The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-08-02 00:00:00

MAXIM OF A MICAWBER.
Those kinsfolk I account our kind relations

Whose ready loans our frequent needs avail ;
Who still encourage ell our speculation.,
And take the oonsequeneee when we lat.—Punch

The THIRD TRIAL of SUB-INSPECTOR

MONTGOMERY FOR MURDER.
At the Omagh A.sael the third trial of Sub Inspector
Montgomery for murder has Carnal ated in acouvielton. The
pry, later deliberating for a quarter of on hour, found him
guilty of the murder of Mr. Masa, at New/tow...towed, on the
21.1 Jaly, 1871. The prisoner made a long speech, in which
he said he was • completesmanisc when he annulated the
crime. The judge, who was deeply moved, sentenced him to
be executed on the 28th of August. The prisoner was calm,
and spoke plemantly afterwards to his attorney.

Th; Times, In n lender. make. the followtng commenla
Upon the case:-
- ' " "-" -" •

'The evidence, indeed, although entirely circumstan-
tial, was such as to point very clearly to the guilt of
the accused ; and the inability of the former juries
to agree in a verdict seems far lees easily explained
than the unauimity of that which was last empan-
'idled. The deceased gent Oman, it will be remem-
bered, was cashier of the Northern Bank at New-
town Stroart, and on the 29th of June, 1871, about
an hour after the closiog of the outer door, he was
found lying in the inner or back office, his skull
fractured by several wounds, any one of whicn would
have been fatal. The manager of the Back, Mr.
trishaw, was away at Dromquin fair, and the only
persons known to be in the house at the time were
a Mies Thompson, who was an aunt of Me.
Strabon's, and resided with him, a maideservant
named Fanny M'Bride, and • boy. The prisoner had
formerly been • bank clerk, no that he was familiar
with the course of foulness, and he was OD terms of
intimacy both with Mr. Strahan and with the de-
ceased, and was acmstomed to visit them in the inner
office. At the time of the murder he was in great
pecuniary ditlicultiee, and was premed not only by
ordinary creditors, but also by two constables of the
force, from whom he had received money for invest-
wait, Co that an exposure lif his circumstances and
traumactions would probably have b.en afacentely
Totowa. On the very day of the crime, Mas
son had called upon the prisoner's wife, and had seen
the prisoner at home; but shortly before the closing
of the bank he came to her drawing room and asked
whether Mr. Strahan would go listing with him,
whi. h Mr. Strahan was not accustomed to do. She
replied that Mr. Strahau would Lot return from the
fair until five o'clock, and the prisoner went away.

The theory of the prosecution was that he went into
the inner office, remained there with the deceased until
the Bank closed at three o'clock, and then committed
the minder. The schoole clotted for the thy at the
sane hour, and some children returning home, as well
as some men telling shelldiah, heard a groan and other
noises within the Bank. Shortly afterward. the
ptisorer was teen by opposite neighbour' to open the
outside door and look up and down the street. He
went back into the Bank, came out again presently with
a wateri,roof cost on his arm and a stick in his hand,
closed the door after him, arid walked away. About four
o'clock the servant, Fanny M'Bude, went to look at a
clock through the glass dour of theouter office, She saw
blood on the fl or. gave an alarm, and the body was
discovered. On the return of Mr. Strahan it as found
that money to the amtunt of El 605 had bean stolen,
mil the greater part of this money, together with a
billhook with which the wounds might have been in-
flicted, was found buried in a gravel- pit at Grange
Wood. The prieoner was e-er going towards Grange
Woo i and returning from there on the night after the
murder, and, although he told • constable at two o'clock
that he was unwell and was going homs to bed, he did
not actually go home until stx in toe morning. A special
duty of watching a line of railway which had been
committal to Min by telegraph on the day of the
toned, r, was neglt C'Ad for some hour" with no apparent
reason; and another link in the chain of evidence waa
furnished by the handle ot the billhook being heavily
loaded with lead. Shortly before the murder the pri-
soner had ourchaeed lead, saying that he wanted ic to
make bullets, although it warn preyed that he had no
bullet mould, that he had made no bulieta, and
that any ammunition necessary for his duties was
furnished to him in the anape of compreeeed csrts
ridges by the Government. In his behalf nothing was
advanced, excepting the absence of blood stains on
his clothing, and the argument that the carouse.
!dancer' although favourable to the hypothesis of
his guilt, were not absolutely incompatible with the
guilt of some other and unknown person. At the second
trial Mr. Macdonogh, who conducted the defence, found
in this slender material enoufh to form the basis of an
address of nine hours' duration, and it is perhaps fair
to imagine that the reiteration of arguments may have
prodiced upon the minds of an Irish Jury an effect
similar to that which the multiplication of argument.
would produco upon other persons. At any rate, after
great displays of forensic ability on both sides, and
after a summing up which, on the second occasion,
exceeded by three hours the length of the speech for
the defence, two trials proved abortive; and it was
only on a third arraignment that a verdict could be
obtained. On this occasion no fresh evidence was ad-
duced, except that a policeman was dressed in she
clothes which the prisoner had worn on the day of the
murder, and was made to exhibit to the Jury the
facility with which the weapon and the plunder could
be concealed beneath them.

"Upon a review of the whole case, it cannot be
denied that on the fast trials there appeared a re-
luctance to convict which was PO great that its source
must be sought for in the minds of the Juries rather
than in the nature of the evi tence. There have
been CMOs in which a chain of circumstances an
uenally close and strung has led to a conclusion which
. was afterwards proved to be erroneous. It is
therefore, the duty of a Jury to criticize circum-
stantial evidence very closely, and with especial re.
(mace to the question whether the matters proved are
compatible with the innocence as well as with the guilt
of tne accused. But murder is seldom brought home
Ito the perdetrator by any direct proof ; and there can
be iao doubt that may persons have bien left for exe-
cution, in England, without difficulty or demur, on evi-
dence less cogent than that which twice failed to
satisfy the Jury at Omagh. There have been in-
stances in which the obvious failure of trial by jury
in Ireland has been due to faint disapproval of the
crime, or to sympathy with the criminal, or to fear
of his accenspless. But this has been where
the outrages were committed on political or agrarian
grounds, or by the selected agents of secret
societies; and minder for the sake of robbery
has never been looked upon with indulgence in Ire-
land. It is po-sibs that the social position of the
psisoner, who e lay and official rank would place
him in the class of the smaller gentry, may 11 WO been
regeriled as ren lering it unlikely that he could be
guilty of toe heinous crime laid to his charge; but it is
pi ()lushly too much to supeose that his character sea
police officer would of itself b., accepts a as presumptive
evidence of his innocence."

'the Times, In re:narking upon the prisoner's eanfession of
g nit, In ankh he ash' that bahltusl drunkenness was the
unmoor the crime, farther remarks:—

"It is hardly Formaile that he could have been an
habitual drunkard without detection by he supefiore,
and conrequent dismi,sal from the forco ; and it
is d Moult to find in his statement any extenua-
tion eif his guilt. But the statement it-elf illus-
trates, in a very striking manner, the exhausting
effect of mental strain and anxiety. If the pri-
soner had said nothing, or had simply protested
his innoionce, the two previous failures to obtain a
conviction might have Placed an almost insurmount-
able barrier against executing the sentence of the law.
It would have been urged on his behalf, with irresis-
tible force, teat he had been convicted on evidence
which was not only circumstantial, but which had twice
failed to satisfy a Jury; and such a case would have
called in the strongest manner for the exercise of the
clemency of the Crown. But the three Wahl, the
prolonged suspenee, and the consciousness of guilt
have been too much for the overtaxed judgment and
the exhausted brain. The relief of confession has
been sought at last; sa d the fatal words have been
spoken which remove auy doubt of the correctness
of the verdict. The murderer has deprived himself
of all prote tire from the conflict of opinions or of
probabili its. .The crime which he has acknowledged
is aggravated by the fact that it WAS his duty to re-
strain and to discover criminate; and it would be but
slightly, if at all, palliated by the pies, even lilt were
true, that his self -control was diminished by habits of
intoxication."

The Paily Yews publishes the following :
DUBLIM, Tareday Night.
Montgomery, the Newtown /Hewen murderer. was inter-
viewed uy a reporter to day. In reply to quota me the pri-
soner, who lay cc hit bad during the interview, mid that he
got his r it at night occutonally ; let that on the night
after Lis conviction he cold n 4 sleep. Be said
he had been very anxious during ti e trials, and
expected to be convicted at the lest trial, particularly from
the silence at the Jury during the wipe* prooeedinp. He
sarTated the Orcumetanoes o/ the murder, and sat upon
his bed to illustrate how he gave the blowy. in. com-
plained of the conduct of his relatives, and referred to the
deceased reputedly es "poor Glass- and "poor fellow."
He had got into the took dareg olio, hours, sad had