SECOND EDITION. SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 3789, 16 April 1875, Page 3

SECOND EDITION. SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SESSIONS. Thursday. April 15. (Before his Honor Chief Justice Prendergast) ItDRDBB* For the defence Mr Stewart addressed the jury at considerable length. He argued that Holmes’s death was caused accidentally by the prisoner when struggling over the tub of boiling water prepared for dressing the pigs. He hoped the day was not far distant when prisoners would be allowed to give evidence in their own behalf. The deceased and the prisoner were the only persons present when the former received his death-blow. If the prisoner were allowed to get into the box, he would bo able to show how the accident took place. He had no motive for injuring the deceased. He (Mr Stewart) submitted that after weighing the evidence carefully the Jury must bring in the only verdict which they oould conscientiously bring in—namely, that of “ not guilty.” The jury, after an absence of about fifteen minutes, found the prisoner “ guilty of manslaughter.” On the application of Mr Stewart, the prisoner was remanded for sentence till Monday, in order to allow the attendance of witnesses as to his character. Friday, April 16. MANSLAUGHTER. John Miller was charged with feloniously killing Catherine Ryder, on the 14th January of the present year. Prisoner pleaded not guilty, and was defended by Mr Stout. The Crown Prosecutor stated the facts of the ease, which have been previously fully reported, and are briefly as follows. Deceased was a; •woman of ill-fame, living in Clark street, off Maclaggan street, and prisoner passed the night previous to the committal of the offence in the adjoining house, occupied by a woman named Flora Carter. In the morning, deceased, who appears to have been drunk, abused Flora Carter and prisoner, and the latter took her by the arms, and threw her down a steep embankment opposite the houses. Deceased was picked up, bleeding and otherwise injured, and died ten days afterwards of peritonitis. The police took up the matter, but found considerable difficulty in proving that prisoner was the person who committed the offence, as he had since shaved off a moustache and small beard which he previously wore. The following witnesses gave evidence Dr A. J. Garland, who made a post mortem. examination of the body of deceased, finding two scalp wounds, one three inches, the other two inches in length. He also found that the organs generally were_ not in a satisfactory condition, and that the intestines and abdominal coat were much inflamed. Peritonitis was clearly the cause of death. In cross-examina-tion witness said he could not say that the disease was caused m this instance by a fall: one Oi? several things might have caused it. Death was not caused by the scalp wounds. — Ann Kenny, who lived near the scene of the occurrence and saw prisoner there; Dr Tates, surgeon at the Hospital; Flore Carter, the woman with whom prisoner stayed on the night previous. [Left sitting.]