THE DALSTON MURDER. Conviction of the Criminal.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 77, 22 November 1884, Page 4

THE DALSTON MURDER. Conviction of the Criminal.

Among tales dealing with the romance of crime there has rarely occurred a story which approaches in striking incident the murder of Police-Constable Cole at Dalston nearly two years ago, and the discovery of his assassin, Thos. Orrock, who was on Saturday last convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The strange history reads more like a romance by Gaborian, or Wilkie Collins, or Miss Anna Katherine Green, than a circumstantial relation of plain facts. I wrote you something about the case when the accused was brought before the magistrates and committed for trial ; but at that time it had not developed its strangest and most remarkable features. Tho*. Orrock, the hero of the Dalston murder, was one of the worst kind of criminals that can be imagined. By day he followed a legitimate trade, and acted a3 if he were a citizen of virtue and piety ; but at night-time he transformed himself into something worse than a dangerous wild beast, determined to prey on society at large, and ready to use his teeth if molested. He was that perilous sort of housebreaker who, like the notorious Peace, knows how to live decently and respectably when not engaged in his felonious enterprises. He was even an attendant at a chapel, the very place of Avorahip which he afterwards laid a plan to rob. Worse than all, Aye have it on oath from a witness who was Orrock's companion that this accomplished scoundrel actually attended the funeral of the policeman he had ruthlessly | shot down, and within a few Aveeks of the crime married a lady who had also been a member of the congregation choir of the chapel. Could human hypocrisy and effrontery go further? It is a just nemesis that this outrageous criminal should be betrayod into the hands of justice by his own comrades.

The "Daily Telegraph," summarising the incidents of the trial, says :— "The lapse of time which has intervened between the Ist day of December, 1882, when the Dalston crime was perpetrated, and the arrest of the murderer is in itself a remarkable fact. But the way in which the links of evidence have been slowly yet surely pieced together, until at last the prisoner, who probably was cxi pecting to hear no more of the affair, became involved in the terrible web of circumstantial testimony which has now closed around him, is the most thrillin^ly interesting of all the facts connected with the case. Police Constable Cole— the tale needs telling once again— on the night of the fatal Friday was on duty in Ash win -street, Dalston, when he saw a man trying to break into the window of a Baptist chapel. The policeman [ managed to seize him, but the burglar was armed with a revolver, which he used with fatal effect. One bullet was caught in the constable's truncheon, another penetrated to his brain ; and, while the scoundrel who shot him down was making his escape from the scene of his crime, the brave defender of property and order was being carried to the German Hospital, where he died shortly after his admission. George Cole, the murdered constable, was only twenty-seven years of age, and he left behind him a young wife. It is not, happily, often that a Court of Justice is horrified and thrilled by such a scene of frantic grief for a dead husband as was exhibited in the course of the magisterial investigation by this poor woman. Armed burglars are not creatures who are over-susceptible to sentimental influences, but it is well that even they should know what the misery is which they are ready to inflict, and for which no human penalty can possibly afford a fitting retribution. The constable, who had so bravely done his simple duty, was dead, and there — for almost two years— the matter rested, as far as the public knew. However, at thesceno of the murder there had been picked up certain incriminating articles— a low felt hat, a cabinetmaker's chisel, another cold chisel, and a small wedge made ©f wood. Various people had noticed the man who committed the murder. Mr Shepherd and a girl named Elizabeth Bucknell, who both gave evidence at the trial, saw the struggle actually going on between the policeman and the robber. The former declared that the man wore a wideawake hat, and the latter said he had light trousers and a long dark overcoat, and both agreed that he was a good deal shorter than the policeman. Mr Bucknell, who also caught sight of him running away, testified to the same facts. A policeman had observed a young man so dressed loitering near the chapel, and these were all the clues which the police had to work upon in order to discover the assassin. A couple of chisels, an old hat, and a description of personal appearance by three people who admitted that they would not be able to identify the criminal if they saw him — such were the detectives' raw materials. That they succeeded in discovering the murderer of Policeman Cole, as they unquestionably have done, reflects the greatest credit on the patience and cleverness with which they have prosecuted their task ; and the public will cordially endorse the commendations of the Bench on the conduct of those efficient officers, Inspector Glass and Sergeant Cobb. They were aided, no doubt, by a fortuitous circumstance. Some six or seven months after the murder the prisoner Orrock, who until then had been following the trade of a cabinetmaker, was committed to prison on a charge of burglary. While he was in gaol the suspicions of the police were aroused with regard to him. Upon the chisel which had been found close to the chapel a name had been rudely scratched, which looked like "rock," with some marks before it. The man Orrock was a cabinetmaker, and one of the chisels found was an instrument such as is used in that trade. It was then remembered that a young man of the name of Miles had offered to run for a doctor on the fatal night, and it was found that Miles was a friend of Orrock. Following up these clues, the police were not long in ascertaining that Miles and another young man named Evans were both in company with Orrock during the same portion of the evening, and they were called upon to give an account of their own and their companion's movements. Finally it appears that they became frightened for their own safety, or possibly they may have acted as they did under a feeling of remorse. At any rate, they made a clean breast in court of all they knew about the crime, proving, beyond a shadow of doubt, if their story were true, that none other than Orrock was the murderer of George Colo. The jury have believed their evidence, given as it was with some reluctance ; and even without it the weight of circumstantial testimony against the condemned man left little doubt that he was the culprit. In fact, the case was at an end when the disclosures of the two men, Miles and Evans, had been made, and had not been materially shaken in cross-examination. The latter detailed the whole story of his ill-fated connection with the prisoner ; both he and Miles knew that he had a revolver in his possession, and they also were aware of the mysterious midnight business upon which Orrock was now and then engaged. "The prisoner," said Evans, "told me he was going round the chapel that night, but he did not tell me what he was going to do." Further on he admitted that Orrock stated to him his intention of breaking into the chapel, and "nicking" the plate. After the crime had been committed these two men could not have had the slightest doubt who the real murderer of Constable Cole was. They testify to the r-> pid manner in which Orrock got rid of the coat he had been wearing ; how he told them that he had broken the pistol to pieces and thrown it into a canal ; and how they afterwards entered into an oath not to divulge their guilty knowledge of the crime. It is lamentable to find these young men displaying such an utter absence of moral feeling as to condone a murder for the sake of good com radeship; but it isonly fair to them tosay that the reward offered for the detection of the criminal was the great reason which deterred them from divulging his name. Although not actually implicated in the crime, they were undoubtedly accessories after the fact, and were liable to be punished as such. The only defence possible under these circumstances was to throw doubt on the story of the two chief witnesses, and dJny that it was Orrock who fired the shot. Unfortunately for the prisoner, the corroboration. was ample ; their tale of how the revolver was bought, how it was tested, how the chisel was taken to a Mrs Preston to be ground, and how she was in the habit of scratching the names of her customers on their implements, were all confirmed, in the latter instance by Mrs Preston's own evidence. It is obvious that a good deal of importance attached to the name on the chisel. If Mrs Preston could have said without any doubt that she had written " Orrock 5/ on the blade the case against the prisoner would hardly have needed the somewhat tainted evidence of Or rock's two companions. However, the guilt of the condemned man does not need further proof. It is open and palpable, add no murderer ever better deserved his doom than this cold-blooded hypocrite.

At the Melbourne Bijou Miss de Grey' company has opened in " Moths," a drama tic version of Ouida's novel of that name.