The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-27 00:00:00

EXECUTION AT BRISTOL.

At eight o'clock on Monday morning, William
Joseph Distin, was executed at Bristol for the murder
of a woman named Daniels with whom he cohabited,
in the presence of the governor of the gaol, two
inspectors, the prison warders, a visitor, and two
reporters. Marwood was the executioner, and used
the long drop, the pit being ten feet deep, and the
scaffold eight feet high. The fortitude which the pri-
soner exhibited during his trial and up to within a
few days of his execution had latterly utterly forsaken
him, and he had adopted a penitent mood.
He slept very little during last night, and when
lie was roused on Monday morning lie burst into a
paroxysm of grief, which it required the use of stimu-
lants to overcome. He continued groaning during the
whole time the pinioning was being done, and he had
to be supported from the cell to the scaffold by two
warders. On reaching the scaffold he was scarcely
able to stand, and almost at the last moment he had
to be given something to drink.; then heaving a deep
sigh he muttered, "Lord have mercy upon me!" and,
while the chaplain was reading the Lord's Prayer,
Marwood speedily completed his task. A few hun-
dred people assembled outside the gaol, but quietly
and quickly dispersed when the black flag was
hoisted.
The crime for which Distin was executed was com-
mitted in August last. He and Mrs. Daniels, a widow
woman, with whom he cohabited, had frequently
quarrelled, and on August 27 he stabbed her fatally.
An attempt was made to obtain a reprieve on the
ground that he had repeatedly endeavoured to commit
suicide, and was therefore presumably of unsound
mind when he stabbed his victim, but the medical
gentlemen sent down by the Home Office could find
nothing in the present condition or past history of
Distin upon which to recommend a reprieve, and the
Home Secretary refused the prayer of the memo-
rialists.

PRICE OF WHEAT IN OLDEN TlMES.—Wheat, the
price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the
middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel,
barley averaging at the same time three shillings the
quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive;
a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging
from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings ;
the average, however, being six and eightpence. When
the price was above this sum, the merchants might
import to bring it down; when it was below this
price, the farmers were allowed to export to the
foreign markets ; and the same average continued to
I hold, with no perceptible tendency to a rise, till the
close of the reign of Elizabeth,

THE RIGHT TO A VILLAGE GREEN.

In the Supreme Court of Judicature (Court o Appeal) the
cause of "Goddard v. Robson" has been heard. We take
the following report of the case from The Times:—

This was an appeal of the plaintiff from a judgment
of two Judges in the Exchequer Division (the Lord
Chief Baron and Mr. Justice Stephen) in favour of
the defendant, in a case which involved the great
question of the right of the public to the enjoyment of
village greens or commons. The question in this case
had arisen with reference to a place said, but denied,
to be the village green of Walton in Northumberland.
The action was by the owner of the soil for trespass,
and the right of the villagers was set up as a
plea. The case had been twice tried. The verdict at
the trial at Newcastle was in favour of the villagers
(as it had already been at a previous trial), and the two
Judges in the Exchequer had upheld the verdict,
though not without some doubt as to whether it was
quite justified by the evidence. The vicar, who came
to the parish in 1843, stated that he had never seen
the green used for any other purpose than recreation;
that the young men played at quoits there in the even-
ing; and that he saw the children playing about there
at all times, and that he never heard of any one being
interfered with ; and other witnesses gave similar evi-
dence.
The case on behalf of the plaintiff, however, was
that the place in truth was not a village green at all;
that 60 years ago it belonged to one Moore, and was
opposite his house and called " Moore's-green," and
never the "village green" until last summer ; that it
was really his land, and wed by him when he had
occasion to use it; that the plaintiff now had Moore's
house; that this piece of land was really his, and,
although open and unenclosed, was used by him as
his whenever he had occasion to use it ; and that the
sports of men or children upon it were only by his
acquiescence, he not interrupting them when they did
not interfere with his use of it; and plaintiff's wit-
nesses spoke to acts of interruption.

_ _
Mr. Cave, Q. C., and Mr. Forbes appeared for the
plaintiff in sunport of the application for a new trial
on the ground that the verdict was against the evi-
dence ; Mr. Digby Seymour, Q.C., Mr. Shield, and
Mr. Ridley appeared in support of the verdict in
favour of the villagers.
The case was commenced on Saturday, and the
arguments were continued on Monday.

Lord Justice Brett observed that there had already
been two verdicts in favour of the claim of the vil-
lagers—could it be of any use to send the case down
again for a third trial?
Mr. Cave said his client had the misfo#une of
being rather unpopular, and the popular feeling was
naturally in favour of the claim sat up for the
villagers.
Lord Justice Baggallay asked if it was meant that
special juries would be so prejudiced as to find against
the weight of evidence? _

Mr. Seymour said the jury was a special jury corn-
posed of country gentlemen, some of them magis-
trates.
Mr. Cave urged that the evidence ef user was not
sufficient to show a right; but _ _ _

Lord Justice Brett asked what sort of evidence
could be given to show such a right, if this was not?
What sort of evidence could there be to show such a
right beyond its actual exercise? Were there not
village greens, and were they not always such places
as this—strips of green between the houses and the
road? And how could they be shown to be village
greens except by actual user by the yillagers and their
children? Could it be said that there was n evidence
here to go to the jury?
Mr. Cave said he thought he might so contend, on
which
Lord Justice Brett pointed out that the case had
not been moved on that ground, but only on the
ground that the verdict was against the evidence.
- - - •

Mr. Cave urged that his client had done all that he
possibly could to preclude the supposed right; he had
turned people oft whenever he could, and he was
naturally disliked for so doing; and thus the case was
prejudiced against him. There were instances of user,
no doubt, but one act of interruption was worth a
hundred acts of user' as showing that the user was not
of right. Besides, the evidence was too wide and
general, and evidence that everybody used the place
was no evidence that anybody was entitled to use it.
Mr. Seymour urged on the other side in support of
the verdict that two special juries had found in favour
of the villagers, and that the second verdict in their
favour ought not to be disturbed. He denied the
alleged prejudice, and said that a jury of country
gentlemen would be naturally prejudiced in favour of
rights of property. The alleged acts of interruption
.were all disputed at the trial, and the question was one
eminently for the jury.
- •

After an argument which lasted all day, their
Lordships dismissed the appeal, and upheld the ver-
dict.
Lord Justice Baggallay said the case was peculiar in
this—that it had been twice tried already by special
juries, and on both occasions there was a verdict for
the defendant, upheld by two Judges in the Exche-
quer Division. He did not feel disposed to disturb it.
The matters in dispute, he said, were eminently for
the decision of a jury, and they-had twice over been
laid before a jury for decision. It would not be right,
in his view, to grant a new trialunless the Court were
satisfied that the verdict was wrong, and so far from
that he was unable to see that it was wrong, and it
might very well be right.

Lord Justice Brett said that, even assuming he
thought the verdict wrong, it would not be right under
such circumstances to set it aside.
Lord Justice Cotton concurred.
The appeal therefore was dismissed and the verdict
in favour of the villagers stands.