The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-08-05 00:00:00

which his mind was so much distinguished,
discerned in the rata
set a fatal objection to the frame of the mead, which bad happil%
spared the Jury the misery of a most Melancholy inquiry, SIM
the prisoner the heart-rending recital of a calamity with which,
at this moment, his soul was absorbed in unutterable grief. In
the determination of the Learned Judge, upon the (keel*
alluded to, he most respectfully and heartily concurred; and Ise
was happy to state, that a heart-broken parent dad not doomed
to the torture of having it made the subject of deliberate inquirys
whether he had or had not caused the death of his own child.
No man could answer for the effects of an accident, which had
brought upon lthn tar great a calamity as the loss of a child, upon
whom he doated with parental tenderness. It was due to the
gentleman at the bar to say publicly, that by accident alone he
had been bereft of the solace—the stay of bra declining years ;
that he had lost a pronileing and beautiful bog, under' eireatn.
stances of the greatest affliction. Reports had gone abroad of the
most unjust and cruel description, as they respected the manner of
the child's death. It had been fueled that the father had barbs.
mealy beaten his son with the rail of a chair, and had fractured
his skull. He (Mr. Adolphus) was authorized to say, from a careful
consideration of all that appeared before the Coroner, and %span sub.
sequent inquiry, that there was not the most remote shadow of
truth in such a statement. The fact was, that the child, having
been guilty of neme act of disobedience, the father, as he lawfully
might, had corricted him with a strap, to which, unkhorringly to
hint at the time, a buckle was appended. In consequence of some•
thing unfortunate in the structure of the child's head, he received
a mortal wound from the buckle, which had the effect of destroying
a life, for the preservation of which the wretched patent would
cheerfully have sacrificed his own. Upon each an occasion every
I man must feel the deepest sympathy with the distracted parent. As
Counsel for the prosecutien, he had felt it his duty to make this
statement in the prisoner's favour; and he felt persuaded in his
own mind, that if the ease were gone into, the Jury mdst have been
. convinced that the death of the child was occasioned by accidental
misfortune, and was not attributable to anything culpable in the
parent. Perhaps some apology was due to the Court and Jury for
I these observations. on an occasion when there was nothirig now for
their consideration : but he hoped that in dismissing the unhappy
gentleman from the bar, he might be permitted to return to the
bosom of' his disconsola.e family, with the p rsuaoion, that at lea-c
in the estimation of the public he had nothing with which to re.
prowls himself in a catastrophe which had occasioned him so much
personal misery.
0 Mr. Justice Rot.NOI'D concurred with the Learned Counsel in
I thinking, that had the trial proceeded, the result must have been au
t acquittal, inasmuch as the depositions taken before the Coroner dl.-
closed circumstances inducing a belief that the death of the chi:4
was purely accidental. This view of the case found some confitma.
t tion in the fact, that the Giand Jury had thrown out a bill of in.
t dictinent for Manslaughter.
t I The prisoner, who appeared to be broken down by inward are
guish and remorse, bowed respectfully to the Court, and was home.
; I daftly rcktured to liberty.