The Express.
London, England, 1862-12-15 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN ClRCUlT.—LivicaPool, Dr.c. 13.
(Won Mr. Commissioner Gurney.)
THE CHARGE OF WILFUL imarauenos OF SHIM

This trial was resumed to-day before Mr. Commissioner
Gurney, by Mr. Overeud, Q.C., addressing the jury for the
defence.

No witnesses being called for the defence,
The learned Judge summed up, analysing the evidence
with great care, sod pointing out the portions which
were of the most importance for the jury to consider.
With regard to the value of the ship, it would have been
more satisfactory to have had evidence from
who bad surveyed the ship at the time she
set
out on her voyage. The jury, therefore, moat
form the beet judgment they could of that value.
Almost the only direct evidence against the prisoner was
that of Jamieson, an accomplice (supposing the prisoner to
be guilty), and whose evidence was United in every possible
way. Baying commented upon Jamieaon's and James's
evidence, and shown some contradictions, hie lo.dahip did
not attach so much importance to the words "Be back
noon," which Buxton was beard to say to Jamieson on part
ing in the Channel, nor to the fact that James did nut
expose the conversation immediately after he had heard it
in the cabin. There was, his lordship thought, more im-
portance attaching to the declaration which James bad made
at Smyrna, that the vessel was accidentally destroyed ; and
to the strangeness of the circumstance that James, when he
had known the Roscoe to have been purposely de-
stroyed, should have entered on board another ship, of
which the prisoner was the owner and Jamieson the captain.
It was only fair to suppose that unless James was utterly
unable to obtain employment in another way he would have
preferred sailing in a ship owned and commanded by other
persona The evidence of Bickley, his lordship thought,
was fairly open to most of the objections made to it by the
learned counsel. He (the learned judge) could have no
opinion of the honesty of a man who, having heard the
statements which Bickley had described, could not only
remain silent and not inform the underwriters, but who,
according to his own account, was to receive a portion of the
proceeds of the fraud in the payment of his own debt.
The jury then retired to consider their verdict. After
severs) hotua'abeepoe they returned with a verdict of .Vol
Gaily.
The prisoner, however, on leaving the court, was ar-
rested on another charge, which will he preferred here-
after. Thearrest was made by detective officer Carlisle
under a warrant from the Lord Mayor of London. The war-
rant charged Buxton with conspiring with others to defraud
an insurance company in London of the sum of 6001.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.—WoRaornm, Thee. 13.
(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)
MURDER.

Williams &hold, an old awn, whole age was stated at 69,
was indicted for the wilful murder of his wife, Sophia
Ochold, at Oldbury, in this couuty, on the Bth Yovember
hat.

Mr. Richards and Mr. Griffiths conducted the prouecu•
tiou, and Mr. Benson, at the request of the learned judge,
defended the prisoner.

The prisoner and the deceased had been married just half
a century, and the old man carried oo the business of a tailor,
in which hie wife 'waisted him. Theydid not live very happily
together ; the primmer accusing his wife of intemperance,
and frequently beating her. The deceased bad for some time
pest suffered from disease of the kidney; and on Friday. the
7th November, was ill from that cause. On that evening a
young woman named Maria Grazebrook, • servant at a
public-house near, who was very intimate with the Ocholds,
called in to see the old people (whom she called her grand-
father anti grandmother, although not related to them), and
found the prisoner seated on a table at work at his trade,
and the deceased lying on the around apparently in great
pain. The young woman offered to get the deceased some
tee' but she declined, and the prisoner also said, " No; the
wants to go to bed and groan, and keep me awake all night,
as she did last night ; but she shall not keep me awake
again to-Dight." Soon after the son and daughter of The
deceased came in, and after giving her some tea, put her to
bed. She was unable to walk. rind her son carried her up.
stairs. About 3 o'clock on the following morning, ea police-
man Hutchins was passing the house, he lament a noise
which be thus described in his evidence.
Police-constable Daniel Hutchins depose(—l was ou duty
between 3 and 4 o'clock on the morning of the Bth Novem-
ber, and passed tbs prisoner's bonze. Heard the prisoner
doweetairs cursing and swearing and making • greet noise.
He seemed to be cursing at Nome one upstairs. Heard groans
upstairs. I went away sod iu about ten minutes returned,
when I heard some ace whom I believed to be the prisoner
go to the foot of the stairs. I listened and heard the pri-
soner mock at the groans. He said, " Yon old me„,
you're very bed. I dare say, but I sever knew yogi when you
were good." He also said, " your old eyes, if you
don't come downstairs —" Did not bear the rest of
the sentence. Remained in the street till 4 o'clock, and
beard the prisoner repeat his mocking end swearing. Had
often beard it before.
Jeremiah Bradley was at hie 'tables, about 10 yardarm=
the prisoner's house, about 4 o'clock on the same morning,
and heard the prisoner use very bad language to his wife.

Beard the demand my, " Oh, Bill, dop:t kill me ; my heed
is reedy to split." It did not strike him that he ought to
interiors.

Ortuiebrook deposed that on going again to the
prisoner's house on the morning of the Bth, and asking
after his wife, thel prisoner said she bad hero drinking
with on• Jack Hadley on the previous night. (This state-
meet was afterwards disproved.) He objected to her going
upstairs to see bar, but she persisted in going, and then
found her lying dead on the floor with her face covered with
blood. There was a broken mopstick in the prisoner's room
down stairs. There was also blood upon the stairs, and wit-
ness picked up a quantity of the deceased's hair.
Mr. Cooper, surgeon, of Oldbury, made a post-mortem
examination, and found several brumes on the body, but the
chief injuries were in the head. There was an extravasation
of blood on the brain. The right temporal muscle was re.
duoed to the conristanoy of a puce of liver by roust vio-
lence • and on dissecting it down to the cheek bone be found
the arch of the cheek bone broken. The other cheek bone
was healthy. This injury could not have been caused by a
fall, but might have been produced by blows from some
hard substance, not the fist.
Mr Benson, for the prisoner, made a powerful defence,
and urged that the crime was one of manslaughter, not
murder.

ffie lordship carefully summed up, sad rather favoured
the same view.

The jury, however, after being locked up for au hour,
found the prisoner Guilty.
His lordship then proceeded to pies sentence of death
upon the prim ner in the usual form, and in reference to a
recommendation to mercy made by the jury on account of
his advanced age, said that recommendation should be for-
warded to the proper quarter.