THE WORCESTER Journal for this week 250 years ago carried three items of a lurid and disturbing nature.

Here are those short reports from 1752: " Fred Dogger, a labouring man, was employed to kill a cat, to which effect he took it by the hind legs and bashed its head against a wall.

However, the cat immediately seized him by the hand and bit and tore it most terribly.

At last, however, the cat was killed, and the poor fellow had to see a surgeon with his hand, but his blood was so poisoned by the venom of the cat that he died later the same afternoon."

"A melancholy circumstance happened on Wednesday night last. A stage waggon from this city was overturned into a pool at Newland, about five miles from hence through the inattention of the driver in leaving the care of the horses to a little boy, while he stopped behind to drink.

A great part of the load was spoiled by the water, and one of the horses had a leg broken and was obliged to be killed.

The waggon, being extricated, proceeded on its journey when the unfortunate boy who had been imprudently permitted to sleep in the hay bag, was shaken out and crushed to death by one of the wheels going over his head."

"Last week, a servant girl at Astwood in the Parish of Claines took a large dose of Arsenick which effectually relieved her from a Malady of Love wherein, it is supposed, certain unfortunate circumstances had rendered life very burdensome to her."