The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-10-28 00:00:00

THE HEREFORD MURDER.

Upon whatever growl& the advocatea of

capital punishments base their advocacy, it must
be clear to all who read the public journals, and
devote a little thought to what they road, that
the argument in their favour, drawn from their
alleged deterrent influence in reference to capital
crime, must be given up. Calcraft may do many
things by means of those grim spectacles in which
he is one of the chief figurers ; he may furnish
a kind of excitement to those whose morbid
excitement require such stimulating food. to
make it rolishible ; ho may satisfy the instinct
in our nature which demands blood for blood;
but if the idea of Calcraft ever interpose between
the murderer and his victim, when the hand of
the former is raised against the latter, it does
not prevent him striking the blow. Whether ot
not we have arrived at the acme of perfection
in dealing with our criminals, it is not our object
at present to discuss ; but there seems a vicious
element in society somewhere—a subtle spirit
of evil at work, which no curative agency
hitherto discovered can extirpate ; indeed, so
common have crimes of aggravated assault and
murder become, that society, like Macbeth, may
be said to have "supplied full of horrors," and
' to have grown comparatively insensible to the
dreadful character of the meal. The violation
and murder of a young female at Ullingswick,
in the quiet and secluded agricultural county of
Hereford, almost rivals, in diabolical atrocity and
brutal and unscrupulous villany, the murder of
Mary Ann Susan Hall, at Fordingbridge.
William Hope, the person charged with the
Ullingswick offence, like Gilbert, is a returned
convict. He is described as a stout, thick-
necked, burly-looking fellow, whose physiognomy
tends to a low estimate of his moral character,
and who has been twice convicted since his return
from penal servitude. In this case, like that of
Miss Hall's, the poor victim had given no offence
to anyone. It seems that on Monday night
Mrs. Skerrett, the with of a respectable farmer,
finding Some of the necessaries of house-keeping
getting rather low sent Mary Corbett, her ser-
vant, 18 years of age, to the Drainer's Arms
public house, to which the shop for the sale of
groceries is attached. She is said to have been
an exceedingly fine, powerful girl for her age,
and when she entered the Drainer's Arms about
half-past nine o'clock, the prisoner was drinking
in the kitchen, through which she had to pass to
get to the shop. On passing through the
kitchen the second time, the prisoner asked her
to drink with him, but this she declined, and
walked on. Immediately on her leaving the
honse, however, he was observed to rise from
his seat and follow her, leaving behind him
some beer, which he did not return to drink.
Nothing further transpired to indicate the offence
that was committed. At the inquest held on
the body on Thursday last, Mrs. Skerrett said
that, finding the deceased did not return, she went
out three times to try to find her. She called
but no one answered ; when,thinking she might
have gone to her grandmother's, she waited
up till four o'clock in the morning,
but she did not return. Richard Mapp, a
labourer, living about 150 yards from the
Drainer's Arms, said he went to bed about ten
o'clock, and immediately afterwards he heard
two screams. The voice was that of a female
calling out "Oh I oh dear l" He immediately
jumped out of bed and went to the window and
listened for abottt ten Minutes, but it rained very
fast and the wind was very boisterous, and he
heard no more. The place where a struggle had
occurred in the road was about 70 yards off.
On the following morning a man named Weaver,
lodging at the house or aeorgo Hope, the pri-
soner's brother, went out at the back of the house
to wash, when he saw something lying under the
hedge in the field, against a tree. He could see
it was a person as if covered over with a shawl.
He called George Hope, and they both went to
the spot. They saw It was a female, dead and
stiff, in a sitting posture, and her head hanging
over her right shoulder. Her face was covered
with mud and blood, and her hair was in a dis-
orderly state all over her face. It was evident that
she had been brought there by her murderer, as
there were no foot-marks but those of a man.
Her shawl that had been thrown over her was,
dirty and wet, She had the appearance as if She I
had been rolled turned and blood. He went for
Constable, and afterwards, while they were con- I
veying the body to her master's house, they
observed, about 30 yards on the road, where a ,
violent struggle had taken place, which had been I
followed up to a bank by the wayside. It was
here observed that the knees of a man having a
peculiar kind of ribbed stuff in ha trousers had
made indentatiohs in the turf and mould. Here
too, was found, by tho prisoner's brother, a
frail, full of turnips, belonlOg to the prisoner,
and the net which had been torn off the head of
the poor girl. The prisoner did not return to his
lodgings that night, nor does it appear that he
slept in any house. His own statement is to the
effect that he slept in a barn, which, however,
upon examination, did not show any traces of his
having been there. When apprehended, the
prisoner turned deadly pale, but en being bau-
tioned made no reply to the charge. He had
recently extracted several nails from the soles of
his boots. His trousers and linen were bloody
and dirty, and his elbthes were altogether
covered with mud oven to his hat. Dr. Bull, of
Hereford, assisted by Mr. Hill, surgeon, of
Ullingswick, made a post mortern examination
of the body, and described the violation as of the
most shocking and unheard-of nature in the
course of their medical experience. Death re-
sulted fronk asphyxia, or suffocation, caused by
compression of the nose, mouth, and, throat.
The marks of violence had Veen done by a left
and right hand. No other signs to account for
death Were found upon the body. Violation had
been completed with very great violence, but
whether before or after suffocation it was im
possible to say. These are the main points of
the case as affecting the prisoner) who has been
committed on the charge of wilful Murder, found
against him, without hi sitation, by a coroner's
jury. Ho will now be tried by a jury before a
higher tribunal, and we may safely leave the
case in their hands. Meanwhile we may re-
mark that our present system of penal servitude
does not appear to be in the slightest degree re-
formatory. The greater portion of those who
are let out of penal eatabliShinents upon the
world, tidal into crimes far greater than those
for which they were originally prosecuted ; and
we know of no subject more worthy the con-
sideration of the legislature during the coming
parliamentary session. It appears to us high
time for an inquiry to be instituted, with a
view of ascertaining if an improved system of
treatment cannot be adoptedi