The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-16 00:00:00

AUGUST 16, 1856. Tim PRISONER DOVR was executed on Saturday at noon in front of York Castle. Some 12,000 persons witnessed the execution. The prisoner behaved calmly on the scaffold, and died, after a few faint struggles, in about two minutes. On the Thursday previous to execution Dove made a full confession. lie appears to have had no intention of poisoning his wife until he had heard of Palmer's case, and read Dr. Taylor's opinion that strychnia could not be dis covered in the body beyond a certain period after death. His connection with the astrologer Harrison seems to have influenced him very much, and Harrison's prophecy that he (Dove) would have no happiness till Mrs. Dove was " out of the way," that " she would die before the end of February or begin ning of March," that after her death "everything w iuld go well with him," undoubtedly affected his superstitious mind, for up to an advanced period of his imprisonment Dove believed that Harrison, as he had promised, would get him off safe. The purchase of strychnine on the 10th February Dove solemnly declares in his confession was only for the purpose of killing cats. At that time he says, " I never thought of poisoning my wife." The second quantity he de clares he obtained for a similar purpose, but on the same evening he appears to have had a quarrel with his wife about the man Harrison, and, says Dove in his confession, " I told her that he had predicted her death at the end of February." This recollection of Harrison's prediction appears to have suggested to him the notion of poisoning his wife by strychnia ; and he of course recalled also Harrison's assertion in reply to his inquiry, and Dr. Taylor's opinion that atrychnia could not be discovered. Accordingly, the next day after the quarrel, Dove took the packet of strychnia from the razor•case where he usually kept it, and put about a quarter of a grain in the jelly. In the afternoon he called at Mr. Morley's for Mrs. Dove's medicine, and taking it home to his mother's he uncorked the bottle, dipped the cork into the packet of atrychnia, put in the cork, and shook the bottle up. He then continues:— On that Saturday evening my wife took some of the draught in Mrs. Whitham'a presence. Mrs. Whitham tasted it, and stated that it was bitter. The draught was not shaken that night before it was taken. My wife did not suffer from the effects of it at all. On the way from my mother's towards home on that Saturday I threw the re mainder of the atrychnia away. I cannot tell you the feelings of my mind when I put the atrychnia into the jelly and into the mixture. I cannot describe them. I did not think at the moment when 1 put it in as to its effects or consequences. On the Sunday evening following, which was the 24th day of February, I went into Mr. Morley's surgery, and, there being no person in at the time, I took perhaps ten grains of strychnia and folded it in paper. When I got home I placed it in the stable. On the Monday morning I gave my wife her draught (the effervescing mixture) about halfpast nine, and at ten o'clock she had he attack as mentioned by Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Whitham. At the time nay wife took that draught she complained very much of the bitterness, and added that she would tell Mr. Morley about it. There were three or four doses left in the bottle after that draught was taken, and I broke the bottle in my wife's presence, fearing that Mr. Morley might taste it. The mixture was changed on the Monday. The mixture then given was very bitter. On the Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, I applied the wet end of the cork of the medicine bottle to the strychnia as before. I think there might be from half a grain to a grain of strych nia on the cork when 1 put it in the bottle. I shook the mixture up. There were then only two or three doses in the bottle. I don't remember my wife having any attack on the Wednesday. She took her mixture on that day. On the Thursday I got another bottle of medicine from Mr. Morley's, and T again applied the wet end of the cork to the strychnia as before. About the same quantity of strychnia adhered as on the former occasion. The last dose of that mixture was taken on Friday night, at ten o'clock, and my wife was taken seriously ill in half an hour, but she had no arching of the back on that occasion that 1 recollect. Mrs. Fisher is mistaken, I think, on that point, but her statement in other respects is true, I believe. On that Friday night I got another bottle of medicine from Mr. Morley's. This mixture was directed to be taken four times a day. I did not put any strychnia into that mix ture or medicine, and I did not put any upon the cork of the bottle. Mrs. Whitham gave a dose out of that bottle in the afternoon of Saturday. The atrychnia was in the stable where I had first placed it, and there was no strych ma in the raxor•case on that day, nor during any part of that week. The giving of the last and fatal dose he describes as follows : I was drinking at Sutcliffe's public-house on that Satur day, and I was more or less affected by liquor all the aftvr noon and evening. About three o'clock in the afternoon f went into the stable and took about a grain and a half of strychnia out of the paper, and put it in another paper, which I placed in my waistcoat pocket. I put that atrych ma into the wine-glas s w hi c h con t a i ne d a little water—l believe the water which was left in the glass by Mrs. Whitham after giving my wife the third dose in the after noon ; but 1 have no recollection as to the time when I put the strychnia into the glass. I gave the mixture in the evening, in the presence of Mrs. Whitham and Mrs. Wood, as stated by them in their evidence. I poured the mixture into that wine-glass which contained the water and strych nia. I did not put the strychnia into the wine-glass in the presence of Mrs. Whitham and Mrs. Wood, or either of them. I know that I put the strychnia in before, but I cannot remember how long before giving the medicine. I THE PRESS. did not, when I gave the medicine on the occasions men tioned, think of the consequences of giving it; but when I saw my wife suffering from the attack on the Saturday night, it flashed across my mind that I had given her the strychnia, and that she would die from its effects. I was muddled before this, and didn't know what I was doing. When the thoughts of her death crossed my mind I immediately regretted what I had done, and I believe if Mr. Morley had come in at that moment I should have told him what I had given her, so that he might have used means to restore her. I cannot disguise the anguish I felt when I returned from Mr. Morley's and found my wife dead. He then distinctly charges the man Harrison with having indirectly suggested the notion of killing Mrs. Dove by continually telling him that he would have no happiness till she waa out of the way. He con cludes with a curious inconsistent remark, " I did not think that what I was doing would cause my wife's death," and adds, "I did not give the stryohnia with a view to destroying my wife to get Mrs. Whitham." On the Friday night he wrote a letter to his solicitor, Mr. Barret, concluding as follows : I would wish to remark, that I committed the crime through the instigation of that bad man, Henry Harrison, of the Sonth•market, Leeds. Had it not been for him I never should have been in these circumstances. I remain, respected sir, yours respectfully, J. M. Barret, Esq. WILLIAM DOVE. MARTHA BROWN, who was convicted at the last Dorchester Assizes of the murder of her husband, was hanged on Saturday at Dorchester, at eight a.m. Previous to her execution she made the following confession, which, if true, would have justified a reprieve : My husband, John Anthony Brown, deceased, came home on Sunday morning, the 6th of July, at '2 o'clock, in liquor, and was sick. He had no hat on. I asked him what he had done with his bat. He abused me, and said," What is it to you, you?" lie then asked for some cold tea. I said that I had none, but would make some warm. He replied, " Drink that yourself, and be —. " I then said, " What makes you so cross? Have you been at Mary Davis's? He then kicked out the bottom of the chair upon which I had been sitting. We continued quarrelling until three o'clock, when he struck me a severe blow on the side of my head, which confused me so much that I was obliged to sit down. Supper was on the table and he said, " Eat it yourself and be —." At the same time be reached down from the mantelpiece a heavy horsewhip with a plain end, and struck me across the shoulders with it three times. Each time I screamed out. I said, "If you strike rue again I will cry "Murder." He retorted—"lf you do, I will knock your brailis out through the window." He also added—" I hope I shall find you dead in the morning. " He then kicked me on the left side, which caused me much pain, and he immediately stooped down to untie his boots. I was much enraged, and in an ungovernable passion, on being so abused and struck, I directly seized a hatchet which was lying close to where I sat, and which I had been using to break coal with to keep up the fire and keep his supper warm, and with it (the hatchet) I struck him several violent blows on the head, I could not say how many. He fell at the first blow on his head, with his face towards the fireplace. He never spoke or moved afterwards. As soon as I bad done it I wished I had not, and would have given the world not to have done it. I had never struck him before, after all his ill-treatment ; but, when he hit me so hard at this time, I was almost out of my senses and hardly knew what I was daing. ELIZABETH MARTHA BROWN. A correspondent of the Times (Mr. H. Cox, of Bridport) writes, on Wednesday, in reference to this execution : On thejustice of her sentence I wish to make no remarks ; I shall only draw a comparison between her case and another; but before doing so I must add that the most strenuous exertions were made to save the life of the wretched woman, but without avail. It is in the recollec tion of most of your readers that a woman took her daugh ter to a cellar, kept her there until an opportunity presen ted itself for effecting her purpose, and then deliberately murdered her by cutting her throat, No cries of compas sion could touch the hard heart of that woman ; no maternal feelings would arrest her hand, but the foul deed was com mitted, and that girl whom nature would bind her to protect was inhumanly sent by her to her last account. Contrast this defenceless child with the drunken adulterous hus band, who cruelly thrashes his wife because she remon strates with him for his deviations from the paths of chastity. Yet the murderess of her daughter escapes the gallows, and the unfortunate slayer of her brutal husband pays the dreadful penalty of the law. Can this be called impartial justice? Can I be wrong in saying, that if Celestine Somner did not deserve the penalty of death, Martha Brown is a murdered woman? Did our Home Secretary think the murder of a husband during a violent quarrel a crime of a deeper hue than the murder of a daughter in the most calm and deliberate manner ? DR. FORBES WINSLOW UPON DOVE. A LETTER from Dr. Winslow to Mr. Barret upon Dove's case has been published this week. Dr. Winslow says Dove's case was one of" imbecility" : His actions were not merely those of a wicked, vicious, or eccentric man, but they evidently sprung out of a stunted, irregularly developed, congenitally defective, and badly organised brain and mind. If Dove had been made, a short period before murdering his wife, the subject of a commission of lunacy, the question at issue being his com petency to manage his property, what, I ask, would have been the verdict of the jury ? If the fact of his writing letters in blood to the devil, his faith in the supernatural power and prediction of Harrison, the wizard ; the tre mendous influence which this " weird " person obtained over him ; his cruelty to animals ; his having threatened to shoot his father, and afterwards himself ; his cutting down his corn when quite green simply because his neigh bour had cut his down when ripe; his recklessness of conduct, want of moral perception ; his inability in early life to acquire ordinary knowledge, and other facts sworn to in evidence as illustrative of his sad mental state, were laid before an intelligent jury empannelled to try the question of Dove's mental soundness and ability to manage himself and his affairs, can any reasonable doubt be enter tained as to the result of the inquiry ? Upon evidence considerably less satisfactory and convincing than that adduced in Dove's case, I have seen juries unanimously decide as to the mental unsoundness of individuals. Con sider, for example, the celebrated case of Mrs. Cumming. This lady was pronounced insane by a jury, among whom were several county magistrates, simply because she was fond of the society of a few favorite cats, had an impaired memory (no wondertul fact, considering her bodily indis position and advanced age ), and was alleged to entertain a strong aversion to some members of her family who had by force dragged her out of her own house, and confined her in a lunatic asylum. From my knowledge of the con duct of juries, I feel convinced that Dove never would have escaped the verdict of insanity if the question for their consideraticn had been of a civil, and not of a crimi nal character—one of property, not of life. In conclusion, Dr. Winslow says he considers the case one of "undefined responsibility " If Dove were positively insane and incapable of distin guishing between right and wrong, I would send him to a lunatic asylum for the rest of his days, instead of to the hulks or to a penal settlement, but recognising in this case a partial degree of responsibility, co-existing with much evident mental disorder, evidently interfering with the healthy exercise of volition, it would be unjustifiable and cruel to treat him like a perfectly sane man, or as an ordi nary and responsible criminal, and consign him to the hands of the public executioner. THE CORNISH COMPROMISE. A JURYMAN, on the late trial at Bodmin of Jose, George, and Matthews, has written to the Times this week in defence of the verdict.. The letter, published verbatim et literatim, was altogether a tolerable proof that the schoolmaster had not lately travelled west. The ground the juror takes is, thatras Jose and Matthews, George and Burns, were all "a bad lot," and that Burns bad admitted her first statements to be a tissue of false. hoods, and that the jury had learned in early life the fable of the " Shepherd Boy and the Wolf," that a liar was not to be believed when he spoke the truth—Jose was not to be convicted of murder on Burns's evidence; and so they found him guilty of manslaughter !—though the " Juror " immediately after adds that it appeared clear enough to them all that the child was Matthews's ; and that, " by the testimony of the medical gentlemen, the child was born alive and healthy; and it appeared from the same testimony that the child came by its death by some foul play." rho "Juror" thus concludes his defence of this Cornish compromise : I say again that if the jury bad fixed the capital verdict upon any one individual upon the testimony of one so worthless as Burns, then, indeed, the verdict would have been a scandalous verdict, and the conduct of the jury would have been highly reprehensible ; nor would have been leas scandalous to have brought in a verdict of ac quittal, because the jury were convinced that the whole of the parties were verily guilty of some foul work. This is true Cornish logic. The prisoner is charged with murder, the evidence against him is " worthless," therefore he is guilty of "manslaughter." Two and two make anything but four at Bodmin. FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE Tuesday, August 12. BANKRUPTS.—Bzwatie Bairn, St. George's-street, Rat. cliffe-highway, and High-street, Poplar, Middlesex, boot and shoe manufacturer—JoUN LINDSAY, Sydney New South Wales. and Queen's Hotel, St. Martin's-le-Grand, City, merchant—Vic- TOR CHAODRON and FLORENT BASIN, Saville-house, Leicester square, Middlesex, dealers in perfumery—HENßY HERRICE, Red Lion, East-street, Epsom, lieenfied vietuallei—Jossrm Troreson, Bishop's titortford, Hertford, draper JOSEPH ELTEEN, High street, Kensington, grocer and cheesemonger— MARY DIILLIYANT WALTERS, Swan Hotel, New street, Binning. ham, hotel-keeper—WALTER DALE, Kidgrove, Wolstanton, Stafford, builder—Breams HOUSES and CIiARLEs Jour' Mon- Ris LEWIS, Birmingham, boot and shoe makers—Tßoms OLLIYE E , Prestbury, near Cheltenham, livery stable keeper and trainer—Hinter GARDINER, Wellington, Somerset, manufao turer—Joszrit COOPER the Elder, JOSEPH COOPER the Younger and JOE COOPER, Holebouse-mills, Chisworth, near Glossop, Derby, cotton spinners and manufacturers—Jams TAYLOR,. Bottoms-hall-mill, Tottington Lower-end, Lancaster, ootton spinner—Jams DRAMOLEY, Bank-mill, Holcomb-brook, near Bury, Lancaster, cotton manufacturer—WlLLlAM LAwroste. Liverpool, oil crusher. bCOTCH SEQUESTRATIONS.—DAVID SMITH, sen. (dr ceased), Airdrie, ironfounder, and Muirboused)kes-colliery, West Caller, coalmaster—Aecniaotn CRAWTORD, Glasgow, cattle dealer, and Froag, Islay, tacksman—Ronnwr MIENS, New Market-gallery. Aberdeen, tailor, clothier, and general outfitter —Monfort SMITH or WCRAE, Kilmarnock, grocer, victualler, and spirit merchant. Friday. August 15. BANK RUPTS.—W ILLIAM PuDizcoaßE, Bridge-street, South wark, ironmonger—Rosswr KING. IC uaresborough, woollen d raper—LoVE nt non Harr, ow forrbbuildings 2 Fenoburob street—Jonn RICHARDSON, Whitby. stationer —Mail HINRII Massa, Great Prescott-street. Goodman's-fields, spirit mar chant—Bonner NRWMAN, Taunton, chemist.