By the time he joined his regiment the first Sikh campaign had been brought to an end. For some time he was therefore obliged to undergo the monotonous routine of regimental duty in an Indian cantonment, brooding in secrecy over the one terrible crime he dared not confess. At last the second Sikh war broke out, and when the .3rd Dragoons came in contact with the enemy he rushed desperately on with no other object than meeting death. But he was foiled, and after a couple more years of dull monotony and brooding over his own secret, he determined to strike an officer, in order, as he hoped, to be tried and shot for the offence, as a soldier of the 14th Light Dragoons had shortly before been at