The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-04-29 00:00:00

EXECUTION OF THE STRATFORD
MURDERER.

The execution of the culprit, Michn .1 Canipbell, for
the murder of Mr. Galloway, at Stratford, tool{ place
on Monday morn;ng within the walla of Springfield
Gaol, the county gad for E.aex.

The prisomr, it will be remembered, woe convicted
of a very eggravated off no,, lie had gone out with
two other mu on the evening of thu 9.h of February
for the purpose of entering hoos.a by means of
climbing up the porticoes in front, and then plunder.
int; the upp,r rooms of any valuables they coutaiLed.
They bad made two or three unsueemnstul attempts,
and at length, while in the act of entering the house
of the deceased gentletuan, they were distutbed, and
one of the t,ri.on P'S companions was He's al by the de.
cuwed. Thu prisoner came up and stabbed the uufor.
tunate gentleman in the eye, ittflictitt.,• a w mud of
which he died a very few days afterwards. After the
trial, although a strenuous attempt was made to show
that the witness s were mistaken in speaking to his
identity, he admitted that he was the man who atabbed
the deceased ; although, at the same time, he declared
he had no intention of Mlle.:Ling serious iojory, but
nn-rely desired to rescue his companion, who teas in
the grasp of the deceased.

The prisoner conducted himself remarkably well since
hi 8 incarceration in Springfield Gaol, Nutt a few days pre-
ViOU4 to his execution, he made a statement to the effect,
that he hail for many years led a life of crime and dis-
honesty. For many yearn be sot lii, living by picking
pockets, and at an early period of his life he stated that
he and three other I..di were convicted of robbery. Be
was sentenced (us term of impriecniniont, and then to
be sent to a reformatory; he declared that he was
innocent of this offence. Ile stat,d that who he
acquired his liberty he had no means of obtaining an
iiiinest liv,lihood, sad he very soon resorted to his old
had practicee. Ile said it was only during the last
three or four years that he joined a gang of house-
breakers, who chit fly directed their attention to what
are called " parlour" robberies. The !rile...l:ter etated
that en the night in question he and a man named
Galbraith, a third man, and a woman, started on an
expedition of this character, the woman being
with them to keep watch and give information
when any one was approaching, while the rest of the
pay were engaged in committing a robbery. It
appeals that they were to take it by turns, and it was
that of the culprit to attempt to enter the next bothie
that they intended to rob. In consequence of this the
prisoner had in his poasession a small sharp crow-bar,
or "jemmy," and it appears that it was with thin
in,trument that the deadly injury was inflicted upon
the deceated, and the culprit asserts that they had
anol her weapon or instrument in their ponsession.
When he came up to the deceased, and found that he
IVJoe holding his companion and calling for the police,
he said that in an instant he drew the " jemmy " from
bid pocket, and made a stab at the aim of the deceased,
for the purpose of making him loose his companion,
but he mimed his aim and struck him in the face, but
he inserted that the melancholy occurrence, was, to a
conliderable extent, accidental.

The culprit was a Roman Catholic and since his
conviction he had ben constantly attended by the
R.-v. Mr. Butt, a Roman Catholic priest. The prb
loner wrote a letter to his mother, who I. the only
relative that visited him since his conviction, in which he
expres3ed hie deep sorrow for the crime he had corn.
mated, and expressed an earnest hope that his sad fate
would be a warning to his brothers and sisters, and
that they would lead honest and religious lives.

Mr. Gapp, the representative of the high sheriff, at-
tended at the prison shortly before eight o'clock, on
hlonday morning, accompanied by some of his officials,
and the culprit was shortly afterwards pinioned. At
this time he expreseed his sorrow for the act he had
committed, and expreAsed a hope that he should be
{,ardoLed by God, Ile shook hands with Captain
MT:orrery, the govertmr of the prison, and the warders
who had had him in charge, and thanked them for the
kindness they had exhibited towards him, and he, at
the same time, said he was (mite prepared to die.
A procession was then formed to the scaffold, which
was nested in one of the yards of the gaol. The
prisoner, who was accompanied by the Itsman Catholh:
priest, kneeled down when he was placed under the
beam, and appea-eel to pray most fervently for a
minute IT two, and he then resigned himself to the
offices of CAcraft, the execu.i ,ner, and the platform
shortly afterwards tell, and after two or three convul-
sive struggh s the culprit em.sed to exist. A back flag
was hoiste I at the moment of the execution, but there
were not more than a score of idlers outside the gaol at
the time the execution to..k

This was the first prirate-executiou that lies taken
rgaJa in the county of &sex.

AS TO THE RELIGION IN WHICH A
CHILD SHOULD BE EDUCATED.

In ttm Court el Caner, hefore the Louts Justices et
Appeal, the cans° of " limsksoorth v. II tab...meth," ball
been eedded, It Vas an ape d from a daub:ton of Vice-
Chancellor Wickens. as ice-Chancellor of the Lunmster
COmmary Court.. The quest!on in dispute was In what
ralisiou an Infant 'ob.! of Cunt ought to be 'Educated—
whether as a It mow Catholic or a Protattamt.

The inf snt is a girl named Catherire Ilswksworth,
aged about eight years and a half, a daughter of the
late Mr. Thorne, Hawksworth, of Liverpool, who died
In March, 1863, when the child was about six months
old. The father aas a Roman Catholic, the moth, r was
when she married, and still is, a member of the Church
of England. 'lnc child was baptized according to
the rites of the Raman Catholic Church, shortly after
her birth. The father gave DO directions as to the reli-
gion in which the child should be educated. Ever
since the fa:belie death ahe has lived with her mother
and has been in the habit of attending the religious
service iof the Church of England. S ate of the eels,-
tione oa the father's able desire that the child should
now be brought up in her fatheee religion.
The Vice-Chancellor bad an interview with the child
and came to the conclusion that she had been carefully
and well educated. MB Honour said that he ei,l net
ol.tain and did cot in any way try to elicit any opinion
from her BA to the question between the Churches, and
that if he had thought that the child bad been brought
up to a keen and premature consciousness of the true
beating and meaning of those questions he should have
formed a much lees favourable opinion of the mother
than he had actually formed. His Honour said,
" \Vex, I at liberty to follow my own opinion I should
have no hesitation in acceding to Mr. Jackson's earnest
argument. To direct that the ward should be brought
up in the Roman Catholic faith will be to create a
barrier between a widowed mother and her only
child, to annul the mother's influence over her
daughter on the most important of all the subjects on
which it cu he exercised, with the almost inevitable
ell eet of weakening it in all others, to introduce a dis-
turbing element into a union which ought to be as close,
as warm, ant as absolute as any known to man ; and,
lastly, to inflict the most severe pain on both mother
and child. But it is clear that no argument which
would recognize any right in the widowed mother to
bring up her child in a religion different from the
father's Can be allowed to weigh with me at all. Am
cording to the law of this Court the mother has no such
right. The duty of the widowed mother is in general
to bring up the child according to the faith which the
father urofeesed, even though she utterly disapproves
it, and haste that to do so will diminbh her influence
over the child and cloud the relation between theni."
For these reasons his Honour directed that the chill
should be educated in the Roman Catholic faith, and
from this decision the mother appealed.

Mr. Dickinson, Q.C. and Mr. Jackson, in support
of the appeal, contended that though the general rule
of the Court was that a child should be educated in the
religions faith of its father, yet exceptions had been
allowed. The main thing regarded by the Court was
the interest of the child, and if the Court found that
the child had imbibed strong impressions in favour of
a faith different from that of her father, so that if
these impressions were interfered with there would be
a danger of unsettling her religions sews altogether,
then the Court would not do anything to enforce what
would otherwise be the rights of the father. At any
rate, the Court should have an interview with the child
and ascertain for themselves what the nature of her reli-
vionsimpreasions was, as was done by L rdn Justices
Knight Bruce and Turner in " Smarten r. Stourion
(81k U. M. and 0., 760) in the case of a child a little
more than nine years old, the result of which was that
they allowed the child to be educated in the faith of
the mother, who was a Protestant, instead of that of
the deceased father, who had been a Itriman Catholic.
Lord Justice James was of opinion that the Vice.
Chancellor had arrived at a right conclusion, and that
he was also right in the manner in which he had dealt
with the infant in the interview which he had with
I her. His Lordship diPnot think it proper to pursue
any further an investigation into the state of the
infant's mind. In this case the child was 84 years old.
Her father was a Roman Catholic, and shortly before
his death he had her baptiscd in a Roman Catholic
church with Roman Catholic sponsors. his other chil-
dren by a former wife were all brought up in the
It man Catholic faith. There was no tramof indiffer-
ence on the part of the father as to the religious edu-
cation of the ci ilil. There was nothing to show that
he would have consented to her being brought up as
a Prot( cant. The rule of this Cont was that all
persons who had the charge el a child after its
father's ee ith should have regard to the r,-ligion of the
father in their dealings with the child. Under ordinary
circumstances it was the duly of a guardian and it
was the duty of this Court to see that the child was
brought up in the religion of the father. This child
had been brought up by A Protestant mother, and
had received ouch relishing impressions As a Christian
mother would produce upon the mind of a car-fully-
educated Christian child ; and the Vice-Chancellor
was of opinion that she had not been inducted into those
matters of religious controversy between Prote,tant
and ll]man Catholics of which it was very difficult
that a child of her age should have any unlerstanding.
The child had now arrived at AU age at which it was of
importance that her religious education should be
attended to, and the question was what form of religion
should be adopted. His Lordship was ef opinion that
no other form of religion could be adopted than that of
the father. There had no doubt been cases in which
the impressions which had been made upon a child's
mind were such that the Court found that any attempt
to alter them would involve great danger to the child's
relgions faith. But there never had been any case in
which the Court had inquired into the religious im-
pressions of a child only 8( years old. That
course was carried to its exta eine limit in
the case of • "Stotirton V. Stourton' " and he
Lordship al not wish to carry it any further. In
that case the child had been prematurely in-
duced by a proselytizing mother into matters
of religious controversy. His Lordship said that he
for one should be very unwilliug.to do anything to en.
courage any persons to begin the work of proselytizing
in the case of children of such tender age, when it
would be well this: they should be kept entirely free
from those religions controversies with which the outer
world was too much occupied. In the present case
nothing of that kind had occurred. The child had

only received religious impressions, and li—eaTbSen
taught her religious duties by her mother, ani there
would lit nothing to disturb those iniprnisieue in new
aiding to then, the peculiar doctrinee of the It satin I
Catholic Church. The mother has had the charge I
of the child tip to the time when her regular
religious instruction ought to commence, sad the Court
ought now to direct that she be brought up and edm
cated an a member of the Roman Catholic Coureh, m
she could not have arquired any pecular religious un-
preesions which would render this course improper.
Lord Justice Mellish was entirely of the same
Opinion, He agreed in the conclusion of the Vice-
Ch and in the manner in which he had
c inducted the case. Ile agreed ale° Slut the case of
" Stourton v. Stourton " had carried the inquiry into
the religious opinions of a child as far as it OU4lit to be
carried. In this case, howevi r, the chili was
'ember than that. It was very desirable that the
rule of law applicable to these cams sbould be clearly
laid down. That rule was that, noires there existed
some strong reason in the interest of the child
rendering it undeeirable, a child ought to be
brought up in the religion of his father.
Was there any such reason in the present owe?
His lordship coon quite conceive a difference ot
opinion an to the propriety of this rule of law in
a case where the parents being of diff -rent reli-
gions the father dud first, without giving any
directions as to the religious education of his
child. But this court could not alter the rule of law,
and if it were to reverie the decisi in of the Vice-
Caaucellor in ths press nt ease, it must do so upon the
ground that the child bad received Inch strong Me
premium with !ward to the doctrines of a particular
faith that it would be undesirable to after the system
of its religious education. But if the Court wire to ,
have regard to the religious opinions of a child of such
tender age, it must do so iu whatever way it had ac-
quired those opinions, even in a case where the child
had been stolen away for the purpose of being made a
proselyte. But his Lordship could not think that tb.,
religious opinions of a child of such tender years as 84
were ever so matured that they ought to be attended to
by the Court. The Vice-Chancellor saw this child,
and inquired into her general state of education, and
became to the conclusion, in which his Lordship cot-
coned, that it would be undesirable to go into the
question whether she had acquired any strong impress
sons with regard to the matters of difference between
the two Churches. The appeal would be &mimed
with costa.