Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-09 00:00:00

you, in this case, on the part of the prosecution. Let
ns fora moment examine the theory which was put for-

ward by th? prisoner at the time, and which was put

forward in his behalf when enquiries were being made

into the case, and which I presume will again be put
brward to-day as the true state of the case. I wonl,l
remind you there were no marks of violence about the
hous3 indie;tting an attack, or even an inzress or egres3 of

any kind by burglars. The back door, which was kept
ba,rtd, was found open, and the bar had been removcd,

and Lat obviously must have been done from the inside ;

it by robbers, they must have concealed thems !lees some-
wherebefore the door was fastened. No ransacking of the

house had taken pace, nothing removed, nothing tcuched
but the priso%ei'6 desk, and that in the manner which I
hive described _to you. No disturbance had taken

place either in tho deceased's room or near his
,person, and it was evident that he had been killed in a
tranquil sleep in one momenf. Now, in the first piace,
before I pass to other ma' t,•rs, who ever heard of burglars
going into a house with a gun ? I will undertake to say
that not one of you ever beard of such a thing. Is it
not totally incoaiistent with the ohj,_ct of burglars, that
having taken nothing, having examiied nothing, having
touched nothing, they should kill a ma❑ in his sleep for the
purpose of raising an alarm by the firing of firearms.,
the necesarri consequence of which would be to raise an
alarm to wake all the inmates of the house, and that there-

foie those persons whose presumed object would be plunder
are supposed deliberately to commit a murder for ►.her ex_
press purp 5) of preventing them from doing whit they
inten,',ed, and raising an alarm to lead to their own
capture. Then no noise is heard, although the prisoner

s ICI two men rushed out of the room--no noise excepting

aslight sliuffling of the feet upon fir) stairs, as though the
persons' chaos were mufflal, a noisy which might with
the greltes:, ease be ma'ie by the prisquer, who wished
to present to the inm rtes of the blase the appearance
of some other than hiarelf having done it. Well,
then, as I have a'ready stated to you, the primer sated

,
he fired at a mall on the staircise, which struck biln
upon the cheek, from which blood must hive fl )wed
considerahle quantities ulna the landing and outside
the house, which must have boon traced ; no blood

was found, no scream was heard by any inmates,
who must have been aroused by the first dinharge,

between whVI and the second halt a minute intervened ;

but besides all this, by the running, of a number of men
Out of the house, a very considerable noise must have
been made; and %s, ou the alarm being raised, they mast

. _
h 393 b.era anxi.a.ti to get away, their footsteps mu ,t
have been found somewhere about the totre ; but none

are foul,ll. Well again, Via door of the old man's
ro an was found shut and latclicd. Is it, probable that
the robli:rs would have shut and latched the room door
after having been alarmei? That such an 'act was both
inconsistent and impossinle, I think you will agree ,Ni la
tile; and that it alio disagrees wi!.h the staternant

set up on the p i.rt; o the prisoler, arid wide(, I fea-,
tend only to show, as is the else, what grievous folly

always accomp inks pat. Tlun, aTain, the prisoner
slid the tap of the ale caik had b.!en left running. The
cellar had been examined, and no traces of any ale having

run along the floor were found—a,:thing more that
would have resulted from the dropp;ng of en ins, care t;p.
There were two or thee matters r,la'ive to the murder
which had since transpired, and 'which seemed c

with the plea set u? by the prisoner to which I will now
call your ;Aviation. SOlll3 days after the murder a
broken brace WAS found lying outside the house, and it
was at first supp ised that this must lava belonged to ott.o
of the robber,, but it had since been identified by one of
the servants who left the house a few weeks prior to
the murder. Now, gentlemen, I cannot c one lye it
possible th it the line of defence adopted upon this
occasion will be °the: than that already pursued, hut
in the ceurue of t e enquiry you will hive brouy,ht
before you every inmate ol the house, who will b sub-
jected to rigid examinations, and you wits then hays!! an
opportunity of forming your own opinions, whether it is
possible that any one other than th prisoner at the bar
could have been the perpetrator of the murde•. I rejoice
exceedingly that the prisoner at the bar, in this his hour
of peril, has the advautage of the services of my able and
learned friend, lilt. tiserjeant Parry, and when you have
bead the evidence which will be produced to prove the
case against him, and the remarks of my learned friend
upon the evidence, b c suse I take it for granted no evidence
will be adduc'ed on the part of the prisoner, and therefore I
shall have no opportunity of addressing you again—end
when in addition to all thes y-ou will hive hears the sum-
ming up of my Lord, who will hold the scales of justice
precisely even between the public and the prisoner, it will
be for you, weighing all the circumstances most delibe-
rately, to say whether you will, or whether you can, c ime
to the reasonab'e conclusion that the facts proved against
the prisoner are consistent with his innocence. or are
reasonably consistent wiila any other hypothesis than that
of his guilt— f you think they are, then you must acquit
him ; but if acting as rational men, the facts proved f dnt
to no ()clue reason Ne conclusion but his guilt, you must
do your duty irres.oe etive of all coasAuences, accorHug to
the s leinn oath you have taken, and saAsfy the require-
ments of that oath, and the wr demands of public
jaulic,, by saying that he is guilty.
Joseph Axon was the first witness called, and stated
that had prepared the model produced of the house of the
late Mr. Henderson, Hardy -HAM, Brarnhall an I also •plans
and drawings of the gardens which enclosed the hones on
three sides.

Jane Hendermn was next called, and sad: I Antal
single woman residing at Bramhall, and daughter of the
deceased. I remember the 29 hof September. On that
day our mother, my brothers James and Thome, and my
married sister Jessie Earlam, were living the-e. There
were also living there two farm servants, the boy, and the
female servant. All these slept in the house.
There were also two farm labourers who slept
in the room adjoining the granary. My father
slept in the front bad-room, and my brother James
in the other front bad-room. The back bed room,
opposite to my brother James's, was occupied by me, and
the other bed-room by my mother and married sister. In
the attic the two servants and my brother Thomas slept.
On the 29. h of September, my father went to teed near
upon nine o'clock, the two men servants about half pest,
and Dillon, Nancy, and the farmer-labourer, Maclocklin,
about the same time. My sister Jessie went to bed
before eight o'clock. My brother Thomas went out
about seven o'clock at night, and returned at ten
o'clock. He went to bed about eleven, My mother
and I went to bed together at nearly twelve o'clock. We
passed the back door, and we noticed that it was fastened.
It was locked, and a wooden bar across it. We left my
brother James down stairs writing in the sitting room
We had been sitting in the front kitchen. At the top of
the stairs my mother went to her room, and I to mine,
where I went to bed. and fell asleep. I was'awakened by
Hearing footsteps on the stairs. The next thing I heard
was my brother J,iMe3 opening his door. He fired a gun,
and called out, "Tom, come down immediately, there are
robbers in the house, He then called for a light.
He opened my bed-room door, and asked for matches to
light a candle with. I lighted my candle, and gave it to
him. I asked him where the robbers were, and he said
they were gone dawn stairs. He was then standing at the
top of the stairs. I went into my room and shut the door.
A few minutes afterwards the men servants came to the
door, and told me to come, as my father was shot I went
to my father's room. My brothers James and Thomas
were there. I saw my father Bing on his bed, on his
back with his hands on his chest. His head was on the
pillow. He had been shot in the mouth. I have
frequently seen my father in his sleep, and I have seen
him lying in that position. My mother and Jessie Earlam
came into the room. James said that his writing desk
had been broken open, and --CIA 10s. taken from it. I had
seen money in his desk, but not shortly previous to this.
Cross-examined by Sergeant Parry: I have seen
money many times in the desk as much as £l4 and
£l5. My father's face was blackened considerably,
en one side. I awoke suddenly, as if roused up, atel the
first thing I heard was the sound of footsteps. There
appeared to me to be more than one person moving
rapidly, but I could not tell whether up or down stairs.
When James came to the door ho had only on his night
shirt. It would be quite ten minutes, if not more, from
the time of the outcry to the time the men called me. My
father was in the habit of going to bed early and rising
early. When we went to bad we nearly always
lift my brother James up.
In the cross examination of this witness by Mr. Ser-
geant Parry, he stated that she was sire her brothel's was
not the foot which she heard ru-n;ng away at the time
she was awoke. She knew her brother's foot sound.
He had a "limo" in his foot, and the report she heard on
the stairs was that of several parties running rapidly,
which her brother was not enabled to do. She would
swear distinctly that they wore the foot marks of other
parties. Her brother was in the habit of " halting," and
could not have run in the rapid manner in which she
heard the parties at the time she was awakened.
Thomas Henderson, the prisoner's brother, gave almost
precisely similar evidence to the previous witness, and, in
the course of his cross cvsmilation, he deliberately swore,
in answer to Mr. Sergeant Parry, that the footsteps he
heard on the stairs at the time he awoke, were not those of
his brother James.
The other witnesses examined were—John Blake. John
Dillon, and Michael Matocknay, farm servants; Georgeo. Andrews, superintendent of Stockport division of
police ; Joseph Little, deputy chief constable of Cheshire ;
and P. C's Benjamin Cooper and Thomas Hammond.
Their evidence appeared in the Northern Times when the
case come
needless
sorteo the coroner
irot.ner at Bramhall, and it is, there-
There are 38 witnesses on the part of the prosecution,
and it is not likely that the case will terminate before to-