The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-11-05 00:00:00

THE MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON

RAILWAY.

The business of the autumn assizes, or, rather, com-
mission of gaol delivery for the counties of Sussex and
Kent, commenced on Tuesday. Lord Coleridge came
down on Monday evening, and opened the commis-
sion. The case which excited the greatest interest wa.,
of course, that of Arthur Lefroy Mapleton, who is in-
dicted, and also charged on the coroner's inquisition
with the murder of Mr. Gold on the Brighton Railway
on Monday, the 27th of June last.
As it is possible that the lapse of time may cause a
difficulty in remembering the dates of the diffarent
stages of this affair, a sill» t resume of the circum-
stances and the order in which they occurred may not
be out of place. The crime alleged against Lefroy
took place on Monday, the 27th of June, on the after-
noon of which day he was discovered at Preston Park
station in the Brighton express, in a state of apparent
exhaustion, and bearing traces of having taken part in
a severe struggle. On the same afternoon the body of
Mr. Gold was found in Balcombe Tunnel, and on the
evening of that day Lefroy disappeared from his home
at Wallington, whither he had proceeded from Brighton
in charge of Nolmes, the detective. An inq_uest on the
body of Mr. Gold was commenced on Wednesday,
June the 29th, at Balcombe' before Mr. A. Wynn
Baxter, the coroner for East Sussex, and after five
sittings the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder
, against Lefroy on Thursday, the 7th of July. A
coroner's warrant was issued, and Lefroy was taken
the next day by inspectors Swanson and Jarvis, at
the house of Mrs. Bickers, 32, Smith-street, Stepney,
He was detained that night at the King-street, West-
minster, Police-station, and was removed on Saturday
to Lewes Gaol, where he was examined before Mr.
Geo. Molyneax. He was subsequently taken to
Cuckfield, where he was further examined before the
magistrates for the district, with the result that on
the 21st of July he was committed for trial on the
charge of murder. He has since been detained in
Lewes Gaol until Friday in last week, when he was
transferred to Maidstone.

The number of witnesses examined at the inquest
an.-i before the magistrates was considerable; and the
utmost care has been taken in tht copying and

arranging of their depositions. Indeed, the coroner
for Sussex (Mr. Baxter) has had the depositions takeD
before him printed (a very great convenience), and
they cover over 50 pages of print. The depositions
taken before the magistrates, which are not printed,
but fairly copied on folio paper, all carefully arranged
and indexed, make a mass of manuscript six inches
thick, and the labour of reading all these depositions
by the Judge who was to charge the grand jury on the
cases was necessarily very great. The number of wit-
nesses is upwards of 60.—We take the following report
of the charge to the Grand Jury from The limes of
Wednesday :
Lord Coleridge, in charging the Grand Jury, said,—
I cannot begin with the same congratulation I have
been enabled to address to the Grand Juries of
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire—that there was
little for them to do—for there is here a very heavy and
lengthy calendar. There are, I believe, nearly 40
persons for trial (37), and the crimes with which many
of them see charged are of the gravest character. But
when I consiaer the great extent of the two counties
of Kent and iss e‘x,f persons , arid n
i theirt h
eu r vast
e Course
se
o fre
population,the
perhaps that number
months is not so very laro. But certainly it affords
the amplest justification in tL'is case
ffuourolwheeoselkdh!osnogwldotrhbkies,
aanssdizeitatisthhisigthimlye
d,• because tthhearte :the
g.l
cleared and the prisoners disposed or one way or
another by trial before a Judge of the High court.
His Lordship, after some brief observations ppon
said—
This cases, went on to notice the case of Lefroy. Jie
This is a case on which you might naturally expect
me to say a few words, for it is a case which has so ex-
cited the minds of the public that it would be difficult,
perhaps, for many to eonduct the investigation of it
with perfect impartiality. So far, however, as lam
myself concerned (I take no credit to myself for it), it
is not difficult; for, having many other things to do, I
did not read the evidence in the case, and I have
formed my acquaintance with it in the same way
as with any other case in the Calendar, so that
my mind is absolutely impartial, as I knew nothing
about it until yesterday, when I read the deposi-
tions. I need not tell gentlemen of your ex-
perience that you have not the duty. of trying
the cate ; your duty is simply to determine whether
there is a cam to be tried, and the trial will then take
place before another part of this tribunal. But I may
say thus much—that, without going into the details of
the case, which I purposely abstain from doing, the
general outline of it seems to present a case which it
will be your duty to send for further investigation. I
say I abstain from entering into the details of the cease
because reporters are here, and it will be far better
that any view I may have formed either of the whole
case or of the bearing of any particular facts in evidence
should not now be disclosed by me, partly because it
might seem to pledge me to such a view, which I
might, perhaps, see fit to modify, and partly because
it might lead astray the attention of those whose minds
ought to be confined to what they think important or
material in the case—that is, might lead them to con-
sider matters not important, simply because I, as the
Judge, in looking at one side of the case, had not ex-
pressed an opinion that they were important. The
general outline of the case is probably familiar to you,
and certain facts in it which are not disputed show
that there is a case for further investigation. It does
not seem to be disputed by the prisoner (so far as one
can judge from the cross-examination on his behalf)
that in a first-class carriage on the railway a deadly
struggle took place between him and some one. He,
as I understand, says that there were two other per-
sons in the carriage besides himself, and he says,
doubtfully, that they got in at London-bridge ; but
whether he is always consistent as to that I say not.
He is, at all events, consistent in this—in stating
that two other persons were in the carriage, and
that one of them assaulted him. When he is
discovered, he is found with his head bandaged
up, and a pool of blood in the carriage, his own neck
, marked with smears of bloody fingers and various
marks upon him, showing that he had been a party to
a deadly struggle for life. It does not seem to be dis-
puted that upon him at any rate, when examined,
there were no wounds at all adequate to account for
the quantity of blood deposed to be found in the car-
riage. It is not disputed that his account was that
two men at some time or another disappeared from
the carriage. It is not disputed that at one place only,
and that on the London side of what he places as the
scene of the struggle, the speed of the train was re-
duced to a pace which would make it safe for anyone
to leave it, and the place at which they must have left
it according to the apparently uncontradicted evidence
in the cam was a place on the Brighton side of
the scene of the struggle where the train must have
been proceeding at such a pace that (although, in a
sense almost all things were possible, and it is perhaps,
possible that the men could have escaped from the
train with safety to their lives) it is in the highest
degree improbable that these persons could have es-
caped from the train with safety to their lives or not
have been found in a mutilated condition. Further, it
is proved that at the time he first presented himself
upon the scene and gave his amount of the matter, he
was found with a watch in his shoe and the chain
partly hanging out of it, which watch, it seems to be
tolerably clear, was the watch which Mr. Gold had on
his person. The story told by the prisoner may be true,
but it certainly was strange; and the conduct of the
prisoner was strange. The identification of the watch
(if it be identified) with that of Mr. Gold is curious.
The evidence, not perhaps conclusive, but strong,
which connects the prisoner with the purchase of the
revolver or pistol just before the time when this took
place is also curious. His own account is that bullets
were discharged at himself in the course of a
struggle. That bullets were discharged seems to be
true, because one of the wounds on the deceased will be
spoken to as a bullet wound, and, undoubtedly, bullets
were discovered in the lining of the carriage, and,„
therefore, that bullets were discharged and a pistol
fired by some one in the comae of that struggle
seems to be beyond reasonable doubt. There is evi-
dence to connect the prisoner with the possession of a
pistol, and there are a number of circumstances—sepa-
rately small, each taken alone insufficient to support a
conviction' but each, like the links of a chain or the
grains in aheap, going to make up the chain or the heap
—which, in the aggregate, may be sufficient. And you
must remember that in cases of circumstantial evi-
dence it is always conceivable that all the circumstances
may be true, and yet that the party against whom
they may appear to point may not be guilty,
but it is your duty (though this perhaps may be
more for the petty jury who try the eerie) to act on
reasonable probabilities, and to consider whether,
when a multitude of facts converge in one direction,
they do not, as a matter of reasonable probability,
justly and truly lead to the conclusion to which they
thus appear to point. And having thus pointed opt
to you the general outline of the evidence to be laid
before you in the case, I do not know that I need
trouble you further upon it. There is, however,
one remark which perhaps is better made now, and
which I cannot help making. I have read these depo-
sitions now for the first time, but, of course, have
heard—in general conversation on the circumstance of
this extraordinary case—observations made upon the
conduct of the persons who were first brought in contact
with the prisoner, and I am bound to say that some
part of their conduct, considering who they were, fills
me with surprise. A great deal of the investigation
you will have to go through, and many of the wit-
nesses, might have beea spared if only the ordinary
and proper course had been pursued by those who were
first brought into contact with the accused. For
example, 10 or 12 witnesses are now necessary because
the watch has disappeared—the watch found in the
shoe of the man who said he had been attacked by one
or two persons who had disappeared. The watch itself
has disappeared, and it is now, of course, neoessasy
to go fully into proofs to show that the watch was
the watch which the deceased had on his person;
whereas, if the party who had it had been detained or
the watch secured, it would have been placed beyond
a doubt. There are other matters in the oase—the
strange story told by the man and his whole conduct—
which make it really astonishing that he should have
been allowed to go under the very eyes of the persons
one would have thought his own story would have
made suspect him—led them, at any rate, to take the
precautionary step of detaining hiz. I wish, how-
ever, to be just in this as, I hope, in all cases; and it
Ls possible that the degree in which we expect conflict.
mg and almost irreconcilable qualities in our police
may to some extent explain what has been observed
upon. We trust to them the protection of our lives,
of our persons, and of our property; and if they
neglect anything which ought to be done, the severest
censures are pronounced upon their neglect of duty.
Yet they are ordinary human beings, not generally of
the highest education; they are only average English-
men, and if they hare what almost every Englishman
has in any vocation or calling—the qualities which
lead them to take an interest in the cases in which
they are engaged (and, perhaps, of any pursuit or
calling no one knows better that kind of temptation
than those who have practised at the Bar)—and, if,
under the influence of that feeling, they overstep the
strictest lines of duty, there is no censure, one
might almost say no insult, which seems too
severe to be hurled at them, and sometimes it seems
as if no judicial reprobation was tt.o severe for them.
They have difficult duties to perform, and sometimes,
perhaps, overstep the strict line of duty. They are
only human; they are no better than the rest of us;
they are open to the same errors or temptations;
and they are constantly subject to reproof—possibly
just in the particular case, but oftentimes so un-
rneasered in expression as, I daresay, to disturb them
eeadt
ilsychinargtheeofzweahliocuhszepaellifacormutaennceewo!
atnhde iera dr
nuetsy, tn feos rs
are as necessary as integrity and uprightness. I re-
member that Shakespeare makes ac et ask
Macduff— •
inaza'clm,otmemenpte?ra"te and furious,
and ":LiVhnolysoaellafannadbnensewwuietsrreas,,la,m "No man." But we seem to
expect from our police the possession of qualities
which Shakespeare thought no man could possess. I
make these observations because, while I certainlyhave
been surprised at the conduct of those who, with
everything to excite their suspicion, let this man go
from under their very eyes, I wish also to point out
to you that there may be reasons in the sort of way in
which we are accustomed to treat persons in their
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aiortmtdehueotyfi
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lordship
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cases
sin edoing.
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dismissedbeyondin the
position which may account for their conduct, by their
fearst r,
iivc
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Grand
that they might be able soon to send in some for
trial. This, of course, the Grand Jury proceeded to do,
and were engaged for some time in these ordinary
cases.

About one o'clock the bill was sent up to the grand

jury in the case of Lefroy, but it was past two before
it was called on. The whole of the witnesses
at first were going into the grand room, but as
this would be inconvenient they were directed to
withdraw, and Mr. Pollard, acting for the
Solicitor to the Treasury, furnished the foreman
with a list of the more material witnesses. Before,
however, all these witnesses had been examined, the
Grand Jury were satisfied, and found a true bill for
murder, '