DESPERATE ENCOUNTER WITH A MADMAN
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, AUSTRALIA, 6 Sept 1884
Great alarm was caused recently among the inhabitants of Berkeley Street, Lambeth Walk, by loud cries for help. It appears that a man named Edward Parrott , with his wife and three children, had lived for some time at no. 13 in the street. Parrott was a coachsmith but for the past seven months had been out of employment and he had in consequence become greatly depressed and had acted very strangely.
One morning, shortly after 10 o’clock his wife left the house to go to St. Thomas’s Hospital to try to get an order for his admission into that institution, leaving her husband in bed and having requested Mrs. McCausland, a widow, residing in the same house, to look after him. Mrs McCausland, who is nearly 50 years of age went upstairs to her room to bring down some needlework in which she was engaged. On returning she was met by Parrott who dealt her a heavy blow on the right hand with a knife. He then proceeded to attack her in a most ferocious manner and left her in an almost insensible condition.
He then rushed into the front parlour and returned brandishing a table knife in his hand and he made a blow at Mrs. McCausland’s head, but the latter, who had succeeded in regaining her feet, turned her head aside and the knife came into contact with the wall. A desperate struggle then ensued, but fortunately the woman’s cries had attracted the notice of some passers-by, who burst the door open, when they found Parrott lying in the passage, endeavouring to cut his throat. The knife was taken from him and the police were called in, who conveyed him and Mrs. McCausland to St. Thomas’s Hospital where it was found that the man had a very severe jagged wound to his throat.