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

ply NO Volta.

THE IRISH MURDER.
Tux trial of Spollen, charged with the murder of
Mr. Little, of the Great Northern Railway, Dublin,
which commenced on Friday week, has resulted in
the Acquittal of the prisoner.
The mysterious circumstances connected with the
murder, and the links of circumstantial evidence
with the appalling array of facts which apparently
brought home guilt to the prisoner, justify us in
giving a rapid outline of the case. On the morning
of the 14th of November last, Mr. Little was found
murdered in his office. Upon an examination of
his body, his bead was found beaten in, principally
on the left side, his left cheek cut through, and the
left side of his throat cut back from the jugular
vein to the vertebrae of the spinal column. Out of
1,923/. 18s. 7d. upon his office table, 2301. had
been abstracted, and the door of the office was
found locked on the inside. The authorities at
once proceeded to make a secret inquiry upon
the spot. The canal at hand was searched and a
bloody hammer with a razor discovered, but no other
trace of the murderer came to light. The hammer,
one of those used by glaziers, fitted exactly into the I
wounds on Mr. Little's head. On the 11th December,'
from some information the police received, it was I
resolved to search the water-tanks on the railway
premises. The next day, a dripping-wet bag full of
silver was found in an empty hamper stowed in one of
the lumber places attached to the railway offices. In
the neighbourhood of the hamper Spollen had been
_ seen. This discovery led to no further result, and
months passed away, when suddenly, in June last,
the wife of the man Spollen, actuated as she
said by pious motives, confessed to the police that her
husband was the murderer, and pointed out the
exact places where the residue of the missing moneys
was concealed—a certain portion in a chimney, the
rest in a bucket in a privy. A search was imme-
diately instituted, the moneys were found in the
precise spots and in the position Mrs. Spollen had
indicated, and ber husband was at once arrested.
Spollen was a painter and glazier in the employ
of the railway company. He was blind in the
right eye. He had access at all times to Mr.
Little's office. He was generally employed to
clean the windows and skylights of that office,
and was constantly in the habit of getting off or
coming upon the roof of Mr. Little's room, and could
pass from it with ease in a few minutes, by way of
a small swing-window, to his own cottage, which was
close at hand. Upon being interrogated he denied
the charge, and accounted for his time on the eve-
ning of the murder by saying that after work-hours,
5.:i0 p.m., ho had gone out with his wife and boy
James to buy some bacon ; that he returned with
them to tea, and passed the rest of his evening at
home. As the statements of the wife could not be
used in evidence against the prisoner, it was resolved
by diligent exertions to complete the link of that
chain of evidence which the discovery of the money
indicated as existing. A second and more careful
search of the canal took place, and a razor, notched
and jagged in its edge, and bearing the name of
"Spollen" scratched upon it, was discovered. The
prisoner's children were interrogated, and made im-
portant detailed statements in support of their
mother's testimony, and declared that their father,
who left his work at half-past five p.m., bad not on
the night of the murder returned home, contrary to
his usual custom, until seven or eight in the evening.
The prisoner's cottage was searched, eight sove-
reigns, discoloured by water, were found in his pos-
session, while packets of money were found secreted
about the railway premises, and one parcel of
some 1301. was wrapped up in a piece of calico of a
peculiar pattern. in a drawer in the cottage
VMS found a fellow padlock, such as is used for
oil cans, to another turned out of the secreted
bucket. A key, ton, was found in the same drawer,
fitting this padlock found in the bucket. Another
curious circumstance was also connected with this
bucket. Previous to its removal, the "ram," a piece
of machinery applied to drench the spot with water,
bad on several Saturdays stopped working. From
the day of Spollen's arrest it had never once been out
of order. It may be observed that if any one desired
to descend into such a horrible place, he would pro-
bably desire to avoid a drenching, and would stop
the ram. Such were the leading circumstances
collected by Friday last, when the trial commenced.
Evidence for the Crowu was given to prove that the
housekeeper of the ot• ce at half-past seven in the