The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

THE PREEttAi usT 15,

evening of the murder saw a light through thekey-
hole of Mr. Little's door, that she tried the door,
that it was locked, and that no one replied to her
attempt to enter. The packets of money found were
identified by the clerks of the establishment, and
the prisoner's daughter, Lucy Spollen, swore posi-
tively that on the evening of the 13th of November
last her father came home about eight o'clock ; that
from the window of one of the rooms of the cottage
she saw her father, about six or seven o'clock, stand-
ing on the roof of the greasehouse, putting some
" round thing in a lump " down the chimney. In
about an hour and a half after she saw him on the
roof he took his tea. He ascended to the roof by a
short ladder, which he drew up after him and reared
against the window. One brother, Joseph, corroborated
this evidence ; he said, "I saw my father on the evening
of the murder, between hall-past five and six o'clock,
crossing the lines and proceeding towards the ter-
minus. He bad something swinging in his hand. I
do not know what it was he carried ; it appeared to
be something lengthy." In his examination before
the police magistrates, the boy swore that he had
not seen his father from his dinner hour until he saw
him on the roof. He continued :
I next saw him about eight o'clock on the roof of the
forge. I was then at the parlour window. My father was
standing by the chimney. He was standing on what I
thought was a plank, which was raised from the roof to
the set-off of the chimney. We were induced to look
from the window in consequence of our wonder at my
father being so late away from home.
But there was some discrepancy in these witnesses'
evidence ; for, upon their former examinations, the
girl had declared she saw her father put the ladder
up to the roof, while the boy had made no mention
I of having seen his father previous to the moment of
his ascending the chimney. Moreover, on one occa-
sion he had stated that during that entire week he
had been at school, while now he said he was not at
school on the day of the murder. The boy, when
questioned, could offer no explanation, but the girl
said that the discrepancy in her evidence arose from
her "better recollection." The children also swore
that, when the earlier searches were being made,
their father expressly cautioned them against iden-
tifying a certain piece of cloth—a red rag—should it
be shown them by the police. The daughter said in
addition that when the mother was seized with ill-
ness, about a week before the arrest, and a proposal
was made to send for a doctor and priest, Spollen
said that he would have the life of any one who
should dare to go for them. With respect to the
piece of cloth in which the 1301. were found, under
a stone outside the railway wall, and upon the iden-
tity of which so much depended, the girl said—
" Upon my solemn oath, as I expect to be believed,
I have used this piece of calico. I know it by the
pattern. I have no mark upon it. It was part
of a sun-bonnet which I never wore myself." The
girl further said that she had seen the rag
" three months " before the murder, and not after
that, until the police-office examination. At that
examination she had declared she saw the rag
" a day or two " before the murder; while the boy
said—" I saw Lucy nearly three years ago wearing
the sunbonnet. I never used it as a duster myself,
but I know it by the pattern. I saw the rag in the
old workshop the day before the murder." The
children also gave evidence that a hammer, found
among their father's working tools at the time of his
arrest, had formerly been used by them at the cottage
to play with, but that from the day of the murder it
had disappeared.
Several witnesses deposed to the anxiety exhibited
by the prisoner during the first searches of thelpolice
about the building. Such were the principal points in
favour of the prosecution. For the defence it was
contended that while the medical evidence went to
prove that the carotid artery of Mr. Little was cut
through, there was no evidence to show that the
window sash through which it was said the prisoner
escaped bore marks cf blood or even of the dust
being rubbed off; that no bloody clothes of the
prisoner had been produced; and that the entire
evidence of the children was full of contradictions,
both as regarded the sun-bonnet and the seeing their
father crossing the lines and upon the forge roof.
Mr. Curran, with a great deal of force, combated the
notion that it was at all probable " a blood- stained
murderer," in order to secure his booty, would upon
a fine moonlight night deliberately ascend to a posi-
tion which was plainly visible from many points of
the railway station at an hour when porters,
passengers, and trains were constantly in its imme-
diate neighbourhood ; and concluded by an eloquent
appeal to the jury not to convict a man upon such
suspicious and insufficient evidence.
Upon Tuesday, the fourth day, the judges re-
assembled, and the Chief Justice proceeded to sum
up in the most elaborate and impartial manner the
value of every point in the mass of evidence.
The charge occupied four hours and a half, when
the jury retired for another hour and a half, and re-
tnrped into court with a verdict of "Not Guilty."
The prisoner uttered some incoherent expressions,
and the court then adjourned.

1857.

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