The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

A CORNISH COMPROMISE.

JURIES have occasionally returned verdicts which
astonished the judge as much as the prisoner and
public ; but a Cornish jury at Bodmin last Friday
managed to achieve the acme of notoriety in such
proceedings.
Ann Matthews, James George, and Richard Jose,
were charged before Mr. Baron Martin with the
wilful murder of an infant born of Matthews on the
27th March last. From the statements of counsel it
appeared, as a specimen of rustic morality, that
Matthew; (a widow) and Jose (a labourer) and
George and a girl nam"d Burns, were all living
toge;her in adultery in the same cottage. Matthews
became with child. The fact was known to scarcely
any one. The greatest secrecy was maintained, te-

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cause an allowance from the parish for herself and
her other children would be withdrawn if she had
a natural child. Some attempts had been made to
procure abortion, but had failed. On the evening of
the 20th of March the pains of labour appear to havo
commenced. Matthews complained of being very
ill, and retired early to bed. Jose came home from
his work, hut did not go to bed that night. George
and Burns went to bed, leaving Jose sittini up in
the kitchen. About four o'clock on the morning of
Thursday, the 27th of March, Matthews came to
her full time. She arse from her bed and went

down into the kitchen, and was there delivered of a
female child. Jose was also downstairs, and he

called the girl Burns, and asked her to come down
to assist Matthews. Burns soon went down, but
found the kitchen door fastened. She asked Jose to
open it, but he said he could not leave Matthews.
During the time she was standing at the door she
heard Matthews groan and a child lry strongly. She
at length got into the room, and saw Matthews,
Jose, and a baby. George came down, and then
Jose asked George to help Matthews upstairs,
which he proceeded to do. As Matthews was going
out of the room she told Jose to stop the child's cry-
ing. After George and Matthews had left the room
Jose thrust his finger down the throat of the child
with great violence, but that did not destroy its life.
He did this for five minutes. Ile then sail that
would not do, and he went into another room and
fetched a pan, into which he poured a quantity of
water from a pitcher, and he then put the child into
the water and drowned it. After the child was
drowned the body was put in a box, and the same
evening, on returning from work, Jose, accompanied
by George, carried the body to a pond, about a mile
from Truro, attached a stone to it by a cord, and
threw it into the pond. On the 29th the body was
discovered, taken out of the pond, and carried to
Truro by a man named Snell. Mr. Painter, a
surgeon saw it, found it to be the body of a female
child full grown, that it had been born alive, and
that it had come to its death by suffocation. A
coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of " Wilful
murder against some person or persons unknown'
was returned. On the 31st the four prisoners were
taken into custody. An inquiry took place before
the magistrates, and Jose then said the child bad
been destroyed by poison. The body was then
disinterred and again examined, but it was evident
that that had not been the case, but that it bad been
suffocated, although the injury to the mouth and
throat was sufficient to have caused death very
speedily. All four were then committed for trial,
but Burns was admitted Queen's evidence.
The chief witness, the girl Burns, supported the
above statement, and added that when Jose bad his
finger down the child's throat it straggled, and that
she begged Jose not to kill the child. She also said
that the child was alive when Jose put it in the pas
of water, and that she again begged him not to kill
it. The prisoner George, when in custody, also cor-
roborated the girl's statement. The testimony of
two surgeons who had examined the child went to
show that the death was caused by suffocation. They
also described the injuries in the throat. The ap-
pearances were consistent with Burns' statement of
what had taken place.
Mr. Baron MARTIN summed up, exculpating George
entirely.
The jury retired, and, after a long consultation,
returned the following verdict : —Jose Guilty of
manslaughter; George Guilty, as an accessory after
the fact ; and Matthews Guilty of concealing the birth.
The Judge then said he did not know any legal ob-
stacle to their finding Jose guilty of manslaughter,
but his opinion certainly would have been that he
should have either found him guilty of murder or
have acquitted him, but it was the verdict of the
jury, and he should therefore sentence Jose to be
transported for life, and Matthews and George to
twelve months' imprisonment.
So gross a compromise between duty and " death "
on the part of a jury is only another proof of the ob-
jection of juries to inflict the punishment of death
if it can possibly toe got over.