Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-02-14 00:00:00

THE MURDER IN LIVERPOOL.

-The inquest into this' mysterious case, , now more
, -
eat mysteriousilat4 lI than e
.a
sres u n
iv:r fromd yesterday
morning,
before of t
p.
Fle-
..
Curry, Esq.,' coroner. It will be remembered that at.
the adjourned inquest on Tuesday last,
.in Ronsequence
' of the evidence whielovas adduced on hat.oCcasion, the
barman at Mr. Mules' public-house was. despatched to
Cork in order to see whether the man .who enlisted, on.
last. Wednesday week was the. cabman who drove, the
deceased 'to Mr. Hales' public-house on the night of the
murder. It will also be, recollected that the, recruiting
~, • •
ofGetr. dreamed a divam in ''winch he saw Rhodes, the
man lie had enlisted, struggling with the murdered man.
Following, however, -the old maxin, that " dreams go by
contraries," the vision of the bombardier, which was'
thought to be-something, has tnrnrd out to be a dream
and nothing more. The cabman has not, yetlren found,
and notwithstanding the exertions of the detectives, no
clue has been obtained to the perpetrators of the decd.
The following evidence was adduced yesterday :
William Lavcock said :—I am a detective-officer ; and
,
on Tuesday last I went to Cork, with Inspector Byers
' m.(c arr.
Hitalspees,c , and
.torl went St:oa ms
aume lin lio
nie
la
vcoi el
lki
a, thein barman
Rhodes,
hodes, et
who
enlisted on last Wednesday week. We . found him at
Charles' Fort, about a mile and a half from Kinsale.
When, we arrived there he was in custody, under arms,._
the_c.ommanding_ officer__ ha \ lug_ previausly_roceived in- -
formation that he.was : implicated in the murder. He-.
was pointed out to Moaeock, who. said_he_was not the
cabman who brought the deceased to Mr, Males' house.
At that time the recruit was dressed in the overcoat
which he had on when he enlisted. - >

Samuel Meficoek,ws next called. lie went to Cork
with the last-witness,-and saw-the recruit-Wm. Rhodes,
but he was not the cabman.. He also saw the other
recruits who were with Rhodes. -

This being all the evidence; the Coroner addressed..
the jury as follows :—Gentlemen of the Jury,--,This pain--
fill case,,na far as our inquiry goes, now draws to a close
and Were I make any remarks upon the case. I cannot
help noticing a paragrailin the N'orth Briti.vkpaily
of Wednesday last. Now we are living in an age of won-
ders, as regards the despatch of news from one part of the.
world "to another.~'lnformation is conveyed 'in an
incredibly short space of time ; but there is' something
very extraordinary iii this paragraph, as it might have
saved me the trouble' of 'making 'a speech, ' and saved.
you returning a verdict. -- The coroner here read a para--
graph from the newspaper mentioned, in which it was
stated that the inquest concluded on last Tuesday. He
then said—Notwithstanding this report I shall make a
few observations of my own on the case. The unfor-
tunate-victim- of this deed- is brought nnder-our notice
in the first plate by a man named Thomas:Williams,
a labourer in the employment of Mersrs. Houghton and
Smith, timber Merchants. He .says that about noon on.
Monday he saw the body of a man lying in the yard on.
his back, with his throat-cut He-did -not touch the-
, bogy,: but went to their cashier, and told hiM. Jelly,
the 'notice-officer is next called, and he corroborates.
Williams's evidence on all the material :points. We.
have then the evidence of Edward Conway, tha custom-
hoase officer, -who states that on Saturday' night he.
heard a 'cry of "Oh; don't," conic from- theL'direction,
of the timber-yard. NoW' the rettion why this is
important is because the deceased would. ,not have-
uttered this 'cry.had he been committing suicide. After
Hicl,s, who describes-the position in which- the body
was lying, comes the delivery clerk of the timber-yard,
and lie says his duty was to close the, gates, but on the
night, in question lie did riot close the one at the north-
east corner of the yard, because the railway men had ter,
come in and remove some wood: The next witness also.
states that. lie left the gate open, thus answering the
question, ' How did the, deceased get in." Samuel
Meacock is the Mkt witness, and he says thatnn Saturday
-night two men,- apparently-foreigners, -Came to the
public-house in • a car and got some drink, which the
witness' supplied. Tbe deceased' told 'Elie driver in
broken English that he could have anything he wanted.
;They appeared friendly, so far as Meacock could judge,
and thirty sovereigns were seen in the hands' f one of
them. Now, Captain Parry says that the &ceased told
him he was goinglo :yeceive we have no evidence
to'show that he did receive it, but supposing be did, it.
would account for the money seen Meacock.
The next witness is Dr. Ayrton, and he is, perhaps, the
most important 6ne'whohas been exa'fnitted-. It is not
necessary to read the whole of his - evidence, but
.I shall have to remark upon it when I come to the suppo-
sition that the deceased committed suicide. Two suppo-
sitiens may be advanced as to the cause Of death—viz.,
suicide and murder. Now; I /ook at it 'froth bdth points
of view; and, in the first place, supposing a man goes
to commit self-destruction, he generally goes to a quiet
place. A Man may commit suicide too while in a sane
'state of mind. He may have contracted a debt, and.
being unabte to pay it, may 'deliberately take away his
life. Now taking for granted.that his death was caused
'by his own hand, is it likely that he would ,lieve uttered
the exclamations which were heard by the custom-house
Officer ? Again, upon that supposition we should have
foUlid a knife or other instrument with which he com-
mitted the deed. But, -notwithstanding the great
search Which had been made, no instrument has been
found ; and Ithink it would 'be impossible for him to
throw it away. You saw :the woundS ; some of them
might not. have destroyed life, and some might; but
the fatal cut Was the one in the neck, and which has
been evidently .not done, at one stroke, or, if at one
stroke, -by a division of fOrce: While the &Ceased was
inflicting this-- wound- (supposing he -committed- suicide)
he would, probably; straigtle with the pain, and after-
wards would have been quite incapable of throwing the
knife away. Upon these grounds, then, I do not think the
supposition of self-destruction is correct: But whoever
committed this murder has debeived himself; for if he-
had left the knife we might have thought it was suicide.
,Now, if the deed has not been done by himself, what
does this amount to ? It is not in self-defence, for
w have no evidence of that ; and it must, 'therefore,
be murder:- To make a case murder there must be
malice expressed or implied beforehand. In this case
we have no evidence of expressed . malice, but we must.
see that there is evidently malice implied. Here, then,
I say, we have abundance of evidence to make this a
Case of wilful murder, provided .you are satisfied it
was 'not one of suicide. Everything has been done
that can possibly throw any light on the matter,
and. I have been in communication with the Se-
cretary of State. who has agreed" to -Olfer £lOO
to any one who will deliver up the' murderer: - before I
close my remarks, I, beg leave to draw your attention
Kett.,
to' Mr. who, Unasked by me, came .forward and
prepared two photographs of the deceased, which he
presented to this court. I have,-therefore, great p'.o isn't e
in publicly-thanking hint. I will now leave the case
entirely in your' hands, :feeling sure that
.you will treat
it -as it deserveg:

71711 e jury, after a *short consultation, returned a ver-
dict of "Wilful Mu:der against some person or persons
unknown." They also thanked Mr. Beet for his
kindness in presenting the photographs to the court.

Neighbour Jones went to dinner the other day. 'He
found one of his apprentices in the kitchen quietly
rolling up hiS sleeves. " What are you going to do ?"
said Jonek• "Oh,' quietly responded the boy, "I am
going to dive deWii into that pot to see if I can find the,
meat that the'soup was made from."
THE CHINA WAR.—The following is an extract from:
a letter 'Written by an officer in India :—" We have at.
this moment three "cements' of.
_the, line _in China,
-bakteiltoyargngineers and two companies of Royal
'Artillery. We are sending from India seven regiments
of ttahned he
c2aolpoi
ense.at'hb(eQrrtu egoefon's),
etsh 0e 'threeine rneg, b g
si:Dtetner
tar igeoos of Royal
fontheGlliianre d
Guards..
Artillery,cil
in From
and two batteries of Armstrong guns •go from .home.
Thus we shall have in China 11 regiments of Euiopean
infantry of the line, seven batteries of Royal Artillery,
three compantabf Royal Engineers, and 200 sabres of
English cavalry, • Besides these, there will be two, it'
not three battalien-Of Ithyal Marines, with an equal
number of sailors, should.they be .nabeEstiff:" In addition
to the European troups,. there will be a native one, con-
sisting of 30native cavalry, one battalion of native
infantry from Madras, two battalions from Bombay, and
five battalions from Bengal. Of the latter four are to
be Sikhs and Punjabees, and one Hind6stances.. Each
of the Madras and Bombay battalions are to be I,ooa
strong, and those of Bengal of 800 rank and file. Two
companies of :Madras Sappers are also to fcrm part of
the foot."