The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-02-08 00:00:00

UTLIRD,A.7) FEB, a, 151,9,

and they appeared to be carrying one man. I could not
distinctly see who -they were, but they carried Mr. Dyson
into his house, and I there found him sitting in a chair.
He was insensible and blood was streaming down his face.
My house and Mr. Dyson's were the only two Which opened
into that part of the yard.
Cross-examined by Mr. Lockwood : Did this man you saw
in November, that you say was Peace, appear just the same
as the man you saw in October?—Yes. •
Did your husband, in the November time, tell Mr. Dyson
that the man had been?—After the tint time.
You heard your husband make this communication with
regard to the 25th of October 2—Yes.
How long after hearing the clogs go past did you hear
the scream I—Directly after—l might say not more than a
minute.
Sarah Colgreaves, wife of Thomas Colgreaves, of Dobbin-
hail, about a quarter of a mile from Banner-cross-terrace,
examined by Mr. Foster, said,—l remember going to Mr.
Gregory's shop about half-past seven o'clock on the night
of the 29th of November, 1876, when I met the prisoner
walking from the shop. He asked me if I knew who lived
in the second house up the terrace—Gregory's is the first
house. I said, "No." Ile asked me if they were strangers
and I told him "Yes." He said, "You don't know
them?" I said, "No," and he said, '• I wi'l tell you
then; that woman is my —." I told him I thought he
moralo mind what he said and particularly to strangers.
He asked me if I minded going in and saying an elderly
gentleman wished to speak to her. I told him, "No ; you
must eo yourself." I then went on to Gregory's ihop. I
was there about ten minutes. As I left the shop I saw the
prisoner come out of Mr. Gregory's passage and go up the
road towards Eccleshali. While this conversation passed
I had a good opportunity of seeing the man and I am sure
he is the prisoner.
Charles Brassington, labourer, living at Lane-end, Eccles-
hall, examined by Mr. Forster, said: About eight o'clock
on Wednesday night, the 29th of November, I was on the
road near the "Banner-cross Hotel," Ecoleshall•road. The
hotel is about thirty yards from Gregory's shoe. It was a
moonlight night. The prisoner walked backwards and
forwards and passed use two or three times. Afterwards
he stopped me and said, "Do you know if any strange
people have come to live about here? " I said "I don't
know." When he had asked that question we had walked
together to the lamp above. Beneath the lamp he showed
me a photograph. He also showed me some letters and
asked me to read them, but I told him I could not read
I did not take much notice of them. He said, "I will
make it a warm one for these folks before morning; 1111
shoot them both." He then went on towards Gregory's,
and I left.
Had you an opportunity of seeing the man 7-1 did not
see much. I did not look at him very particularly. It is
the same man who is in the dock.
The next witness, Charles Wyman, a quarryman, who was
at the Banner-cross Hotel on the evening in question, de-
posed to having heard two reports of a pistol or gun about
eight o'clock. When he went to the door of the hotel he
heard Mrs. Dyson screaming loudly and ran to the spot.
He then saw Mr. Dyson lying on the door and Mrs. Dyson
'holding his head.

Thomas Wilson, who said he resided near the Banner-
cross Hotel, gave evidence to the effect that he heard two
reports of a pistol on the night of the £9lh of November in
quick succession near Gregory's house, and saw a man cross
the road immediately after and get over a wall on the side
opposite the hems°. Ile could not, however, see who the
man was. He then went to a spot close at band, whence he
heard the screams of a woman proceed, and saw Mr.
Dyson lying on the ground, as had been described by the
previous witnesses.
Mr. J. W. Harrison, surgeon, practising at Sheffield, stated
that he was called by the last witness to attend Mr. Dyson,
about half-past eight o'clock on the evening of the 29th of
November He found on his temple, which was bleeding, a
wound. He examined the wound and found that it extended
very deeply into the brain. He remained with him until
about half-past ten o'clock, when he expired, as the result of
the wound. The wound extended from the left temple up-
ward obliquely. The bullet was extracted and had been given
into the custody of Inspector Bradbury.
Cross-examined by Mr. Lockwood: On examining the
wound he had found a slight abrasion on the chin and nose.
He did not think those abrasions were such as would be
likely to be caused by a blow of the fist, even though the
striker wore a ring. He had stated when before the coroner
that Mr. Dyson had a bruise on the noise and chin as if he
had fallen on his face, and he now repeated that state-
ment.
Re-examined : The bullet in the brain was the cause of
death.
George Ward, police-constable, Sheffield, spoke to having
made an examination of the garden oppoAte Gregory's
house, to having foiled the traces of a man's footsteps there,
and the bundle of letters which were produced in Court in
the field beyond it.
David Bradbury, police inspector, Sheffield, proved having
received a bullet into his custody, which he produced. Ho
saw Mrs Dyson on the night of the 20h of November as
her husband was dying. In consequence of a description
of some man which she gave him, he made a search for
Charles Peace, but he was unable to find him. A photo-
tograph was also produced by the witness, which Mrs.
Dyson, having been recalled, recognized as that which had
been taken of herself and Peace at the Sheffield fair.
Rose Annie Sykes gave evidence to the effect that while
residing next door to the house of the Dysona in Darnall, in
July, 1870, she heard the prisoner use threats against Mr.
Dyson. Mrs. Dyson, who was present, asked him why he
annoyed her husband, and his reply was that he would con-
tinue to annoy him and her too. The prisoner on that
occasion also took out a revolver and said he would blow
her and her husband's brains out.
This evidence was corroborated by the husband of the
witness Sykes, who, however, contradicted himself with
respect to the use of the words used by Peace and by Jane
Pad more.
Edward Robinson, Metropolitan Police, was then exa-
mined, and stated that he was on duty on the 3rd of October
last on Blackheath. He wasen an avenue outside the house
of a gentleman named Burness and saw the prisoner coming
out of the dining-room window. He got over the wall into
the garden. There was a shrubbery at the bottom of the
garden, towards which the prisoner made. He ran after
him. As he went the prisoner rook out a revolver, which
he pointed at witness, saying, "Keep off, or I'll shoot you."
Ile said, "You had better not," whereupon the prisoner
immediately fired three shots at him. He afterwards fired
two more and the bullet of the last struck him in the arm.
lie thereupon closed with the prisoner, when, a brother
constable having come up to assist him, the prisoner was
taken into custody.
Charles Brown, a sergeant in the 'Metropolitan Police,
proved having taken the revolver from the prisoner.
Mr. Woodward, a gun and rifle maker, of St. James's-
street, London, was next called, and stated that he had
examined the rifle, which was one with seven grooves, and
that it showed such a riffling as the bullet which was in
court would produce. He, however, admitted in cross-
examination teat the rifle was of a common kind, such as
was sent over to this country from Belgium in thousands.
This closed the evidence for the prosecution.
Mr. Lockwood having declined to call witnesses,
Mr. Campbell Foster briefly commented on the evidence,
contending that the object of the cross-examination of Mrs.
Dyson had evidently been to throw doubt upon her evidence
and to prejudice the jury against her, but that her teatimeny
remained unshaken and that the counsel for the defence)
dared not call the persons with whom she had been con-
fronted to contradict it.
Mr. Lockwood then addressed the jury for the defence.
Be said that from one end to the other of the country
a cry for blood had been raised, while people whose duty
it was to preserve the liberties of their fellow-men had
not hesitated, for the sake of the paltry pence they
could snatch from the public, to prejudice a fellow-
creature's lde. Could ho, he asked, hope for a moment
that while the case had been discussed and canvassed
throughout the length and breadth of the land the jury
had not been drawn into the vortex of the discussion?
He entreated them, however, most earnestly, by the
oaths which they had taken, not to approach the question
as one which they had already determined, Proceeding
then to comment upon the evidence, the learned counsel
said that in attacking the credibility of that given by Mrs.
Dyson he had simply done his duty, seeing that she was the
only witness who had spoken to the actual transaction in
question. He asked them to look upon. that evidence
with very great suspicion. It had a very important bear-
ing upon the case, for there was not a soul who could
speak to what occurred in the passage outside her house but
Mrs. Dyson herself and the prisoner at the bar, whose mouth
was closed. He was, he thought, entitled to their verdict
because that woman's evidence stood alone, and because it
was beyond all doubt contradicted in many material
points. They had heard his cross-examination with regard
to the struggle and to the discharge of the pistol before
that struggle for the purpose of frightening Dyson; and
might it not well be that there had been such a struggle,
and that in the course of it the shot was fired which had
caused Dyson's death? If that were So. then the crime)
was not one of murder. He bad asked Mrs. Dyson parti-
cularly whether her husband bad not attempted to catch
hold of Peace, and after he had pressed her over and over
again she had fenced with him, and it was only in the
end that he bad got her to say that she was not prepared
to swear that her husband had not caught hold of him.
The position In which the body of the eying man was
found and other circumstances were all, he might
add, corroborative of the theory that it was in a struggle
that the fatal shot was fired. As to the letters which his
learned friend had treated as being of so little importance in
the case that he had declined to put them in, the only
observation he need make was that he had thrown over-
board a piece of testimony contained in that card which he
had read to them in his opening speech, and on which he
seemed to set consideralle value, because he had pointed
out to him that if that card were put in he would also have
to put in the letters. But his learned friend knew full well
that that which he, in the exercise of a wi,e discretion,
had refused to do, the counsel for the prisoner
could not do. He wished, in the next place, to point
out that it Mrs. Dyson's story was to be credited, the
bullet would have found its way into the head of the
man, who, she said, was in front, walking down the
passage, and would not, as was shown by medical testi-
mony, have passed in an upward direction. Did not all
this show that at the time a struggle was going en; that
the hand of one of the men was being held and pressed
towards the head of the man who was holding him; and
that when the struggle was going on the pistol went off and
the bullet struck Dyson in the attempt to wrest away the
we
me apploynt
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elf y
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Mrseved.
Dyson
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rs ear,
ya,n theytlre had
wy
ould
have to ask themselves the question, could they place such
implicit faith in the evidence of such a woman as to risk
the life of a fellow man? The learned counsel next referred
in aetail to the evidence of Mrs. Gregory and the witness
Brassington, and commented strongly on the inability of
the latter to speak with confidence as to dates, or upon the
question of identity. He did not mean, he said, for a
moment to deny that the client on whom behalf he was
speaking had been a wild and reckless man. It would be
quite possible for such a man as that to use threats
under the influence of passion which be did not really
intend to carry out, and he might therefore have
made use of some such expressions as those of which
Brassington had spoken, and then, when the in-
terview occurred between him and the Dy sons, and when the
first shot had been tired in the way he had suggested, the
second shot was also fired during the conflict which occurred
Referring next to the threats which the prisoner was said to
have used in July, 1870, Mr. Lockwood said he felt assured
that when the jury came to consider the weight of the
evidence they would not lay too much stress on words which
might never have been uttered at all, and asked for a ver-
dict of acquittal of the charge of murder at their hands, on
the ground that the prosecution had failed by means of
satisfactory testimony and reliable witnesses to bring the
charge home to the prisoner at the b3r.
The Judge then proceeded to charge the jury. Nobody,
he said, regretted more than he did that the case had been
made the subject of so much writing in the newspapers, and
he earnestly
which
h
y they
them to cast from their minds every-
thing might have heard or read about it before
they came into court. He then proceeded to define the crime
of murder, which he said, was killing of another withenalice
aforeth eught,although there were eircumstancea which might
reduce homicide to the offence known as manslaughter. He
next read copiously from the evidence of Mrs. Dyson,
making occasional comments upon it as he went on, and
observir g that, whatever view the jury might think as to
there being any improper familiarity between her and the
prisoner, as had been suggested by her cross-examination,
the case did not rest upon her evidence alone. They must
carefully bear in mind that the defence which had been
set up was not that the prisoner was not on the
spot when Dyscrn was killed. There was no at-
tempt made to deny that he was there. It more-
over seemed to be admitted that two sh As were fired,
built was contended that a first shot was fired merely to
frighten Dyson, and that in the scnffle which ensued the
pistol went off a second time and caused the deceased man's
death. These were all matters deserving their considera-
tion. Alluding to the conduct of Sergeant Robinson every
one he said must give him the greatest credit for theboldness
and courage which he had displayed in apprehending the
prisoner. The jury hal now the whole of the facts of the
cage before them, and it now passed from him to them.
That they bad a most responsible duty to discharge they were
,
well aware. They were, at the'same time, bdund to look•
carefully at the whole of the e4ldekce. ,It they could col*
ep isomer the leentso of im doubt,
.thei
seontiOuslY give the
tO ttO 14; tt4 W*o a cliinglu that the eviditicie