The Press. — London, England, 1857-11-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 14,1857. place to see the accident. The principal engineer on the works, Mr. Dixon, stood in the centre, near the stage the witness referred to, and which was placed half-way between the two drums, in order that any signals from it might be clearly seen from both. The operations which I directed to take place, and which led to the accident, were as follows :—1 directed a certain length of each chain to be eased out from each drum, and the breaks to be put gently on. A light strain was then put on the two presses, and a small strain on the tackle at the stern. As soon as the pressure came, the ship moved more freely than I had anticipated, and a pressure on the breaks was barely suf ficient. That on the foremost drum was just sufficient to check the ship, and but for the accident at the other end we should prcbably have gone on slowly ; but the aftermost drum had rather the heaviest end of the ship. The pressure on the breaks was not sufficient, and a sudden strain on the chains moved the big drum a little beyond the slack given out, and by the jerk made the handles revolve rapidly. That caused four men, who had hold of the handles at the time, to be struck. About ten men belonged to these handles, of whom the deceased was not one, and the bulk of them had very properly withdrawn from the handles, as directed. The instant it occurred the breaks were put on tighter, and the operation of the launch was altogether suspended for the time. The Coroner : And you ascribe the accident to the mo tion of the ship? Mr. Brunel : The ship moved more freely than I ex pected, and the breaks were not so hard on as at the time when the launch was again attempted. In the meantime, the ship was prevented from sliding down by means of chains. There are now two preventive chains on her. I believe that the deceased had been put where he was by the men out of charity, and had really no busi ness there. He would not have been engaged, for he was an old man. _ By a juror : I believe the other three men who were injured had a right to be there, but they were told to stand aside. If I had been there I should have had no hesita tion in laying hold of the handles, and, therefore, I can not say the men were to blame. At the time they had nothing to do. The Coroner: Do you believe that it was purely acci dental ? Mr. Brunel: I do; but I may say that I blame myself, as I did not anticipate it would have gone down so rapidly. The ship went down five feet at one and and three at the other. The jury after some further evidence returned a verdict of "Accidental death." in height, and apparently about forty years of age, was respectably dressed in the usual clothes worn oy the labourers of the district, but wore no smockfrock. He seemed to regard the whole proceedings with callous indifference. He was not handcuffed. All the exertions of the police to discover the hat of the policeman and also the smockfrock in which the prisoner was dressed on the night of the murder have been hitherto unavailing. Some clothes seized by the police at Carpenter's house, which the prisoner stated were his, were sent to Professor Taylor for examination, and the evidence of that gentleman will be found below. The additional evidence given on this occasion was that of Inspector Hawkes and of I'rofessor Taylor. Inspector Hawkes, having stated the circumstances connected with the discovery of the body of the deceased in the pond on Monday, the 2nd of November, said that about twenty yards from the pond witness observed the marks of a dreadful struggle ; the field was partly in grass and partly in turnips : The spot at which the scuffle took place was in grass, and it was much beaten down, and the ground was saturated with blood. Some of it was in a coagulated state. There appeared to have been betwE.en one and two quarts of blood in that spot. The bloody appearance was so great that it seemed as if a sheep or some other animal had been slaughtered. There was also an appearance as if a heavy body had been dragged along the grass to the edge of the pond; the grass appeared to have been beaten down in one direction. He saw no footmarks. The grass was too high to leave any imprints of a man's feet on the ground. He directed the body to be removed to an inn in the village (the Chequers), and left some officers to watch the spot. He then pursued his investigation of the field, and about ninetyfive yards from where he discovered the blood and in a portion of the field covered with wheat stubble he came upon another spot where there were marks of a struggle, and on examining the ground he found a quantity of wheat strewn about. The soil was disturbed there a good deal, and there were marks of feet on the grcund, but not distinct. He saw no • traces of blond there. The wheat appeared to have been split. Between the spot where the wheat was split and where they found the blood, nearer to the latter, a pair of handcuffs were picked up by one of the police constables. There were also marks of persons having passed between the two spots. Mr. PRIOR : Was there any blood, or traces of blood, upon the hands of the deceased ? The witness replied that there were no such marks. The prisoner's clothes had been taken possession of, and submitted to a chemical and microscopical examination by Professor Taylor, who was then called, and delivered important evidence, and which, as exhibiting the minute nature of the examination, and the vast powers of detection possessed by science, is extremely interesting. A shirt, a wicker basket, a bottle of liquid, a smozkfrock, a spade, a pair of corduroy trousers, a pair of boots, a pair of gaiters, and a knife, were examined. Professor Taylor thus recorded his conclusions as resulting from his analysis : That there were stains of blood inside the handle of the knife, on the button, and on the corduroy trousers, on the outside of the gaiters, on the shirt, and on the wickerwork of the inside of the basket; that the stains found on the inside of the handle of the knife, on thu button of the corduroy trousers, and on the wickerwork of the basket, had the appearance of coagulated blood. This appear ance would be assumed by blood issuing from the body of a living person, or of one recently dead—that is, before the blood had naturally set or coagulated. That some of the small bloodstains on the shirt have been apparently produced by blood reaching it from the outside. That the bloodstains above mentioned present the characters of human blood. At the same time there are no certain criteria by which, in the dry state, human can be distin guished from animal blood. No certain opinion can be given of the date at which the stains were produced on the handle of the knife and gaiters. The stains found on the button and on the wickerwork of the basket have the appearance and properties of recent or fresh blood. Soap in large quantities and blue vitriol have been applied to the left wristband of the shirt—the soap subsequently to the washing of the shirt, and the production of the stains from blue vitriol. The lotion in the bottle would not account for the appearance and condition of the wristband. Several witnesses were then examined, whose evi dence before the coroner was taken and reported. After the examination of these witnesses the pri soner was remanded till Tuesday next, and in the meantime the police will make a further search for the clothes of the prisoner, there being strong rea sons for supposing that a portion at least of them have been buried, and that those taken by the police on the Monday following the murder were either some old clothes belonging to the prisoner, or some that he had obtained from another labourer. On this hypothesis the garden of the prisoner and one or two others have been dug up. It is generally be lieved that the prisoner went out the night after the murder for the purpose of concealing the clothes, and also to dispose of the body of the murdered man. NFORMATION of an embezzlement of 15,0001., by one Wright, in the employ of Mr. Purton Chasse reau, of 15, Finsbury-place, has been received at the metropolitan police .offices. No TRACE of the robbers and murderers of Mr. Butcher, of Colue Engaine, Essex, hes yet been 1107 COLONEL SHIRLEY, late of the Turkish Contingent, was condemned in damages of 1381. 7s. Od., and costs besides, in an action brought against him by one Cross, who had attended the colonel to Turk?) , in December, 1855, as kennel huntsman in charge of a pack of hounds. On the peace in 1856 the Turkish Contin gent was broken up, and Colonel Shirley in May offered Cross a passage home. Cross said he preferred remaining out. Colonel Shirley thereupon paid him off. On the sth of July the hounds were sold to a Mr. Whittle. Cross shortly afterwards caught fever; and finally, after much trouble and suffering, reached home iu May, 1857. He now brought an action for wages and expenses between May '56 and May '57. It appeared in evidence that Colonel Shirley had not given Cross notice of dismissal, and the jury there fore held Cross entitled to his claim for damages. A. VERDICT OF " MANSLAUGHTER " in the Case of Mr. Ashman, who was killed by the recent collision on the South Wales Railway, has been returned against Mr. White, the station-master at Stormy, and against the clerk and porter at the Port Talbot station. The trial will, in all probability, take place at the winter assize. MRS. CHERRY, who, it will be remembered, was some time since forcibly carried off at Reading by her husband, the Rev. H. Cherry, and whose house she had left on account of his ill treatment, has this week obtained protraction from the Court of Queen's Bench and an attachment against her husband. BAKER, the unhappy man who about twelve days previously murdered his sweetheart, Helen Hatfield, at Beverley, and then cut his own throat, died last week, after having endured great pain. He bad determined not to take anything to eat, and this reso lution he kept, and he was literally starved to death. On Thursday afternoon an inquest was held at Beverley on his body, when the jury returned a verdict of "Insanity." A SURGEON named Andrew Halliday Carmichael recently practising at Mexborough, near Doncaster, has undergone several examinations before the West Riding magistrat , s at the latter town on the charge of procuring a' ,rtion on the person of a young woman who hex been in service as housekeeper. The proseciitiix appeared before the bench for the first time on Saturday, but was in a very debilitated condition, and unable to stand. The proceedings were conducted strictly in private, on the ground that the publication of the proceedings might tend to defeat the ends of justice ; but, after an examination of upwards of five how s, the prisoner was fully com mitted for trial. He was removed to Wakefield prison in the evening in a very dejected condition, he having suffered much mental anguish since his incarcera tion at Doncaster. Bail was refused. THE GREAT SWYNFEN WILL CASE is IO be tried over again. The Master of the Rolls has decided against tie compromise entered into at the late trial, and has directed a new trial to take place, unless, indeed, some arrangement, which his honour strongly re commend, should be come to between the contend ing parties in the suit. Mrs. Swynfen remains in possession of the estates, giving security to account for the rents. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, in addressing the grand . . . jury at the Court of Queen's Bench on Tuesday last, pointed out with some force the broad distinction to be drawn in cases brought before the court under Lord Campbell's Obscene Publications Act—between publications the spirit of which was impure and the intention immoral, and those in which isolated pas sages, taken per se, were highly objectionable, but which, considered relatively rith the subject dis cussed, or treated either in art or literature, were accepted for purposes of instruction. SIR BENJAMIN HALL AND HIS IMPROVEMENTS. THE following letter we extract from the Times of Wednesday, for the purpose of calling attention to a subject which interests the inhabitants of this metropolis:— Sir,—On passing through Kensington-gardens this morning on my way to town, I was astonished and not a little indignant to see a number of labourers busily at work felling one of those beautiful trees which adorn the walk running to and parallel with the Bayswater-road. I had not proceeded tar before I overtook a truck laden with the trunk of another forest tree, so that I greatly fear mischief is intended in this part of the gardens. Many years ago, when Sir John Cam Hobbouse was Chief Com missioner of Woods and Forests, the destruction of these trees was determined upon; but the outcry then raised, both in Parliament and out of it, put a stop, after much damage had been done, to the barbarous design. The reason assigned was that the trees were dead, which was untrue ; and if the same excuse be made now it is equally untrue. The unfortunate tree which has so recently come to an untimely end was in vigorous health yesterday, and it will take at least 100 years to grow such another. If you can do anything to help na in this patter, *ill much oblige, sir, your obedient servant, London, Nov, 10, Ank.noof. • ter, y pOT4. THE STEVENAGE MURDER. TILE ADJOURNED INQUIRY into the death of John Starkins, one of the Herts constabulary, a young man of twenty-five years of age, who was found on No vember 9th, dead, with his throat cut, in a pond near Stevenage, was resumed on Monday. The medical evi dence was entirely in favour of murder, and against suicide, as the cause of the man's death. "The wound was so severe," said Mr. Dunn, surgeon of Stevenage, " that I was enabled to feel the action of the spine with my finger, and, to use a common expression, the bead of the deceased was nearly off,' and the injury must have caused death within a minute after it was inflicted." Mr. Dunn was of opinion the in strument most likely to have produced the wound would be pointed hut not sharp, such as a labourer's bread-and-cheese knife. The clothes worn by the unfortunate man were produced at this inquiry, and Mr. Dunn pointed out the spot where the knife had passed through the collar of the coat, and also ex pressed an opinion that the clothes of the deceased had bten turned down before the wound was inflicted, and that at the time the wound was inflicted the person sho aimed it was in front of the deceased, Rho was probably upon the ground at the time. In answer to questions put by one of the jury, the wit ness said he had no doubt that the case was one of murder, and not of suicide ; and he added that he should have suspected that a good deal of blood would have spurted over the person who made the incision. He believed, however, that the stock of the deceased, after having been forcibly pulled down to enable the murderer to effect his object, might pos sibly have righted itself, and would thus prevent the blood from spurting out. A labourer named Car penter has been arrested on suspicion, for it appears that Carpenter was in the service of a farmer named Herne, whose farm is a short distance from Steven age, and that in consequence of a suspicion being entertained that he (Carpenter) was in the habit of robbing his master, the deceased, who had only been doing duty about five weeks at Stevenage, re ceived directions from his superior officer to watch the prisoner ; he went out for that purpose on Friday evening, the 30th of October, and there appears to be no doubt that the deceased was on the track of the prisoner, who left his work about half-past five o'clock, and that they must have met. The supposi tion is, that at this time the prisoner had in his possession a quantity of corn that had been stolen from his master's premises, but what occurred is at present only matter of conjecture ; all that is known being that the unfortunate constable was found on the Monday following with his throat cut in a pond, close to the spot where the prisoner was supposed to have been stopped with the stolen property. On Wednesday the inquiry was opened before the magistrates. The prisoner Carpenter, who is a P 9 r 3 rf4 l 4 oo ki ng 0110 w 000 ihe feet *0 inches , . I