The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-19 00:00:00

SOY nub Volta.

THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM DOVE for the murder of
his wife by strychnine, on the Ist of March last, com-
menced on Wednesday at York, before Mr. Baron
Bramwell, Mr. Overend, Q C., for the prosecution ;
Mr. Sergeant Wilkins for the defence. The pri-
soner pleaded " Not guilty," and Mr.Overend at once
proceeded to open the case, the details of which
differed in no way from the evidence given before
the coroner in March last, and reported in THE
PRESS of the 15th and 22nd March. The learned
counsel, remarking upon the general circumstances
connected with the unhappy life of Mrs. Dove with
the prisoner, entered into a lengthened detail of
every occurrence a few weeks previous to her death.
Of the threats of the prisoner " to do for her," and
"to give her a pill"—of her fear, and expression of
a hope that, should she die suddenly, her body
might be examined—of the getting possession by
the prisoner of ten grains of strychnine on the 10th
Feb., on the plea of killing stray cats, and, a few

687

days after, of five grains more, the disposition of
which could not be accounted for—of 51rs. Dave's
first spasmodic attack on the 25th Feb., her con-
tinued attacks during the week, and death on the lst
March—of the administration of her medicine by
Mr. Dove—of her spasmodic attacks after taking
her medicine from his hands, and the remarkable
fact that she was always better and more composed
when taking it from any one else—of his objection
to have the body examined—and, lastly, of the dis.
covery of strychnia in the blood and stomach, by five
chemical tests and several animal trials. The
learned counsel dilated upon these points, and at the
conclusion of his address called witnesses in support
of his statement. Elizabeth Fisher, first examined,
swore to the unhappy life led by Mrs.. Dove, to Mr.
Dove's drunkenness, and the treatment of his wife,
and to the request made by Mrs. Dove that her body
might be opened after death ; to Mr. Dove bring-
ing a paper of poison into the kitchen on the 10th
of February, and to having seen him with this paper
in his hand in Mrs. Dove's bedroom. She never
thought about his being insane. Mrs. Thornhill,
Mrs. Fisher, Jane Witham, Sarah Naylor, and Mar-
garet Young, deposed to Mr. Dove having con-
sulted a fortune-teller, to Mrs. Dove's series of
attacks during the last week of February, and to the
administration of the medicine by Mr. Dove on all
occasions preceding the attacks, and of his washing
out the medicine glass. On the second day Mary Wood
deposed to clearing out the house after the funeral.
On the floor of the room where the post-mortem
examination took place was a clot of blood. A little
dog with her ran to it. She drove him away : in ten
minutes the dog fell on its back and died. Witness
never thought the prisoner right in his mind. Seve-
ral additional witnesses to those examined at the in-
quest deposed to the prisoner's drunkenness at the
time of Mrs. Dove's desth, and of his apprehension of
a coroner's inquest, or of a post-mortem examination.
Elizabeth Jenkins, Mrs. Dove's mother, deposed that
on the day of the adjourned inquest the prisoner,
taking a pinch of salt is his hand, said to her,
" There is a poison that will kill by so much ; it can
be detected in a man, but not in a woman. The
witnesses were closely cross-examined with the
view to show that Mrs. Dove was subject to
hysterical fits, but nothing material elicited.
The possession of fifteen grains of strychnine be-
tween the 10th and 25th of February was proved,
and for the medical evidence for the prosecution
Messrs. Morley, Nunneley, Teale, Ward, R. Hey,
Dr. Hobson, and Dr. Christison were called, and de-
clared their belief that the deceased died by strych-
nine, and not of hysteria, as was suggested for the
defence. This closed the case for the prosecution,
and the court adjourned.
THE BARRAT Fsraur—father, mother, and eldest
daughter—were tried at Bedford on Tuesday before
Mr. Justice Coleridge, for causing the death of a
younger daughter and sister by the most barbarous
ill treatment and starvation. The prisoners were
found guilty. The ,father sentenced to one year's
hard labour, and the women to four years' penal ser-
vitude. _ _ _

THE THIEVES who committed the late robbery at
Lord John RusFell's, Pembroke Lodge, have as yet
escaped detection. Among other valuable articles
stolen was a workbox belonging to Lady John Russell,
and containing her ladyship's private diary.
Jons Musnocx, charged with the murder of Wel-
land, the Hastings gaoler, was tried at Lewes on Wed-
nesday before the Lord Chief Baron, found guilty,
and sentenced, without hope of reprieve, to death.
THE WINDSOR POLICEMAN who assaulted the son of
Sir James Graham a short time since has been
dismissed from the police• force by the corporation.
A RESPECTABLE ELDERLY LADY, whose name did
not transpire, was committed foe two months with
hard labour, on Tuesday, by Mr. a Beckett, in South-
wark, for " stealing " two books from a bookstall at
the South-Eastern Railway Station. The prisoner
pleaded hard on her respectability, but the case
was clear, and as Mr. a Beckett inexorably offend
her the choice of " the sessions," she pleaded
" Guilty," and was taken off to gaol.

•••
WILLIAM BROWN, a returned-convict, was tried at
Leicester, on Monday, before the Chief Justice,for
the murder, on the 18th June last, of the tollgate-
keeper at Melton Mowbray. The circumstances c f
this cruel murder will be readily remembered. The
old man and his grandchild, a boy eight years old,
were found barbarously murdered. The old man bad
been shot through the body, his throat cut, and the
body stabbed in ten or eleven different places. TI
child's head had nearly been cut from his hod).
The evidence against the prisoner depended princk:
pally upon the identification of several articles of
clothing, and a knife and pistol found in a ditch
close by, and which were sworn to by the prisoner's
brother and wife as belonging to the prisoner. The
jury returned a verdict of Guilty, and the prisoner
was sentenced to death, without hope of reprieve.
The prisoner, who was quite unmoved during the
trial, said be should die cheerfully, for he was as
innocent as a child.

1

I:ittraturt.

Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey.
Edited by his Son-in-Law, John Wood
Warter, B.D. In Four Vols. Vols. 111.
and IV. London : Longmans.

Osz great drawback to the pleasure we derive
from the perusal of epistolary collections is
their almost unavoidable egotism. Every man
who sits down to write a letter is, as it were,
an egotist ex officio. He himself, his own
pursuits, and his own opinions, are necessarily
the prominent features in his correspondence ;
and the consciousness that there is, at all
events, one other person in the world to whom
his existence is for the time being of import-
ance, is almost always betrayed by a certain
pervading air of self complacency. Of course
where the letter-writer moves in such a class
of society as that his own pursuits and
opinions are necessarily wound up with those
of great and important personages, or when he
happens to be himself, from some particular
circumstances, an object of special interest to
the world, this constant self-presentation is the
very thing we most desire. But, in the ab-
sence of either of these two conditions, this
lengthy chronicle o f the small sayings and doings
of the same man becomes uncommonly tire-
some. An imaginary correspondence between
the Vicar of Wakefield and a friend in Loudon
narrating the migrations from the blue room
to the brown, and noting the consumption
of gooseberry wine, would be precisely as in-
teresting to the public as the great bulk of
the correspondence before us.
We say the great bulk, for there must be
a considerable quantity of interesting matter
concerning the details of literary life in the let-
ters of a man like Southey : but his friends have
unhappily become victims to the delusion that
Southey was conspicuous for humour, and have
consequently overloaded their present issue
with various productions of his pen which bear
about as much resemblance to the genuine
iris consica as the contortions of a ploughboy
at a village wake to the agility of Taglioni or
Cerito. His parodies and imitations of Scrip-
ture both in these and the previous volumes
are the most remarkable exhibition of witless
profanity and uninstructive dulness we ever
recollect to have met with. A burlesque
without a joke—a pantomime without a clowa
—a tableaux without a single spark of red fire
to illumine the dirty pasteboard, faded
spangles, and stale devices of the stage—
would all be powerless to illustrate how in-
conceivably vapid are these laborious efforts at
pleasantry.
The most pleasant impression that we
gain from the study of these letters is,
that, despite his continuous labour, few
men have ever passed a happier life than
Southey. His youth, manhood, and age,
were respectively active, fruitful, and vener-
able. He followed the bent of his intellect
from the beginning—and found it the way to
fame and competence. He married for love,
and his domestic bliss has seldom been sur•
passed. Ever his vanity was satisfied. He
was Poet Laureate. He could dictate to the
Quarterly. His book of the Church was ap-
plauded by bishops. Even his would-be
humorous effusions were greeted by the ap-
probation of his admiring friends and the
ready laughter of his cheerful home circle.
His only cares were a few transient and ever-
lessening anxieties for the future ; and his
only grievances the pertinacious mutilation of
his Quarterly articles. Both were, compared
with the burdens of other men, but feathers in
the balance against his daily enjoyment of
life. His income for the last fifteen years of
his life must have averaged 1,000/. a year,
*limb was ample for his simple wants; and
long before old age came on he had made a
provision for his family. On the other hand,
he forced even the omnipotent editor, whom
he distinguished by an Aristophanic epithet
too racy for ears polite, to apologise for his
abuse of the file, and exercised a despotism in
regard to his own remuneration which doubt-
less went far to fortify that happy self-confi-
dence which so pre-eminently distinguished
him.