Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-10-08 00:00:00

EXTRAORDINARY• CHARGE OF RAPE.

ij
j On Tuesday,. at Guildhall, M. Alexandre Bonville, a
French gentleman, described on the police sheet as an
tinted proprietor. residing at 2, Tudor-street, Blackfriars,
was trought up in custody before Mr. Alderman Phillips,
charged with feloniously violating the person of Harriet
Elizabeth Thomas, a married woman.
Mr. Barker attended for the prosecution, and Mr. Wont-
ner apreared for the prisoner.
Mrs. Thomasehaving been sworn, said : I reside at No.
6. Tudor-street, Blackfriars. My husband is a woollen
draper's assistant. On the eight of the 24th of last month,
I was sent for and mein:red to go to the prisoner's house
in the morning to help to clean down the house, which
was intended to be opened as an hotel. I went dewn at
half-past six inehe morning, and continued at work there
until about eleven o'clock. There was no one else in the
house at that time, that I was aware of, with the excep-
tion of the prisoner and a female servant. I had seen a
fair gentleman there, but 1 could not tell if he was
in the house afterwards. The prisoner attended.
in every room as we cleaned it, and while we were
engaged cleaning the second floor front room, which is a
bed room. about eleven o'clock, the prieoner said he must
have the flregrate cleaned. The servant said she had no
brushes to do it with, and he then gave her money, and
directed her to go out and buy some. She aceordingly
went out, leaving the prisoner and me alone in the room.
The door was open when she left,. and as soon as she had
gone the prisoner said something to me in French, which
I did not understand, and then asked me in Eeglish if I
was married, and immediately closed the door and locked
He then took hold of me round the waist, and carried me
amiss the room, and threw roe on the bed, and held me
there while he committed, the offence. I resisted him
with all the strength in my power, but he held me so tight
that I could not speak• I tried to push him away from
me, but being very poorly and weak in consequence of
recent confinement, I was unable to prevent him accom
plishing his object. The servant was absent about a
quarter of an hour, anti came back atatt five minutes
atter the offence had been committed, but 1 did not leave
the house directly. When she rourned the prisoner
unlocked the door to let her in, and then went out himself.
I said to the servant. That fellow has insulted me," and
shortly afterwards I went home to sncele my baby.
That was between 11 and 12 o'clock, and I told my mother
also that the prisoner had insulted me, but I did not
explain in what way. 1 said I would not go again to the
prisoner s house, and my mother it qu'rel the re s n.
but I did not tell her. About halt an hour, after I
returned to the prisoner's house, and continued at work
there until about one o'clock, when I again went home to
get my husband's dinner ready I went back to the pri-
soner's house, and took my eldest child, a little girl four
years' old, in order that she might call out for me if the
prisoner again insulted me. Nothing else took place
between the prisoner and me that day. I went the next
day to work, and the prisoner let ms in at eight o'clock.
I did not te'l my husband at the time, because I was
afraid it would part him and me for life In consequence
of that connection with the prisoner, I have contracted a
loathsome disease. I had seen the prisoner only once
before, and had never spoken to htrn.
Cross-examined : lam 24 years' of age. I have been
married four years last June, and my eldest child was
four years' old last August.
Mr. Wontner : Teen that chi'd was horn two months
after marriage? Prosecutrix Yes ; but it is my hus-
band's child. I was at the prisoner's house rl: Friday
and Saturday, but the prisoner was not there both days.
He left on Saturday about ten o'clock in the morning
to meet his wife. I went on Sunday morning
for my money for the two days,' but the prisoner said
he had only foreign money, and could not pay me,
but he sent the servant with 3a. 61. to my house
on the following day. The servant agreed to give me
3s. 6d. a day, but she afterwards told me that thee
prisoner had refused to pay more than 2e, as that
was what he had been in the habit of paying. Ido not
think 3; 601 a day is a high charge when victuals are not
provided. I told my husband on Friday night, after we
went to bed; but I felt unwell about two days after the
prisoner had committed the offence he is charged with. I
did not tell my husband anything until he found himself
d's a.sed, and questioned me on the subj.,ct. I knew the
seavant about a fortnight, and it was, through her I was
engaged as charwoman. I never went out in that
capacity before.
Mr. Wontner : Now tell me, my good woman, you say
this gentleman forcibly conveyed you to the bed and
there committed a rape upon you. Now, after such con-
duct, why did you return to his house? Prosecutrix
Because my husband knew I was going there for the day,
and I did not like to let him know the difference. I had
no heart to tell any one what had occurred, and that was
the reason I did not tell my mother ail.
Mr. Wontner : Why did you not scratch his face"?
Prosecutrix: Because he held me round the waist, with
my arms close tojmy sides, so that. I could not raise a
hand.
Harriet linrnell said : The prosecutrix is my daughter,
and lam residing with her. 0 the 25th of Sept. last, my-
daughter came home between eleven and twelve o'clock,
and I observed she looked ill, and trembled very much,
and hardly knew how to speak. I did not ask her
what what the matter with her, because I thought it wag
want of food, as she had gone without her breakfast ; but
she said, " That follow has insulted me." She has not
been in a bad state of health lately, but she is occasionally
weak, through having to suckle a baby.
Cross examined : I did not notice her being poorly on
the morning of the 25th before she went to the prisoner's
house. I never imagined she had been insulted in the
manner she had. I thought the prisoner had merely
kissed her, or taken some such liberty as that.
Sarah Barker said lam in the service of M Bonville.
I know the prosecutrix. She was employed on the 25th
and 26th of last month to clean the house down. M.
Bonville sent me to buy a black lead brush, and at that
time the prosecutrix was in the front bed-reom on the
second floor. 51. Bonville was also there, and a Frenek
gentlemau in the adjoining room, and the doors of both
rooms were wide open. The prosecutrix knew the other
gentleman was there, for she had spoken to him a short
time previous. When I returned with the brushes. I took
them up stairs, and found the front door still open, and
the prosecutrix at the same kind of work I. had left her
doing. About half an hour afterwards, the prosecutrix
said to me, with a laugh, that M. Bonville had kissed her ;
hut she did not say he had grossly insulted her ; and she
went home between twelve and one o'clock. I was sot
absent more than 10 minutes.
Cross-examined : After she told me that Mr. Bonville
had kissed her, I asked her if she would have anything to
drink, and she drank two glasses of brandy. I never saw
the least difference in her appearanc,.. When she came
on Saturday and Monday she saw Mr. Bonville and shook
hands with him on both occasions.
James Thomas : The prosecutrix is my wife. She mad"
no communication to me about this matter until I ques-
tioned her on Thursday night last, when she told me all.
I did not discover that I had contracted the disease until
mid-day on Wednesday, and then I knew it must have
been from my wife, as I had had no intercourse with any
other woman. •
Mr. Wontner, in reply, said th's was a very painful case,
but it was also one of considerable importance. This
woman had contracted a loathsome disease, and upon dis-
covery she fabricated this tale to cover her own infamy,
and impose upon her husband. She had brought this
charge to clear herself in the eyes of her husband. This
was not one of those;cases where a virgin of seventeen had
been so abused, but here was a woman twenty-four
years of age, who has had one child two months
after her marriage, and after being violated, as
she says, by this gentleman, she actually retuned
to his house again and acain without communi-
cating to her husband or her mother what she
had suaered, or taking any steps to prevent a
repitition of the outrage, if indeed any such outrage
had been committed at all. She did not say one word to
her husband until ho made the discovery. 'Nero was a
discrepancy as to time between the husband and wife's
evidence, one saying it was Friday and the other that it
was Thursday when the alleged rape was first mentioned
between them. The medical testimony had satisfied the
court that the husband and wife were diseased, while the
gentleman at the bar was free from any sign of it. Was
it not, therefore, far more probable that the wife had
contracted the disease elsewhere, and that it was not
until she found that she had contaminated her husband
that she tramped up this charge against Mr. Bouville ?-
The prosecutrix's statement was full of inconsistencies—
and the evidence of the servant so thoroughly exposed
them that. it would hardly be necessary to call any wit-.
nesses for the prisoner.. Mr. Wontmer having called the
magistrate's attention to these facts, concluded his re-
marks by stating that he should call the French gentleman
who was in the adjoining room, atter which he would ask
the court to dismiss •the case and send the prisoner back
to his home and his friends with an unblemished cha-
racter. He was a gentleman of very high respectability,
and the magistrates would only be exercising a very wise
discretion, and at the same time do rn act of justice, in
saying that the prisoner would leave that dock without
the slightest stain upon his oharaeter.
M. Florentine Delman, an independent gentleman, said:
lam living in Mr. Boaville's house. I was in the back
bedroom, on the second floor. on the 25th of last month,
from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, and if
any alarm had been made in the adjoining room I must
have heard it, as my door was open all the time. I heard
no alarm whatever—no noise, no screaming.
Mr. Barker said he hoped the magistrates would con-
sider there was s case made out for further investigation,
and he would not consign the characters of his three
clients to infamy, by discharging the. ease at the present
stage.
Alderman Phillips, after a most palatal hearing, said.
there could be no doubt this was, a, most painful case, but
it bad had a most careful investigation, and he had
bestowed considerable attention in reading over the whole
of the evidence, in order that he might arrive at a just
conclusion, and he had come to the determination to dia.,
miss the charge.
1-Vrhe prisoner was therefore discharged. ,

The Independance of Brussels states the commercial
circles of Belgium, Holland, Antwerp, and the Hague,
have been thrown into some alarm by the fact of their last
letters from Bengal having arrived with their seals brain,
and with some of the pas3ges erased.