The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-07-18 00:00:00

A BRUTAL MURDER.

Unmitigated gloom surrounds the case of William
Paris, a farm labourer, aged thirty, who on Wednesday,
at Maidstone Assizes, was sentenced to death by Mr.
Baron Mudd'eaten for the nourder, on the lath ultimo, of
a little boy seven years old, named William Crouch.
The convict himself had averred that "a worse murder
never WAS committed," and that "hanging was too good
for him ;" and certainly, when the circumstances of the
crime mime to be considered, the remorseful self-condem-
nation of the criminal does not owein in any way
exaggerated. The whole story is essentially ghastly and
repulsive; but it is necessary, without needlessly
dwelling on its more revolting details, to recount its
leading feature., in order to deduce therefrom a moral
which society, for its own safety's sake, had best lay
deeply to heart, The man Paris was a farm labourer,
living at Olfhano, near Malting, in Kent, and for some
days a woman named t 4seich, the mother of the murdered
child, had been working on the farm where Paris was
employed. 41,Alch, wan ecanoined at the to ial, could
give no better account of herself save the wretched one
that "she had always lived in the union;" and the child
, was, it is so supposed, workhouse.born and workhouse-
bred. Ile ioppears, at all events, to have been illigunate.
The mother, last June, was working in the hop gardens,
and on the loth bile slept at a ',combo', called the Royal
Oak, where she was ',minimal a bed for the next two
nicht, iii, the evening of that day she went to a public.
howw, and remained there drinking until about 11l
o'clock. She acknowledged that she wax "a little the
worse for drink ;" and she MHOS to have fallen
Into conversation with Paris, who., with other farm
labourers, was tippling at this tavern. "In sport,"
according to the WOMAII, she Made all assicomtion with
Paris fir that same night ; but another rnan who was
present took up the brutal joke IT declaring that she had
promised Pi accompany The jealousy of the pro-
fligate suoinial Paris -whom the woman declared that she
had never seen until then—appears to have been aroused,
and he went out of the tavern, taking with him in his
arms the little lay William, and warning the souther that
lie was about to leave, deeming no doubt, with just the
amount of instinct that a brute would show, that she
would follow him. But the half-drunken mother ditl not
go in quest of her child. She never saw the hapless little
creature alive again. William Paris had been waiting for
a long time in smite hop-grounils where he thought that
Crouch would meet him, when, in a 41e. 'seal lit of
vindictive rage and spite imainst the woman who. lie 01.11-
ceivol. hal Is:baled him, he procosided to mnhir her
• 'cent boy. Ile knocked the poor little fellow's bead to
fragments with a piece of iron; and he then went and
gave himself up to the police, iwknowledging that he had
done the deed, and remarking that he should be hanged
Fr murder. The forecast, in this regard, of William
Paris will ere long aseurestly be iiillilksl.
Only one plea in extenuation of this foul crime could tie
advanced by the counsel for the prisoner. Paris haol,lnnik
himself into "a filthy, bestial state," from which it takes
a man several days to recover ;and it was in a paroxysm
of ungovernable fury that he killed the child. The parents
of the prisoner, So the learned Judge put it. "clutched at
the straw" of endeavouring to show that the man Was
insane. Ile was in the habit, it was alleged, of indulging
in " bouts" of drinking. aml alter his carouses he was
l„se end te,,,,dy. Most drunkards are so after a
debauch. Sometione.s he made "strange speeches, as if he
was not in his senses;" but these aberrations did not often
occur. Ills eyes on the morning of the murder hail looked
"strange." If e had once observed that "God was no good
to him." "I done it," he had said, alluding Pi the deel;
and then, pointing to a splash of gore on the „oho of his
haul, he oiled, "That's some of the blood." Ills father
deposed that William l'aris had had a rheumatic fever
some Ii years ago, and that a second cousin of his had
been in a lunatic asylum. But all these wretched waifs
and strays of testimony could avail little, it Was manifest,
to establish the plea of insanity. Without any hesitation,
the jury found the prisoner guilty; and it is worth while
to recall Om words which, in presence of • densely
crowded court, Mr. Baron Iluddleston addressed to the
~uilty wretch. "You have been convicted, of a most
3reielful crime. No one can doubt that, led away by evil
passions, mid disappointed at their not being gratified,
yuu, wreaked your vengeance on that unhappy child. I do
not desire to aggravate your present position by reminding
you of the details of the 'ruse which you have committed.
lespend upon it that your days are numbered in this
world, and that you must seek elsewhere than in this
world for consolation. I pray of you to avail yourself of
the mercy whicn is open even to the worst of men." The
Judge then proceeded to pronounce sentence of death in
the usual form ; and the Prisoner, "who exhibited the
utmost callousness," WAS removed from the bar. What
other feelings could be have been expected to exhibit I
Ile is a savage brute,land as such he will die the death.

&WM AUSTIALIA.—The Agent General for this Colony
has received the following telegram from the Government
at Adelaide' which seems to have been unaccountably
delayed in transmission, baying only been received in
London by the Submarine Telegraph Company on Thurs-
day night at MAO p.m. After giving the names of the
new ministry, it states Railway Extension Policy
affirmed. Provos's for second cable under consideration.
Wheat four shillings and sunepenee per hneheL •Northern
Monarch.' arrived all well. land 'elections continue to
Inczesee.