The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-07 00:00:00

DIARY OP AN ABY.ssINIAN PRISONER.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

The following peerages from the diary of Dr.
Blanc, one of the Abyssinian captives, illustrates

WESTERN CIRCUIT.—WINcenTra, DEc. 6.
(Before Mr. Jodie* Mellor.)
THE ALTON MURDER AND MUTILATION.

ORDINARY SHARES AND STOCKS

/lb. I Pd. I RAILWAYS.

THIt CIUCLTT OF THEODORUe.

On the 3rd of July an official brought us the imperial
compliments, and stated that his Majesty was coming to
inspect the works, and that I might present myself before
him. I went at once to the foundry, and on the road I
met two of the &Oat workmen also proceeding there. A
little incident then occurred which was followed by serious
consequences. We met his Majesty near the foundry,
riding ahead of his escort; he asked us how we were ; and
we all bowed and took off our hats. As he passed along,
the two Europeans with whom I walked covered them-
selves ; but aware how touchy his Majesty was on all
points of etiquette, I kept my bead uncovered though the
sun was hot and fierce. Arrived at the foundry his
Majesty again greeted me cordially ; examined for
• few minutes the drawing of a gun his work-
men proposed to cast for him, and' then left, all
of us following. In the courtyard he passed close
to Mr. Rosenthal, who did not bow, as his Majesty
took no notice of him. As soon as he issued from
the foundry fence a poor old beggar caked for alms, saying,
"My lords (gaitosh) the Europeans have always been
kind to me, oh ! my King ; you also relieve my distress !"
His Majesty, on hearing the expression " lord " applied to
his workmen, got into a fearful passion. " How dare you
call any one lord' but myself ; beat bins, beat him by my
death." Two of the executioners at once rushed upon him,
and began beating him with their long sticks, his Majesty
all the while exclaiming, " Beat him, beat him by my
death." The poor old cripple at first, in heartrending
terms, implored for mercy, but his voice grew fainter and
fainter, and in a few minutes more there lay his helpless
corpse, that none dare remove or pray for. The laugh-
ing hyenas that night caroused undisturbed on his aban-
doned remains. Theodora rage was by no means abated
by this act of cruelty ; he advanced • few steps, stopped,
turned, his lance in arrest, looking around, the very image
of ungovernable fury. His eyes fell upon Mr. Rosenthal;
"Seize him!" cried he. Immediately several soldiers
rushed forward to obey the imperial command ; "Seize
the man they call an skim !" Instantly a dozen ruffians
pounced upon me; and I was held fast by the arms, coat,
trousers—by every place that afforded a grip. He then
addressed himself to Mr. Rosenthal, "You donkey, why
did you call me the son of a poor woman? Why did you
abuse me?" Mr. Rosenthal said, "If I have offended
your Majesty, I beg for pardon." All the while his Ma-
jesty was shaking his lance in a threatening manner ; and
every minute I expected that he would throw it. I
feared that, blind with rage, he would not be able
to control himself, and I well knew that if once he be-
gan to give vent to hie passions my fate was also sealed.
Fortunately for us both he turned towards his Euro-
pean workmen, and abused them in no measured terms :
" Yon slaves ! have I net bought you with money? Who
are you, that you dare call yourselves ' lords!' Take
care !" Then, addressing the two I had met on the road,
he said, " You are proud, are you ? Slaves ! women !
rotten donkeys ! you cover your bead in my presence !
Did you not see me? did not the akim keep his head un-
covered? poor men that I have made rich !" He thee
turned towards me, and seeing me held by a dozen sol-
diers, he cried out, "Let him go ; bring him before me."
All drew back except one, who conducted me to a few feet
from the Emperor. He then asked rue, "Do you know
Arabic?" Though I understand a little of th►t lan-
guage, I thought it more prudent under the circumstances
to reply in the negative. He then told Mr. &hangs to
translate what he was goiog to say :—" You, akim,
are my friend; I h►ve nothing against you ; but
others have abused me, and you must come up with me to
witness their triaL" He then ordered Cantiba Haile to
give me his mule. Hs then mounted, I and Mr. Rosenthal
following, the latter on foot, dragged the whole way by the
soldiers who had first seized him. Al soon as we reached
Debra Tabor the King sent word to Mr. Ramon to come
out with the other Europeans, as he had something to tell
him. The King sat upon • rock about twenty yards in
front of us ; between him and ourselves stood • few of his
high officers, and behind us a deep line of soldiers. He
was still angry, breaking the edges of the rock with the
butt end of his lance, and spitting constantly between his
words. He at once addressed himself to the Rev. Mr.
Stern, and asked him, " Wu it as a Christian, a heathen,
or a Jew, that you abused me ! Tell me where you find in
the Bible that a Christian ought to abuse. When you
wrote your book, by whose authority did you do it !
Those who ►bused me to you, where they my enemies or
yours! Who was it told you evil thing. concerning me?
bre. He then asked Mr. Rama whether be knew or not
that Jerusalem belonged to him, and that the Abyssinian
convent there bad been seized by the Turks? That, de
soendant of Constantine and Alexander the Great, India
and Arabia belonged to him ? He put many foolish ques-
tions of the same kind. At last he said to Samuel, who
was interpreting, " What have you to say if I chain your
friends?" " Nothing," replied Samuel, " are you not the
master ?" Chains had been brought, but the answer some-
what pacified him. He then addressed one of his chiefs,
saying, " Can you watch these people in the tent?" The
other, who knew his answer, replied, " Your Majesty, the
house would be better." On that he g►ve orders for our
baggage to be conveyed from the black tent to • house con-
tiguous to his own ; and we were told to go.
The house assigned to us was formerly used as • godown,
built of stone, with • large verandah all around, dosed by
a single door, with no window or other aperture. It was
only when several lighted candles had been brought that
we could find our way into the dark central room. Soldiers
carried our bedding, and • dozen guards sat near us,
holding lighted candles in their hand,. The King sent us
several messages. Mr. Raman took advantage of the cir-
cumstance to complain bitterly of the unfair treatment in-
flicted upon us. He said—" Tell his Majesty that I have
done my beet to bring on a good understanding between
my country and him, but when to-day's work is known,
whatever the consequences may be, let him not throw the
blame upon me." His Majesty sent back word—" If I
treat you well or not it is the same ; my enemies will
always say that I have ill-treated you, so it does not
matter."

The trial of Frederick Baker was resumed this morning,
in the presence of a densely crowded court.
Ann Murratt was called, and cross-examined. She spoke
to seeing the prisoner on the day in question near the ho
garden, a little before three and between five and sixo'clock.
Frederick French, a clerk in the office of Messrs.
Clements, deposed that the prisoner left the office on that
day at ten minutes past one, and returned at ten minutes
to six.

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Dr. Taylor stated the result of his analysis of the articles
of apparel worn by the prisoner on the day of the murder.
He found spots of blood on the coat, on the trousers, and
on the vest ; also blood on one of the pocket-knives. The
thighs of the trousers, too, were greatly stained by bloody
water. He detected, however, an extremely small quan-
tity of blood, and in cross-examination said it was possible
that the stains found on the coat might have been pro-
duced by a bleeding of the nose.
Mr. Lewis Leslie, a surgeon and Bf.D., had examined
the fragments of the body of the child. On the bead espe-
cially, at the top, he hail found contused wounds depress-
ing the skull, and another similar injury over the right
ear, the ear itself being severed entirely from the head.
He opened the head, and found internal injuries ; he found
the darn mutter much congested, the effect, no doubt, of
blows from the flint stone found on the scene of the
tragedy. There was a blood mark on the stone, and several
long hairs of the deceased girl's head. The left leg was
nearly cut off at the hip joint; the left foot
was cut off at the ankle joint. There was an
incision between the fourth and fifth ribs, of a serious
extent, and another incision in the interior of the thigh ;
there were five incisions in the liver, and three in the
lungs, and the spine was dislocated ; one of the legs was
apparently torn from the trunk with great violence. He
saw the trousers of the prisoner taken off. They were wet,
and stained with blood, and quite saturated with water.
The left leg was wet, but not so wet as the right leg of the
trousers. He saw the prisoner's person, and did not notice
any scratches or marks about him. He bad been in the
hop-garden. The boots and socks of the prisoner were
much soaked in water, as if he had stepped into the river
Wye—especially the right. His opinion was quite formed,
that the pprinsosonuer had used a larger knife or wee. than
those produced. The serious mutilations of the •y, he
thought, were carried out shortly after five, and be-ore
six o'clock. The removal of the breast-boneis not a you
difficult operation. The death of the child he attoibuted
to the severe blows inflicted on the head with the flint
stone.

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This closed the case for the prosecution.
Mr. Carter addressed the jury very energetically on be-
half of the prisoner. He said that in the evidence of Dr.
Taylor there was not a fact to show that the pi:sorer
was guilty of the horrible crime. The weapons produced
were not sufficiently powerful to effect the mutilation of
the body ; and none of the evidence showed that the pri-
soner had committed the awful crime. The diary items
were dated from the early commencement of the year
1867 ; and on the Saturday, the 24th day of September,
this entry was read:—"Saturday, Sept. 24.--KilW a
young girl ;it was fine and hot." The entries were
various, and had been made from day to day re-
gularly in succession. There was one, " Drowned •
child in King's-pond." There were nearly 2CO
in the diary altogether during the three first quarters o 7
the year, and the very murder of the infant child, Fanny
Adams, was the last of them, because the prisoner was
very soon after the crime secured in the custody of the
police authorities. There was not, he contended, the least
motive in the prisoner's mind for injuring that poor child.
The learned counsel called attention to the religious prac-
tices of the prisoner on the Sabbath, to hie being for many
years • teacher of the children of his locality, to his regu-
lar attendance at the celebration of the Holy Com-
munion, to his secretaryship of • provident savings
bank club in Alton, and to his connection 1 with
other societies for the good of the humbler crises.
He thought the proper conclusion of this important trial
would be the acquittal of the prisoner on the ground of
insanity. The prisoner was not the only member of the
family who had been subjected to the great mental afflic-
tion of madness ; one of his young sisters died some time
ago in a dreadful state of raving fever. (The speech of the
learned gentleman occupied two hours in delivery.)
Frederick Baker, men., was then called and examined
on the part of the prisoner—Hs was • tailor, and
the prisoner at the bar was his eldest child.
Up to twelve years of age be was of very
bad health, having constantly great pain in the bead,
accompanied by senors illness and continued bleeding at
the nose. He went to school some years after, but then
he had • very severe attack of typhus (err-, which disabled
him for • lengthened period. After that severe illness he
was introduced into • business occupation at Guildford,
and during the last twelve months had been engaged at
Alton at the law offices of Messrs. Clements and Co.,
solicitors, of that town. He had been for • long time in •
very desponding state of mind, and subject to much mental
and bodily affliction. On one occasion, in 1865, he (tbe
father) lost all knowledge of the whereabouts of his son for
some months, and had never much influence on the course
of his conduct. At that time the prisoner had • habit of
crying in the night. He saw him in May last, and his
appearance then struck him with perfect horror. He was
not aware of any particular misconduct on the part of the
prisoner until the present charge.
Mary Ann" Baker, the elder sister of the prisoner, gave
similar testimony.
A Mr. Johnson gave • very bad opinion of the condition
of the prisoner in 1864, and after that time ; his appear-
ance was such as to make him entertain very serious appre-
hensions of his future fate in the world.

-
JOINT Wll

John Davis was the neat witness. He was a bricklayer,
and for eleven years he had been a police-const.ble at
Guildford, and he was an acquaintance of the prisoner.
The prisoner suddenly broke up their intimacy, and he had
some great difficulty in reference to a young girl with
whom he had been on friendly terms. He had tbrertertd
to commit suicide several times, and had often been seen
near a river, and witoeu had more than once seen him
with a pistol in his hand, and be once caught him by the
collar in the street in a terrible condition, and took him
home by force.
Sarah Kingston was then examined—She said the
prisoner had lodged at her house since be bad been living
at Alton. He need to feel very low at certain times, and
look fearfully wild, and he would take a ipe and go out
and lie down in the yard very much p.
She did not
find thet he was addicted to excessive drinking. She only
once saw him intoxicated. _ _

Mr. Taylor, another surgeon, said the prisoner was very
weakly, and suffered very severely under an attack of
fever. If be addressed him he would tremble and his
lips quiver violently, and be felt great pain. Four years
ago the prisoner's father had an attack of insanity,
endeavoured to strike his daughter with • poker, and was
very violent indeed, and he suspected ber of desiring to
poison him. The father had an attendant to look after
him for some time, and he was very bad, baring • sus-
picion that he was intended to be poisoned by some one
connected with the family. It was • serious case of
monomania.

Mr. Bere then addressed the jury on the part of the
prosecution.
The learned judge then summed up the evidence, whisk
he said was so strong against the prisoner that the ju7
Averebonnd to find him guilty of the dreadful murder he
had undoubtedly committed on the poor helpless infant.
He could not on any account recommend the jury, as the
defendant's counsel had, to find the prisoner '• not guilty,"
on the ground of his being insane, as he could not possibly
believe that the prisoner was in such a state as was sug-
gested by his counsel.
At the conclusion of his lordship's address, which lasted
two hours, the jury retired, and in • quarter of an hour
returned with • verdict of Guilty.
The learned judge then passed sentence of death in the
usual form.

A little later we were rather startled by a message from
his Majesty, informing us that he could not rest before
comforting his friend, and that he would come and see us.
Though we did our best to dissuade him from such a step,
be soon afterwards came, accompanied by some slaves
carrying arrack and JO. He said, " Even my wife told
me not to go out, but I could not leave you in grief, so I
have come to drink with you." On that be had arrack and
tej presented to all of us, himself setting the example.
He was calm and rather serious, though he m►de great
efforts to appear gay. He must have remained at least an
hour, conversing on different topics, the Pope of Rome
being the principal one discussed. Amongst other things
be said, "My father was mad, and though people often
say that I am mad also, I never would believe it ; but now
I know it is true." Mr. Radium answered, " Pray do not
say such a thing." His Majesty replied, "Yes, yes, lam
mad." Shortly before leaving be said, "Do not look at
my face or take heed of my words when I speak to you
before my people, but look at my heart ; I have an object."
As he returned, he gave orders to the guards to withdraw
outside, and not to inconvenience us. Though we have
seen him since then once or twice, at a distance, it is the
last time we conversed with him.

THE POLICE COURTS.
BOW-STARVE

Mr. Vaughan resumed tiaTingair;into the charges pis
(erred against Mr. Shaw, of the Firs, Boreham, near 1111-
*tree, Hertfordshire, of infringing the lunacy laws.
Mr. Poland, instructed by the Commissioners in Lunacy,
conducted the prosecution ; and Mr. Merriman defended.
In continuation of the case for the defence the following
witnesses were examined :

Mr. Charles John Smith, M.R.C.S., and late resident
surgeon of the institution fur the cure of epilepsy, stated
that he is the son-in.law of the patient Clods, and wee
consulted as to the propriety of the patient being placed
at Mr. Shaw's, in which he concurred. He had since seen
Clods several times, and found him in good general health,
contested, and apparently well treated. He bad no symp-
toms of insanity. To place him under restraint would in-
volve mischievous consequences as to his health, and even
serious peril.
Mrs. Clods, the patient's wife, said she had been con-
sulted as to her husband'v removal to Dr. Shaw's, and bad
made every inquiry both before and since. She was satis-
fied that her husband had been properlyand kindly treated.
Mr. Vaughan said he felt that it would be his duty to
send the case before a jury, and committed Mr. Shaw for
trial at Hertford, accepting his own recognisance, se before.

The two days we spent in the black house at Debra
Tabor, all huddled up together, obliged to h►ve lighted
candles day and night, anxious and uncertain about our
future fate, were really days of mental torture and phy
sisal discomfort, to which in our time few have been sub-
jected. We hailed with joy the announcement that we
were going to move ; any alternative was preferable to our
position ; be it rain in a worn-out tent, be it lamina in one
of the ambas ; anything was better than clime confine-
ment, deprived of all comforts, even of the cheering lien
of day.

FATAL ACCIDENT.—The residence of Dr. Oldham,
medical practitioner, of Finsbury-square, was yesterday
the scene of • shocking accident. A young man named
CRYSTAL PALACE.—At this afternoon's concert,
J Willtuott, • *nter and grainer, was engaged in
Miss Edith Wynne, Mr. Nelsen Farley, and Miss Jenny
Pratt
are the
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and Mr. Henry Holmes the solo
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G minor, and Mr. Sullivan's concert overture • Marmon
' ----" the London Dr. Oldham directed that the unfortunate young man
(first time). The distribution of prises to
should be immediately conveyed to St. Bartholomew's
Riffle Brigade, by the Lady Mayoress, will take plum at
five o'clock Hospital, and it was stated that he died on the way in
.
CRYSTAL PALACE. ONZ SHILLING DAY.—
great agony.
HEALTH RI:MUM BY Du BARRY'S FOOD TO THE
FRIDAY, Dsc. 6.—Admissions on payment, 204 ; ditto by ST:MAO% DIMS, louse, and liver of old and young, curing, with-
season tickets, 435; total visitors, 639 out medicine or expense, dyspepsia (indigestion, constipation,
th.dianhcess,pi...rdithlyali, ty!adzihine,g.n.e,uur;itir:asta,
hhateteri,s,impalpitation,
MOLLZIeB COD Livia On..—The First Prize,
end oily' flyer Medal at the Park Exhibiti", ham been," to Hoe. low ' spirit eo,ooo annual CUM which had resilredal% Peter Holler, for hie purest horwegiaa Cod Liver I. The midkims. g that of his Holiness the Pope. It saves
selection wu made from about thirty competitor.. This Not" fifty times its cat in other remedies.—Tins, 11b., ts. ad. ; lE,b.,
wegian 01l is exclusively used la ease* ofd dety and coesamp- Sla . 211 b., 40e, or 21. per meal.—Du Berry and Co., 77, Begent-
tion, and the contracts for the North oon Hoe. quadrant. London : also Fortnum and Mason, Plena_ ,ty and at
pital are now made with Peter Holier, of Et. -11114,-- el, Graoschurch-street ; 4, Ch ;to mad Ink Ctalardaliann;
staid by all clianlan, Is. id. par bottles—lad J sad anima's and chaadata —I l

THE EXPRESS. SATURDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 7, 1867

SHARE LIsT.s.—(THIS DAY.)