CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1166, 17 April 1884, Page 3

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

A remarkable case ot circumstantial evidence has just occurred in the English County of Middlesex. One George Manners having had an altercation with Edmund Lascelles—a morose aad sullen fellow—about Lascelles' sister, Mary, to whom Manners was engaged, was heard saying : " Next time, Lascelles, I shall not ask for your hand, I shall take it," Upon this he departed and was soou after followed by Lascelles. About 11 o'clock two men knocked at the door bearing in their arms the dead body of Lascelles, who had been murdered with a knife and bludgeon. Following them was Manners with hands and clothing bloodstained. The dead man's right hand on which he had worn a sapphire ricg had been cut off, and was nowhere to be found.

Manners was arnjsted. At his trial a farm Üborer testified that, as he was nearing the park gate, Manners turned towards him, exclaiming, '• Quick! quick ! help ! Mr Lascolles has been murdered !" He found that the murdered man's hand bad been cut off at the wrist, aud asked Manners if he knew of it. He said, " How horrible !" The laborer proposed looking for the hand, but Manners objected on the score of losing time, and that the doctor must be sent for. He said to Manners it was a desperate struggle, and Manners said he was a very strong man, but not quite so strong as himself. Manners said nothing more, except, "Who will break it to his sister ?"

The sister had to testify to the last interview held with her brother and the peculiar words addressed him by her lorer. Manners was thereupon found guilty and sentenced to death. His friends prosecuted the search for the missing hand, which was at length found in the cellar of a barn belonging to a man named Parker. There was with it a bloody-rusty knife. Parker admitted his guilt. Lascelles had met him that night, and, as was his habit, began taunting and insulting him. In a fit of anger Parker killed him with a stake, and in order to remove his ring, cut of his hand at the wrist aud took it homo with him. Manners was thereupon released and married his sweetheart ; but it was a narrow escape from the other kind of a noose.