SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 3693, 23 December 1874, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

THE SOUTHLAND CIRCUIT. The young Londoner—Frederick Middleton —who was sentenced on Friday by his Honor Justice Chapman to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor, for burglary in the Club Hotel, addressed the jury in a manner quite characteristic of a native of Whitechapel. He s.iid : “ Gentlemen of the jury,—The charge I «m charged with is burglary, which 1 stoutly deny I know nothing about it. I was at the as Inspector Fox said, the night this hing w.-sdone, ard stayed in an empty hut this sale cf the place, and came back to town by the 12 o’clock train, an i when taken down next day by Sergeant Purdue, Constable Sullivan recognised me as being there before six o'clock in the morning. Mr Hume, he says he came down at seven o’clock in the morning, but he did’nt call the police ; and because he missed the same money as 1 had on me doesn’t prove that I took his money. Air Stobo, he can’t swear to his pencil, and he can’t say when his desk was broken into —only some time before ten o’clock in the morning. Harrop, he had nothing to say against me except as I had paid him for seme lodging as I owed him before. Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, there is nothing but substantial ” —lie seems to have meant circumstantial—“evidence against me; and therefore, gentlemen of the jury, I can’t see as how a verdict can be brought against me.” Judging by their verdict, all this eloquence seems to have been lost on the gentlemen of the jury.

On the 19th, on John Brennan being placed in the dock for sentence, he said—“ I am fortyfive years of age. I have nothing to say why sentence should not be passed upon me; but I wish to make a few remarks. I remember on the loth of last June having an adze in my hand, but I don’t know how it came there, and I don’t know what caused me to strike the girl with it. I saw her fall, but was not aware at the time what had done it. I then went towards the bar, and met Mrs M'Carthy, who spoke to me, and to whom 1 said. ‘ You bad better send for the police ; I think I have killed the girl.’ McCarthy then came in, and I said, ‘Jack, I think I have killed the girl Mary Hall; I have done it. ’ I wish to deny what Mrs M'Carthy s«id in the Magistrate’s Court about my having threatened her life—l never threatened her : that 1 deny- 1 loved the girl better than my life, and I must have been mad at the time ; but I have done it, and whatever punishment I may got I deserve,” His Honor: It is one of the most unaccountable offences I have heard of for a long time. You ha-vo pleaded gui'ty to having attempted to kill a ohiM—for she is nothing more—with an adze, and without assigningany reason fervour conduct. Never in the whole coui-se of my legal experience, which now extends over fo> ty yea>s, have I met with a more cruel, barbarous, or revolting crime than this which you have committed. for it was wholly unprovoked. To have done to a cat or a dog whit you have done to a helpless girl would have been the mark of a cruel and depraved mind, I believe you have been a hea >y drinker, and I can only account for what you have done by concluding that your mind has become disordered and corrupted by this habit of drinking. Under these circumstances you are a dangerous person to be abioad, and the sentence of the Cour will therefore be a severe one, but not so much so as it would have been some, years ago, when such crimes w'6'pe punishable,' and yfteli punished, with death. It is as near a murder ns anything could <

be, because the girl’s life can only have been ip ti ed—under Providence—by some peculiarity of constitution, which has saved her life, and vours also, for if she had died you would have been sentenced to death. I say that you are a dangerous person to be left abroad, and the sentence of the Court is that you be kept in penal servitude for the term of your natural life.