A Criminal Record.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 233, 26 February 1876, Page 6

A Criminal Record.

SOME RECENT CRIMES AND CRIMINAL TRIALS. FROM GREEN"ACRE TO WAINWRIGHT. (From the Glasgow Herald.) 1837. —ln the spring of this year.quiet, goodliving people, making up what is known as society, were shocked to hear that human remains had been found scattered along such a public place as the Edgeware-road. The remains were identified as far as possible as those of one Hannah Brown, and guilt was traced to James Greenacre and a woman with whom he cohabited, known throughout the trial as Sarah Gale. According to Greenacre’s own account, Hannah Brown was last alive in his company at a place known as Carpenter’s Buildings on Christmas Eve. By kicking the chair on which she was tilting backward and forward he caused her to fall with such violence as to produce instantaneous death. Being much alarmed thereafter, he mutilated the corpse, and carried the head, trunk, and limbs to where they were afterwards found. The trial took place before Chief Justice Tindal and Justices Coltman, Coleridge, and the Recorder on 10th April, 1837, the special charge against the female prisoner Sarah Gale being that she had aided and comforted Greenacre. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty against both parties. Greenacre was executed 2nd May—a Tuesday morning. It was said he hesitated on the scaffold, gave the rope round his neck a pull to make it tighter, and within two minutes was dead. 1838. —The mysterious murder of Eliza Grimwood, found in her bedroom, in a small street leading off the Waterloo-road.. She was wounded in several but the immediate cause of death was a wound in the neck, extending nearly from ear to ear, and severing the windpipe. Her left thumb was also cut, as if she had struggled with the murderer. The unfortunate woman lived with a person named Hubbard, a bricklayer, separated from his wife, and had been in the habit of taking persons home with her from the theatres. On the Friday night she was said to have met with a person in the Strand, who had the look of a foreigner, and dressed like a gentleman. He was not afterwards seen, and how or when he left the house was never ascertained. 1840 —May 6. —Lord William Russell found 'murdered in his bedroom, No. 14 Norfolkstreet, Park-lane. “This morning (said the housemaid) I rose about half-past six, and

went down stairs about a quarter before seven o’clock. I went into the back drawingroom, and there I saw his Lordship’s writing-desk broken open, and his keys and papers lying on the carpet. I opened the diningroom, and found the drawers open, and the candlesticks and several other pieces of plate lying on the floor. I ran up stairs and told my neighbor servant, the cook, with whom I slept, what had happened. I also told the valet, who slept in an adjoining room, and asked him what he had been doing with the silver, for it was lying all about. He said he had been doing nothing with it, but he got up and went down stairs, when he declared the place had been robbed. I then said, ‘ For God’s sake go and see where his Lordship is.’ He went to his Lordship’s room, and I followed him, when, on opening the shutters, we found his Lordship in bed murdered. We then ran into the street, and alarmed some of the neighbors.” The valet Courvoiser tried June, 1840, sentenced to death, and executed 6th July. 1841— April 14.—Dennis Doolan and Patrick Redding, executed near Bishopsgate, Glasgow, for the murder of Green, a sub-con-tractor or “ganger” on the new railway then being formed between Edinburgh and Glasgow. 1842 April 6.—The police discover in the stable of Garnard Lodge, Roehampton, London, part of the body of a female. The police were drawn to the place in consequence of a pawnbroker in Wandsworth having charged the coachman Good with stealing a pair of trousers from his shop. Good evinced great concern when the officers entered the stables in search of the missing garment, and when their attention was directed to the fourth stall he suddenly rushed out, locked the door upon them, and fled. In that stall, beneath a little hay, they found an object which at first they could not understand, but which turned out to be the trunk of a female with the head and limbs cut off, the abdomen cut open, and the entrails extracted. The whole of the cuts through the flesh had been made with, a sharp knife, but bones were hacked with some blunt instrument. The stable door was at once burst open, the alarm given, and on further search a quantity of burnt bones belonging to the body was discovered in the fireplace of the harness-room. It was impossible to identify the remains, but from inquiries instantly set on foot there was no doubt they were those of a woman brought by Good or his wife to the Lodge the preceding Sunday. At the inquest the jury found the body to be that of Jane Jones, or Good, and that Daniel Good had -wilfully murdered her. Good eluded pursuit for nearly a fortnight, but was then discovered working as a bricklayer’s laborer at Tunbridge by a man who had formerly been in the police force at Wandsworth. He was at once taken before the magistrate. While under examination he took a comb from his pocket, and with it turned back the hair from his forehead, as if to hide a bald place—a circumstance which corresponded with a known peculiarity of the murderer Good. He persisted in stating his name was O’Connor, and that he knew nothing about the murder. Tried along with a woman known as Mary or “ Mall” Good May 14, and sentenced to be executed. “ Good night,” he said, “ all ladies and gentlemen in the court. I have a great deal more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it.” Executed May 23. 1845. —The Tawell murder at Salt Hill, near Slough, Windsor. Sarah Hart was found lying on the floor of her house almost insensible by one of her neighbors, who had been attracted to the spot by a noise resembling stifled screams. On approaching the house, she heard the door shut, and saw a man dressed like a Quaker walk along the path leading to the highway. He appeared to be greatly confused, and trembled very much. While he was opening the gate leading into the high road, she asked him what was the matter with her neighbor, but he made no reply, and hurried onwards in the direction of Slough. This was John Tawell, at one time a member of the Society of Friends, but more recently engaged in business in Sydney, to the neighborhood of which he had been transported for forgery on the Uxbridge Bank. His good conduct while in the colony obtained for him a ticket-of-leave after serving seven years—the third part of his time—and he set up business as a chemist and druggist, by which he amassed considerable wealth. He now resided at Berlchamstead, where he was held in fair respect, and generally reputed to be a man of property. From the suspicious circumstances attending the death of the woman Sarah Hart, a description of his person was at once telegraphed from Slough to London. He was watched on his arrival, and apprehended next day by a policeman, who closely followed him to every place he went. Tawell then denied having been to Slough, or knowing any one there. On being handed over to the custody of the Berkshire police, he admitted that the murdered woman had been in his service at one time, and that he had lately received letters pressing for money to support her children. Tried 12th March, found guilty, and executed at Aylesbury on the 28th of the same month, 1847—August 18.—Murder of the Duchess de Choiseul Praslin. This lady, the mother of nine children, was the only daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, formerly French Ambassador at the British Court. She left Paris at the beginning of the preceding week to visit her estate at Praslin, and be present at the distribution of the prizes of a school in which two of her children were being educated, and returned to town on Tuesday evening. She intended to pass only one night in her hotel, and was to have left on the 17tli with the Duke, her husband, for Dieppe, whither part of their household had preceded them. Fatigued with her journey, the Duchess went to bed at an early hour ; and, as permission had been given to most of the domestics to absent themselves, she remained in the hotel with her femme- de-chambve —who slept in the story above —the family governess, and two male domestics. The Duke and Duchess slept in separate chambers, which, however, communicated by means of a passage and ante-

chamber. Between four and five o clock, when it was daylight, the femrae-dc-chambrc was awakeened by the noise of a bell pulled with violence. She rose, and proceeded to the apartment of her mistress, the door of which she in vain tried to open. She listened, and thought she heard a feeble groan. She then called the domestics to her help, and by uniting their efforts they succeeded in breaking the door open. Then they saw their unfortunate mistress lying on the floor, in the midst of a pool of blood, and apparently quite dead. A wound, in which three fingers could have been put, -waa seen gaping on the left side of the throat; there were two other severe wounds in the breast, and a fourth had almost separated the little finger from the right hand. There were also lesser wounds on other parts of her person. The cries of the servants appeared to rouse the Duke de Praslin, who hastened to the spot and threw himself on the bleeding body of his wife. She died two hours afterwards, without having spoken, or apparently recovered the slightest consciousness. The different wounds appeared to have been made with an instrument having a double-edged blade. Everything in the bedroom showed, besides, that though surprised in her slumber, the victim had offered a strong resistance to the murderer. A little table was overthrown, porcelain and objects of art were spread about, the drapery on the wall bore the traces of a bloody hand, as did also the rope of the bell, the ringing of which had awakened th e femme-dc-chambre : and, finally, between the clasped fingers of the left hand there was some of the murderer’s hair, whilst a considerable quantity, pulled out in the struggle, was fixed by the coagulating blood to the floor. The horror Avhich this event excited throughout Europe was still more intensified when it became known, in the course of two or three days, that all the criminating circumstances in the inquiry pointed to the Duke as the murderer of his wife. This in its turn was quickly succeeded by a feeling of indignation when the announcement was made in the Paris papers that the Duke had died on the evening of the 24th from the effects of poison taken after he was apprehended. 1848 — November 28.—Dreadful murders at Stanfield Hall, near Norwich, the seat of Mr. I. P. Jermy, Recorder of that city. Mr. Jermy, his son, and Mrs. Jermy dined together in the afternoon, there being then on the premises a butler, a man servant, and two females. About half-past eight o’clock Mr. Jermy left the diningroom and walked through the hall to the front of the building. On returning, as he entered the porch, a man, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a mask, fired a pistol at him, the ball lodging in the upper part of the left breast close to the shoulder. He fell and instantly expired, but owing to what followed was not removed for nearly an hour. The assassin after firing went to the servants’ entrance to the right, passed through the passage across the building, met the butler, whom he forced by threats to retire into the pantry, and proceeded onwards to the turn of the passage, where there was a dark recess, with a door opening into another passage leading to the back of the premises. Mr. Jermy’s son, alarmed at the report of a pistol, left the diningroom and passed to the door opening into the back passage ; here the murderer fired and shot him through the right breast, killing him on the spot. Mrs. Jermy hearing a noise went to the same place, and while she knelt over the lifeless body of her husband, the assassin fired a pistol at her, the shot shivering one of her arms and wounding her in the breast. Her maid, Eliza Chestney, more courageous than the other servants, went also to the passage to see what was the matter ; and while embracing her mistress the murderer discharged another pistol, and seriously wounded her in the thigh. The female servants, now thinking they would all he murdered, hid themselves. The man servant, who was in the stables, hearing the firing, and supposing that the place was attacked by a number of ruffians, swam across the moat which surrounds the house, and set off to Wymondham, where he gave the alarm, and caused a telegraphic message to be sent to the Norwich police station. The murderer, therefore, had no difficulty in making his escape. Suspicion pointed to a man named Blomfield Rush, a farmer and auctioneer, living in the neighborhood, with whom Mr. Jermy had had frequent disputes ; and he was immediately arrested. Mrs. Jermy and the servant retamed sufficient recollection to declare that, though disguised, they were certain he was the assassin. The most important evidence at the inquest , and at the examination before the magistrates was that of Emily James, or Sandford, a young woman who lived in Rush’s family, first as governess, latterly as his housekeeper or mistress ; she described herself as a widow, but afterwards admitted that she was unmarried, and far advanced in pregnancy. Rush was tried at Norwich before Baron Rolfe, sentenced to death, and executed on 21st April. 1849 — Oct. 25.—Commenced at the Old Bailey, the trial of the Mannings for the Bermondsey murder. It continued over two days, during which evidence of the most precise kind was produced connecting both prisoners with the crime. Sergeant Wilkins addressed the Court for the male prisoner, and Mr. Ballautine for Mrs. Manning. After an absence of 15 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against both. Mrs. Manning, who spoke in excellent English, but -with a, slight French accent, declared that she had not been justly treated, and that there was no law in this country to execute her. If her counsel had called witnesses, she could have proved that she bought the shares found m her possession with her own money, and that they never belonged to O’Connor. She had not, she said, “been treated like a Christiaai, but like a wild beast of the forest. Mr. Justice Cresswell sentenced both prisoners to be executed. The Mannings were accordingly executed on the 13th November. The husband made a confession of a kind, imputing the guilt chiefly to his wife, while she, on the other hand, repeatedly declared that he knew she was innocent, and begged- him therefore to-

save her life. In one of his statements he said, “ Mv wife asked O’Connor to go down stairs, and in about a minute afterwards I heard the report of a pistol She then came up tome and said, “ Thank God, I have made him aU right at last; it will never be found out ; as we are on such extraordinary good terms, no one will have the least suspicion of my murdering him.’ To which I replied, * I am quite certain you will be hanged for this act aud she said, * It won’t be you that is to suffer ; it will be me.’ After shooting him she said, ‘ I think no more of what I have done than if I shot the cat on the wall.’ Upon her coming to me upstairs she insisted on my going down immediately ; and upon my reaching the kitchen I found him lying there. He moaned ; I never liked him well, and I battered his head with a ripping chisel.” On being led on to the scaffold it was noticed that Mrs. Manning was attired in the black satin dress which she wore at the trial, and had a long lace veil thrown over her face to conceal her features. When the wretched creatures were placed beneath the drop they shook hands together with as much apparent cordiality as the pinions round their arms permitted. 1853—August 3.—Hans Smith Macfarlane and Helen Blackwood, executed at Glasgow for their share in the murder of a person whom they threw out of the window of a brothel when in a state of helpless intoxication. 1856. —May 14. —Commenced at the Central Criminal Court—before Lord Chief Justice Campbell, Baron Aklerson, and Mr. Justice Creswell—the trial of William Palmer for the Hugeley poisonings. The Attorney-General (now Chief Justice Cockburn) appeared for the Crown, and Mr. Serjeant Shee for the prisoner. The trial excited the most intense interest throughout the kingdom, and during the twelve: days over which it extended the Old Bailey was crowded by an assembly such as rarely gathers within its walls. The hist case proceeded with was the poisoning of Cook. The Crown alleged murder by strychnia, but admitted that none was found m the body. The proof was therefore of an entirely circumstantial character, illustrating minutely the pecuniary transactions of the prisoner, the probable motives which might actuate him to commit the crime, the opportunities he had for administering the poison, and the evidence of medical men and professional chemists as to the nature and action of that poison. Sentence of death was passed against Palmer, the execution taking place at Stafford on the 16th June. The criminal slept his last sleep quietly, and in the morning, when the chaplain entered his cell, declared himself to be comfortable and quite prepared. When asked by the High Sheriff whether he was prepared to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, he replied with energy, “ No, sir, I do not ; I go to the scaffold a murdered man.” He moved forward to the drop with a light step, and nothing but the pallor of his face showed any undercurrent of feeling. He died, to all appearances, instantaneously. 1857 June 30.—Commenced before the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, the trial of Madeleine H. Smith for poisoning Pierre Emile L’Angelier. The Lord-Advocate (Moncreiff) conducted the case for the Crown, and the Dean of Faculty (Inglis) defended the panel. Evidence was led at great length to show the relation in which the accused stood to the deceased —a relation illustrated by the production of above 100 letters, prints, _ portraits, and books, showing that a guilty intercourse had been carried on for months between them, in the prospect of an early marriage. It was also shown that the deceased died from the effects of arsenic ; that the prisoner was known to have purchased and kept poison cf that kind in her possession; that though there was no witness of any interview, he was seen proceeding in the direction of prisoner’s house on the night when poison was last administered ; that she had opportunities for administering it ; and that she had a motive for his removal in the fact that she was at the time of his decease about to contract marriage with a person of higher social standing. The evidence for the prosecution was continued over five days and a portion of the sixth ; exculpatory evidence completed the sixth day. The seventh was taken up by the speech of the Lord Advocate, marked throughout by a rare spirit of moderation and feeling. On the ninth day the Dean of Faculty addressed the Court for the prisoner in a speech of great power. “ The charge against the prisoner,” he began, is murder, and the punishment of murder is death; and that simple statement is sufficient to suggest to us the awful solemnity of the occasion which brings you and me face to face. But, gentlemen, there are peculiarities in the present case of so singular a kind —there is such an air of romance and mystery investing it from beginning to end —there is something so touching and exciting in the age, and the sex, and the social position of the accused—ay, and I must add, the public attention is so directed to the trial, that they watch our proceedings, andhang on our very accents, withsuch an anxiety and eagerness of expectation, that I feel almost bowed down and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that is imposed on me. You are invited and encouraged by the prosecutor to snap the thread of that young life, and to consign to an ignominious death on the scaffold one who, within a few short months, was known only as a gentle, confiding, and affectionate girl, the ornament and pride of her happy home. Gentlemen, the tone in which my learned friend the Lord Advocate addressed you yesterday could not fail to strike you as most remarkable. It was characterised by great moderation—by such moderation as I think must have convinced you that he could' hardly expect a verdict at your hands; and in the course of that address, for which I give him the highest credit, he could not resist the expression of his own deep feeling of commiseration for the position in which the prisoner is placed—an involuntary homage paid by the official prosecutor to the kind and generous nature of the man. But, gentlemen, I am going to ask you

for something very different from commiseration ; I am going to ask you for that which I will not condescend to beg, but which I will loudly and importunately demand —that to which every person is entitled, whether she be the lowest of her sex, or the maiden whose purity is as the unsunned snow. I ask you for justice; and if you will kindly lend me your attention for the requisite period, and if Heaven grant me patience and strength for the task, I shall tear to tatters that web of sophistry in which the prosecutor has striven to involve this poor girl and her sad strange story.” After a most careful examination of the evidence, and the degree in which it bore on the prisoner, the Dean concluded his speech, of four hours’ duration, by an expression of unwillingness to part with the jury :—“Never did I feel as if I had said so little as I feel now after this long address. I cannot explain it myself except by a strong and overwhelming conviction of what your verdict ought to be. lam deeply conscious of a personal interest in your verdict, for if there should be any failure of justice, I could attribute it to no other cause than my own inability to conduct the defence ; and I am persuaded that, if it were so, the recollection of this day, and this prisoner, would haunt me as a dismal and blighting spectre to tlm end of life. May the Spirit of all Truth guide you to an honest, a just, and a true verdict ! But no verdict will be either honest, or true, unless it at once satisfy the reasonable scruples of the severest judgment, and yet leave undisturbed, and unvexed, the tenderest conscience among you. The jury found the panel not guilty of the first charge in the indictment by a majority ; of the second and third charges not proven by a majority. 1862 —September 16.—Commenced at the Glasgow Circuit Court, before Lord Dease, the trial of Jessie Mclntosh (or McLachlan), for the murder of Jessie McPherson, in the dwellinghouse, Sandyford-place, on the night of the 4th July preceding. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, and without prejudice to that plea, specially pleaded that the. murder alleged in the indictment was committed by James Fleming. The murder was discovered on the afternoon of the 7th July, the examining surgeon testifying that the woman had been murdered with extreme ferocity ; that her death had taken place within three days ; that a severe struggle had ensued before death; that such an instrument as a cleaver for cutting meat—or a similar weapon—was that most likely to have caused the fatal injuries ; that all the wounds on the neck and head, with the exception of those on the forehead, had been inflicted by a person standing over the deceased as she lay on her face on the ground ; and that the body had been drawn by the head, with the face downward, along the lobby from the kitchen to the front room. It was now set forth in evidence that the prisoner was on terms of intimacy with the deceased, and often visited at the house in Sandyford-place ; that on the 4th of July she was very much in want of money, being then behind with her rent, and with many articles in pawn ; that on the above evening she dressed herself in a particular manner described by one of the witnesses —part of it being a brown merino gown, bonnet, and boots, none of which were now forthcoming; and she went out saying she was going to see Jessie McPherson, and was seen about halfway to Fleming’s house; that she did not return till next morning between eight and nine o’clock ; that within a few hours she pawned various articles of silver plate stolen from the house in Sandyford-place; that she was seen wearing certain articles of clothing known to have belonged to the deceased; and that to the prisoner was traced the despatch of a box to Hamilton, found to contain most of the clothing stolen from the house. . At the close of the fourth day of trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the double charge of murder and theft. Sentenced to death, afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. 1865 —July 3.—Commenced before the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, the trial of Dr. E. W. Pritchard, charged with poisoning his wife and mother-in-law in the course of the months of February and March preceding. The leading facts brought out in evidence by the Crown were that Mrs. Pritchard was seized with illness; the symptoms.being constantly recurring sickness and vomiting. In November she went to Edinburgh on a visit to her parents, and while there recovered tolerable health. On returning to her husband’s house, a few days before Christmas, she. had a relapse of the old complaint, which continued at intervals with greater or less severity down to the day of her death. On the 10th of February Mrs. Taylor came from Edinburgh to nurse her daughter. Two days afterwards that lady had an attack of sickness on eating some tapioca which had been prepared for her daughter, and on the evening of the 25th was suddenly seized with an illness which terminated her life within four or five hours. In the case of Mrs. Taylor it was proved that she had been dosed with antimony, but the symptoms manifested just before her death were shown to be the effects of aconite, a poison which the prisoner had in his possession, and which was discovered by Dr. Penny to have been introduced into a bottle of Battley’s mixture used by the old lady. Pritchard was sentenced to death, and, after various confessions, was executed 28th July, 1865. 1869. —The nearest parallel to the Wainwright case came on for investigation in the early part of 1869, when William Seword delivered himself up at the Lambeth Police Court as the person who had murdered his wife at Norwich and dismembered her in June, 1851. He said he could keep the secret no longer, and had for several days left home with the intention of destroying himself. “ I went,” he said “ last night (New Year’s-day) to a house in Richmond-street, Walworth, where I first saw my first wife, and that so brought it to my mind that I was obliged to come and give myself up.” In reply to a question as to the condition in which the

remains were found, some of them boiled, he said, “ Oh, don’t say any more ; it is too horrible to talk about.” Sentenced to death on his own confession, and executed at Norwich, 20th April, 1869. 1870 —May 23. —Murder of the Marshall family—seven in number —at Denham, Uxbridge. A tramp named Jones was afterwards tried, convicted, and executed for this frightful crl iyi g t 1872—January 12.—The Rev. John .Selby Watson, found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of his wife, and sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Byles. Regarding the plea of insanity urged on his behalf, the prisoner, before sentence was passed, said : I only wish to say that the defence which has been maintained in my favor is a just and honest one.” The Crown afterwards gave effect to the jury’s recommendation to mercy, and commuted the extreme penalty to confinement for life.