THE HUMAN TRAGEDY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 207, 22 August 1908, Page 3

THE HUMAN TRAGEDY

A MOTHER'S JIAKTVBDOM.

(By G, I{. Sims, iu Home I'aper.) Ar? 11 !^ 1 ! 0 nigllt of J a'»'a> - y 25th, 1890, iUr. Kichard Davies, a wcli-to-do tailor, .carrying on business in Crewe, prepared

o close up the premises and go home. His soil Eichard-a lad of nineteen, who, with his brother George, a boy of seventeen, assisted in the business—had already set out to wall; to Hough, a vil«ge some three miles distant, wheie the tailor, his wife, and family resided. Mr. Davies dismissed his assistairs, saw that the shop was safely shut, and then stepped into the pony trap which his son George had brought round to I the door. The father took the reins, the boy , got up beside him, and they drove oil in the direction of Hough.

. At twenty mmutos to eleven liichard anived home, and, aiter affectionately fleeting his mother, took off his overcoat, removed his toots, and sat down uy the lire. __ Mra. Davies looked at the clock. lour lather won't be long now?" she said. And Kiehard replied: "No; he will soon be here."

7- les tllen busied herself in making certain preparations for her husband s comfort. Mr. Davies was a strong, healthy man of lifty, but by no means an agreeable man in his familv circle. He had a bad temper, and was easily upset, and when anything displeased luni he vented his wrath upon his wife—a. meek and long-suffering little woman, there had been occasions when he had struck her savagely, mid lu> im.i at.f.noi,.

: =Y"r v ""' »»vageiy, and lie Had attacked las sons when.they interfered to protect (heir mother. Mr. Davies was in the habit of living during the week over his shop at Crewe, but he always returned to his home late on Saturday night and spent the I Sunday with his family. The sons and .-daughters were devoted to their mother, and to each other, but they were terribly afraid of their father. The eldest sonI—John—was 1 —John—was married, and had a home of his own, and earned his own living. A grownup daughterEmily— acted as housekeeper, both at the shop at Crewe and at the familv home at Hough, Mr. Davies giving no money at all to his wife.

But the wife, in spite of her husband's harshness to her, bore her wrongs patiently, and found her happiness in the love of her children, who did their best to comfort her and to make her life endurable. So on this Saturday night she propared for her husband's return, if not eagerly, at least with a determination

that he should not lind any cause for complaint as to the manner of his welcome. She was looking at the clock, and expecting every minute to hear the sound of the wheels of the pony-cart outside, when the door opened, and her younger son, George, burst into the room. Hurriedly he told a tale of tragedy. "Dick," he exclaimed, "come quick! Somebody's stopped father ,in Crewt Lane!"

Then, while his brother was hurriedly getting on his boots and his overcoat, he gave an account of what had happened. . While he and his father were driving home, and had reached a dark lane, two men sprang out from behind some trees. One of them seized the pony's head, ano. the other struck Mr. Davies on tk head with a big stick and dragged him out of the trap. George told his mother and brollle, that ho jumped out anil ran oil', hoping to get help; but, looking back, he saw that the men were pursuing him, and he made his way home as fast as lie couid. Dick was ready now, and rim out of the house after his brother, who had started off to the scene of the attack. Mrs. Davies, horrified at what she had heard, rushed off to the home of her married son, John Davies, who lived near, and implored him to go to Crewe

Lane after the boys and see what had happened to his father. John Davies quickly arrived at the scene of the. disaster. It was only six hundred yards from the victim's home. He found his brothers standing by a prostrate body. "He's dead—he's quite dead!" .x----claiincd Richard. John Davies lifted the head of his murdered father on to his knee, and remained with George while Richard, at his request, went on to fetch the police. The pony all this time iiad been quietly grazing near the spot. Richard got into the trap, and drove to the policestation at Crewe. There he informed the inspector on duty that his father had been attacked by two men in Crewe Lane, and was' lying there. The inspector drove back with him at once. When the .police arrived the body was carried to the dead man's home, and laid in the hack kitchen to await

the arrival of the police surgeon. On examining the body it was found that there were ten wounds on the head. Seven were clean cut, and three were lacerated and contused. The cut wounds, the surgeon stated afterwards in evidence, must have been caused by a sharp-cutting instrument, with an edge about two inches long. The other wounds had been caused by a blunt in-

strument. The. injuries to the head were the cause of death. On the Sundaj' morning following the tragedy Richard Davies went to the shop at Crewe. His sister Emily opened the door, and he exclaimed: "Father is killed!" So far the murder was a mystery, and the story told by George was accepted by the neighbours. 'But Superintendent Leah, who had taken charge of the case, had a theory of his own. He concluded, from the medical evidence, that the fatal injuries had been caused by a chapper, and ho went to the house at Victoria Street, Crewe, from which the tailor and his son had started on the fatal drive.

' Looking about tho back-yard, he discovered in a shed some recently-chapped wood. He asked Richard Davies, who :as on the premises, who chopped it. Richard replied that his little brother id. The superintendent asked to see he chopper. One was produced. But the keen eyes f the official detected some rust, which vould not have been there if it had icen recently used for chopping purlOSC3. "Richard Davies cannot produce the hopper that chopped that wood," he aid to himself. " Why does he show lie a.n old one, that he knows had not |

jol'll used for months?" A thorough search was now made of he hedges and the ditches near the cene of the murder, and the handle, of i. chopper was found. The handle was itained with blood. doing agairu to Victoria Street, the aiper'mtendcn* ascertained that the lamllc was like Hie handle of a chopper vhich had been used to chop wood as ale as four o'clock on the Saturday of he murder, hut had not been seen by nyone since. On Tuesday, January 281.1 i, Richard )avies and his brother George were ,r----csted on the charge of murdering their ather.

■Richard Davies was nineteen; Ins brother George was seventeen. Devoted to their mother, and sincerely attached to their brothers ami sisters, they had deliberately planned and carried out the cold-blooded murder of their father. For such a crime the ordinary motives do not suggest themselves. There was no .rain, no inheritance to acquire, by the awful crime of parrictfe. What terrible, idea had preyed upon the minds of these two lads—sober, industrious, keeping no had company, not of fierce or passionate or morose disposition, but looked upon lir everyone as amiable young fellows? ' The evidence given at the trial threw* a lurid light upon the mystery of motive. The tale told by the weeping relatives of the unhappy bids, and by tvmpatlietic neighbours, revealed a my dition of things in the domestic TOO of the Crewe tailor which thrilled and chilled the crowded court. Zola has given us a picture of family life almost a s terrible, but no English fielionist has ventured to place his characters in such a domestic environment. To do so would be to not only repel the reader, hut to risk a charge of grossly exaggerating for the purpose of sensationalism. The true story was only told when the lads, by their own confession, had rendered it 'unnecessary for the relatives to conceal the horrors that the Davies household had bad to endure at the

hands of its head. The confessions were made in ci.enmstances alike dramatic and pathetic. fleorge, the younger of the prisoners, wns after his' arrest, ill at ease, lie broke down, and became melancholy and nervous in the loneliness of his cell. •Richard, though depressed, bore himself more bravely. He asked that his brother .iolm'might be sent for. When John came, the lad lying under the .dinstly ehai'f'e of murdering his father said that he" felt. dull. Would John bring him bis concertina. His concertina! * The, incongruity of the idea strikes one as bordering on insanity.

I I have said that the circumstances of the confession were dramatic. It was at midnight on January 2Uth that George Davies sent a message by the gaoler to the inspector in charge of the 1 police-station. He told the inspector that he wanted to see Dick. "You must see him in my presence," replied the inspector, and George agreed to the condition. The two lads were brought into tin: police-office, and there, as they stood facing each other, they were warned whatever they said in the course of' their conversation would be taken note of, and might ibe used as evidence against them.

George turned to his brother and said, "What are you going to say, Dick?" "I don't know, I am sure," was the quiet reply of the elder prisoner. Both lads then remained silent for a time, and (he officer said to them, "Is tint all?" I '-'"..uy botli replied that it was, and .My were taken back to their cells. At ten o'clock the next morning, George again expressed a desire to see J Dick, and the lads met once more in the police-office.

Again George asked his brother what' he was going to say, and Dick replies "I don't know what to say." Then George looked at his broihe; imploringly, and exclaimed: " You know. Dick, there's my little brothers and sisters and mother to think of." "Yes," replied Kichard, "that's tru>. Arc you going to tell?" George made no reply, to Dick said: "If 1 can have a piece of paper 1 wii. write it down."

| The officer at once turned to George. "Would you like a piece of paper, too?" lie asked, and the lad nodded .is head. Each of the .boys was then given a sheet of paper and supplied with pen and ink, and taken back to his cell: ' An hour later the officer visited 'oe prisoners, and received from each of them a written statement.

Both confessed to having made up their minds to kill their father on the 'Saturday night as he drove home to Hough. George said that, having planned the murder, Dick took the chopper out of the yard at the back of the shop, and carried it with him under his coat when he left to walk home. He—Richard—waited at the- lonely end of Crewe Lane, and, as the trap came up, he sprang up behind and struck life I father several Wowb on the head, and then dragged him out of the trap. George ran away. Presently, Dick followed him, and told him to go slowly. He, Dick, would hurry on alone and go home; and George was to come in later and say that two men had stopped his father in Crewe Lane.

Richard, in his confession, put the affair rather differently. He said that the murder was planned between them, but he did not commit it. George hatt taken the axe in the trap, and had suddenly jumped up, when he saw Dick waiting at the appointed spot, and had struck his father several blows on the head. Dick had pulled the injured man out of the trap, and had then gone home, leaving George by their father to wait until he was dead.

The motive for the murder was given in Richard's confession in these words: "The cause we had for it was because he was such .a bad father, not to me exactly, but to George, and the rest, and a bad husband to-mother, for they have been very nearly starved sometimes, for he would neither buy thcin coal for the lire nor meat to eat when he was in a bad tamper; but, may the Lord forgive me!' we never thought what a crime we were committing." Whatever may have been the truth of the confession, so far as the actual part Richard played in the doing to death of his father, the statement with regard to the tailor's treatment of his family was proved to be absolutely true. The daughter, who acted as housekeeper, swore that the entire sum her father allowed her for the food of the family at Hough, and for herself at the shop, was 13s a week. "Eight people had to be kept on thirteen shillings a week?" exclaimed the judge. "Yes, my lord," was the girl's reply, The father was not included in this arrangement. He lived well, and had mmt every day. The widow of the murdered man, the unhappy mother of the young lads who, in their mad resentment of their father's cruelty to her, had brought thcmselvs to the bar of justice to be tried for

their lives, swore that her husband refused to give her a farthing, that ho struck her, and beat her brutally in the presence of her children; that once, while the fioys were in the room, he seized a loaded gun and pointed it at her, threatening to shoot her; and when she was lying ill he put a quantity or paper under ""the bed and set light w it, threatening to roast her alive. Yet, while he was compelling a family of eight'to live on 13s a week, he was a .prosperous man. He was the owner of five shops and had nlenty of money to go racing with. . With tears in l.er eyes, the unhappy

mother told how, on. more than one occasion, Richard, hearing her screams for mercy in the night, had got out of bed and hurried into the room to protect her from her husband's violence. On the evidence given, and their own confession, Richard and George Davies were found guilty. The jury strongly recommended both to mercy' on account of their youth. Tho judge, in a few solemn words, sentenced both to death. The case, which had created widespread interest on account of its dread-

ful and yet pathetic circumstances, at once became a public discussion, and petitions imploring the clemency of the Crown fdr the condemned lads were signed all over the country and forwarded to the Home Secretary, Mr. Henry Matthews. The public sympathy—perhaps pity would be a better word—was for Richard. He was believed to be the less truilty, and not to have used the weapon which caused the fatal injuries. Eventually, the Home Secretary reprieved George. Frantic efforts were then made to secure the reprieve of

Richard. "Both or neither" was the cry that was heard on all sides, and I the Prdss generally favoured this view. < When the last evening had come, the . governor of the gaol telegraphed to the ■ Home Office to know if a reprieve was i to be granted. Public opinion had made up its mind that, having spared one murderer, at least equally guilty, the Home' Secretary could not possibly insist on hanging the other, a lad of nineteen, who had been recommended to Mercy by the jury. When'midnight came, Richard Davies, laid himself down to sleep, if he could, still believing, as everyone else believed, that a reprieve would come m the morn-

"' Eight o'clock on Tuesday roorm"S; April 17th, was the hour fixed for the TifMonday night, in the home of tragedy at Hough, a sorrowful party, were "athered together. The unhappy mother still believed that, at the last moment, her sons ..te would lie spared. . , AH through the night, the widow ami I her family «'"l sympathetic who tad come to slmreto vigil, Batttpwtit- „., watching, for the message of mcicj. I V a ncares't telegraph office remain*d onen all night, in order that the news ( ofT reprieve might be conveyed to the heart-broken mother at once. But she waited and watched, and lisfor the footsteps of the messenge of mercy, and listened in vain. She was stil wat king and waiting when, m the „y dawn, the shadow, of he »J were lifted, and the green world around "woke t« another day of happy Irfe. Tt was not till the clock struck the f, Viouv of eight that the unhappy mo he abandoned hope, and fell faint-j to" into the arms of those who had re"nruned bv her to the end. , was there a tragedy more pillfdthn that of which she was ho ™ .! • i flmnw Her married lite nan rcr,i.?r^"Uandtheomlof n,c-'brave endurance was » husband murdered, for her sake, by two of he "v those, one died a shameful wh before he was twenty, and the o^rw^scnt.into penal servitude for lif 1 e 1 \ (lie i.iack book of human tragedies ' ilw e are tew more pitiful tragedies , 1 at of this unhappy wife and ■ n'otbc wlnle cruel husband was murdoml by her Maddened sons.