The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-10-09 00:00:00

THE PENGE MURDER.

Louis Staunton looku anxious and haggard, and is
apparently less at ease in his mind than his brother,
who has regained much if his former bearing. He
still maintains his innocence, and sometimes says,
almost prunionately, to friends who visit him, "Why
:.tn I here! I have done nothing." Friday afternoon
the Roman Catholic priest visited the male c mvicts In
their cells at half-past four. He had been requested
previously to take that opportunity of informing them
the date fixed for the execution. They received
the intelligence calmly. No allusion to the time
appointed for the execution has been made to the
female convicts; fir in all cases in which condemned
persons are recommended to mercy by a jury it is the
rule to make no mention to them lif the final day.
until a distinct notifieation arrives from the Home
Office that the extreme pen3lty is nit to be committed,
In conversation with Mrs. Patrick Staunton the chap-
lain of the prison has been somewhat impressed by
straightforwar Iness of her replies, and the absence ..f
all hesitancy in her manner. She has made no re-
traction of her former statements. Alice Rhodes still
remains quiet and uncommunicative. The convicts
were not visited on Friday by any 44 their friends, but
it ii probable that before I ong Mr. awl NEN. Patrick
Staunton will be allowed to see their two elder
children.

"A SPECTATOR IN COURT."
The following, whi7ll appears under the signature tie
at,.ve in a London contemporary, is "worth read-
ing
t was curiosity, but not morbid curiosity.
.that turned
my steps in the direction of the Central Cnininal Court
during the trial of the Stanntons and Alice Rhodes.
Photography had already made me familiar will the
features of the four accuaml prisonera, and with the
likeness in life of the wretched liarriet Staunton. Lone
before I took my seat on a hard bench in the old court I
coull have sketched with some approach to truth the
sharp-cut face and prominent aquiline nose of the little
under-sisal :auctioneer's clerk, the curling chestnut hair
au.l slight beard of the artist aith the confirmed stoop,
mot the round .1 ling hgures of the two young women
with the somewhat stupid expression and the whitey-
brown hair. It was no positive pleasure to me to rivet my
. . . . .

attention hour after Mier on the startled face of a yonni
fellow who would Ise called hatelsone by servantonaols,
and who throughout the trial wee positively livid with
fright; to notice the hungry eagerneas with which the
humbanil, Patrick, watched for the approach of his wife up
these fatal it tiro, and then seemed to protect her with his
comfort ; or to tontr times hysterical moans of the miserable
women when Mr. Percy Gye mentioned the dreadful word
of death. I hate scenes, and I would go miles out of in
way not to hear a woman cry or to feel she sialterM,
Exhausted, as I was, with ...retelling and waiting, I
managed to support existence even on the last day with a
dry biscuit and a gloss of water at...hos front the barristene
benchess. I slid not bring a thick bag with me containing
a rich luncheon and a bottle of champagne, aa two women
did wt., oat jilt theve toe under the noses of the under-
sherriff : and at n-i moment slid I venture to while away
the entr'actes with a hurried glance at the comic periisl-
icals. I positively declare that I saw scenes in court
which pained me almost as much as the agonising distress
in the dock. There were girls of If and 17 who sat
withont a blush during the recital .1 disgusting details
of evidence: there were women who brazened out the
reeding of the medical notes if the post mortent exami-
netion ; and I pledge Inv word that while the jury were
considering their verdict, and the trembling wretches
were awaiting the lAA eututuone, a young woman half
sleepy with fatigue carried or the most pointed and im-
modest flirtation with a male companion under the very
sword of justice on the Judge's bench. It was wit, perhapn,
to he expected that every one would go hi the Court an I
dist determined to itnagine that I was one et the jury, and
that the issue depended on me, to weigh the evidence, to
keep lily minsl clear of prejudice, to listen with the most
minute attentien to the summingoef and to give my
verdict as the jury gave theirs. lam a citizen. I am
occasionally called on to exercise my duties as a citizen.
So I saisl to myself continually throughout the trial,
"Supposing yon were seated in that hex over there, what
would you do r I conclude that not one of the jurymen
entered the lion without being familiar with the outlines
of the case. Every one knew that Louis Staunton had
neglected his wife and had lived in open adultery with
Alice Rhodes; wife,
Mrs. Butterfield had sought for her
daughter in vain; that Harriett Staunton had been con-
fined secretly at The Wooillands ; and that a wretched.
vermin-covered skeleton had died before her time at Penge.
To pretend that any one could have entered the jury-boa
without some sympathy for the dead woman, if indeed
without a lurking prejudice against the four accused,
would be to deny the ordinary instincts of human nature.
At any rate, I can only give my impreasions, and, without
pretending to possess any of the gifts isf Lavater, I declare
that my prejudice against the prisoners instantly disap-
peared when I saw them. They distinctly created •
favourable impression on me. 1 could find no cruelty, no
cunning, or avarice or meanness in any one face. As I
looked round the court, it seemed t i me that the
women young and old, pretty and ugly who
watched the case were far more cruel-looking than
the accused. There were some positively evil faces
• those who gazed on the prisoners Some

amongst ,- "'" oer us with h•. .7- • wire s moncj,
of the prettiest girls had thin lips ansl cruel mouths, and
yaears laboriously and frugally. His wife was equally
revenge. I was particularly struck with the affectionate
gave me the impression of being deceitful and laden with
and attentive to the services of religion, but
steineanour of Patrick Staunton. His conduct to his wife, covetous, ill tempered. and not less unpopular than her
husband. The son Wilhelm inherited the qualities of his
his earnest solicitude for her comfort. his pleasure when
she was by his side, his desparing look when she left him, rents, and was represented as weak in understan ling,
his constant tenderness towards his brother, his stool' int arrogant ant imperious in language and dettleanour.
when the wOm4fl I aintost—were not lost upon me. When Ile had served for some years as an artisan, hut, being
was told in evidence that this mild.' aced, gentle-looking slismissed for unruliness and insolence, returned in ISSI to
man was • passionate brute I coul.t not believe my ears. Ins father's house: and now. his parents sought to improve
When they swore to me that he host beaten his wife, the family means by marrying hint to a girl possessed of
bruised • baby ill her anus, and given Harriet Staunton. money. Such • one they unhappily found in poor Marie
Mark eye, I said to myself that I would trust no more in Wutschert
physiognomy. As I looked at him and watched him hour Of this young woman the inhabitants of her native
by hour he seemed as tender as a smnitan, as affectionate village. Mauernsee, testified that, though her intellectual
MI a girl. Was this curly-haired, east-looking youth the powers and acquirements were small, she was a good-
demon who gloated like a fiend over the death-throes of • humoured, cheerful, active girl, and at the date of her
starved woman I Waa this boy, whose whole life appeared marriage, January 15. 1556, in perfect health. She had been
to be hound to the wife at his side, the merciless gaoler. two rears in the service of a married sister, and both her
the vindictive wretch, the merciless demon who refused employers declared that she performed all her duties
fond to a fellow-creature and laughed her pangs to acorns diligently, and received any reproof without ever losing
who knocked a hag of bones iut 5 a grate and thrashed • her teniper. William Schupfer offered her his hand
lathy I As the damning evidence accumulated, again I through the medium of some female matchmaker, and she
turned to the dock to lee if I could detect a trace of such accepted him after a short courtship of three weeks,
lerbarous infamy. Note spark of it was there in face or going at once to reside at the house of his parents. She
manner. My thoughts might have been unjust, but it ha I a small fortune of 1,207 francs, 92 cents., and to get
struck me that Louis Staunton might Ise hard and crueL this into their own power was the first aim of her new
He gave no thought of anything or anybody. He wrote relatives. On the ard of April she was prevailed on to
no uoril in the dock to Mice Swab, lie did nor look at sign a will giving half this money at her death to her
her or console her with a glance. Ile slid not touch his m0,...ed al'' lately, the other half an a life interest
br.sther, that " dearest 11. a" of his schoolboy days, or From this moment the one object of the three Schnpfers
speak one word to hint. He looked like a man who was seems to have been to get rid of her and this purpose
wallsing in his sleet.. quite uneonscions of all that was was offer-test in the coarse of foor months. The blooming
coins on around hint He was perfectly paralysed with girl who became a wile on the 15'h of January, who signed
fear. The women were more d,Meult to analyse. Their a will on the led of April, then also in good health, wax
feces were polled Ilsnd swollen with weeping, and as squalid emaciated corpse on the 12th of August: and the
they came into court they looked down on the ground and causes of that change and that death appear in the report
shrank from public view. But until the last day of nip life already cited, of the medical college at Luzern. It would
I shall never forget the sight ol those four faces as they answer no purpose to harrow the feelings of a reader by
looked when the jury returned. I see that female warder detailing, from the evidence of many witnesses, all the
with the blue bonnet ansl her c. ompanion in inky black, sufferings of this poor creature during the seri= and
I see thg face and beard of kind, anxious-looking Mr. summer of 1556; starvation, imprisonment, and heating
Sydney Smith. I shall see Patrick Staunton bent almost the last inflicted almost daily by her husband, her father-
sionble and trembling, and I shall hear that ghastly moan, in-law, or ii ith. Of the guilt of all the three pereons
"Oh do give use a chair as the prostrate woinao fell there in ample proof in their own confessions or adroit.-
hack into the warJer's arms, whilst say memory endures. sions. Katherine Schtipfer, who is said to have been
How. in Heaven's name, can people enjoy such scenes aa manifestly tortured by the stings of conscience, began
these, My neighbour in court had sisen every celebrated her confession by crying, 'lt is borrilde what I have
criminal condemned since Palmer heard his doom. He done; I cannot atone for it all my life long: I am
inaisted on telling me how Palmer stool through sut the lost for ever and ever: I cannot hear to think that we
trial. where Sergeant Shoe sat, what the Attorney-General should have let the woman starve no miserably and so
(Sir A. Cockburhl said, awl dilated on the glories of three shamefully." She said it was proposed by her husband,
judges on the Bench. When the jury had retired he as an unterstanding in the hnuse, that the young woman
croaked to ine hsivr he had last seen Wainwright hurried should have less and lees to eat continually, and at last
dawn to death, and he positively chuckled over the on- so little, that she must soon die. It was also resolved to
coming excitement To me all the suspense was one long shut her up in the dark room, that the sun might not
agony. I wondered what I should do if I were in the shine upon her, and her life might the sooner end. "1
dock, bow I should behave, where my thoughts would ' myself," she said, "disi not inin in this proposal. but I
wander during those awful hours, and the perspiration complied with it when settled. My husband hated the
started to my forehead, as it did all day to Patrick young women worst, he was like a demon against her. He
Staunton'. brow. And so the time wore on until the , often laughed and exhultel when she fell down from
speeches for the defence were over. All had been done weakness, and said, 'in August we shall have done with
that could be done for the prisoners. They could have her.'" As she got weaker and weaker, he and Wilhelm
nothing more said for them, except, as I thought, by the , heat her more and more. Wilhelm put a quantity of salt
Judge. If my verstiet were asked at this point I should int 3 her soup, an-I said it would ruin her stomach quite.
have found them all guilty of manslaughter but I made When she came Inan from the chamber above she was
• mental reservation in favour of Alice Rhodes desiring 1 beaten by both till she went up again twice she was
to hear the law expounded by Mr. Justice Hawkins. The locked in the cellar. At cherry harvest Wilhelm said,
last speech of the Attorney-General was, in my humble "Noss must she have nothing,to eat for ..r,days,atail then
opinion, a masterpiece, so clear, so true, so solid, and, , get a I urge basket of cherries. And this wits done. Once
above all, so human, the speech of a man +la° set I gave her a large glass of brandy, and nothing else but a
his teeth to do his duty, and without shrinking from that small cup of coffee. When Wilhelm came in, I told him,
duty never covered up his heart The argument al and he said I ought to have given her much more brandy.
regards the corroborative evidence to strengthen the After the past in came. I gave her enough to eat for two
statements of Clara Brown MK in sssy opinion, decisive dams then again hardly anything. What she had was a
on all but one vital point. Again, I should have found all small cup of coffee and a small slice of bread in the morn-
prisoners guilty of manslaughter, hesitating still about Mg; at noon • little bread and milk and two spoonsful of
Alice Rhodes until I had heard the law, rice broth; at night a little soup in • eoffee sup and two
In extreme anxiety I waited for the summing-up, and small alines of bread. I often primed that she might die
never before had my attention been for so many hours on snon. That weighs upon me. Once I gave two women in
the rack. There were certain points on which I somehow Werthenstein some coffee, and begged them to pray to the
wavered, and I required the fbrtifying strength ot the Mother of God in Werthenstein for the speedy death of the
Judge's mind. I could not quite see bow it was that mauls woman and I got two other women to Pray to the
Harriett Staunton did not try to make ea attempt to Holy Mother of God in Monster for the same purpose.
Nape; why she never tried to make a noise to attract When Wilhelm went away to the harreetj said to him,