The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1805-03-25 00:00:00

HORRID MURDERS.
TORK LENT ASSIZES.
On Saturday se'nnight the Crown bu.iness finish.
ed At the Castle. It included tltc thr,ye following
cAses of the most Hoaa.ets MuitOkt in the cata-
logue of human depravity. A hk.hild for poisoning
bit wife; a r-n for hanging hia father ; and a mother
for cutting open her infant child. We are indebted
to a friend for an early copy of that excellent and
cell.condutled [Wet-, The York lirrak. from which
we have copied the following repurts of these shock.

tag offences.
bot Hat; weed, late of the parish of Rotherham, in
the West Riding, single woman, was indiEled for the
offal murder of her female bastard child.
• Sarah Turner, the first Witness on the part of the
proaecution, said she was fellow-servant with the
ii,oner at the time she lived with Mr..Roodhouse,
ef firockshouse, near Rotherham, into whose service
the Prisoner entered in July last. She observed that
the Prisoner was not well, but orly said she had got
a cold at a boarding-school, and was not right. On
.the 1,1(h of November, in the morning, she saw the
"
prisoner standing by the side of the sink, with symp-
toms tif labour upon her; but she still said she had
got cold, and asked me to go and milk for her. I
returned in half an hour, and saw her in an out-
house, and blood upon the floor and on her hands ;
she was sitting with her hands upon her knees. 1
then asked her what she ailed ? She said she was
poorly, and had taken some pills. She desired the
Witaess to get her a mop and water to clean the
place. and desired her to say nothing to any one. I
sent the other servant in to her, who brought her
into the house, and we warmed her bed, and put her
in. Upon telling the Prisoner that the other servant
had gone to the out-house with a candle, she ex-
claimed, " I)—n her, what is she gone there for?
she can find nothing." She said that the next day
the Prisoner went horns to her aunt's ; and, upon
cleaning out the Prisoner's room, she found a pen-
t knife with blood upon it, which she afterwards gave
into the custody of her master.
Phillis Cassel, another servant of Mr. Roodhouse.
said, that she lived there at the time the • Prisoner
di& and corroborated the evidence of the preceding
Witness, with this addition, that there were ashes
in the outhouse, which appeared to have been fresh
removed.
Mr Roodhouse said, that he and his wife went
on the 29th of November last to the Prisoner's bed
morn, and told her he was going for her mint, but
die Prisoner requested that he would not go. The
Witnese said, I am afraid you have had a chili ; to
which she replied that she had slot ; if she had she
did not know it. The Witness afterwards went for
de Prisoner's aunt, who took her from the Wit-
ness's house on the day following. The Witness
rodueed the knife, placed in his hands by Sarah
Tamer, and had hart it sealed up ever since, and
on which there were faint appearances of blood.
Said, that accompanied hy Francis Norton, he found
the child amongst the ashes ; it was cot open on the
left side from the ear near to the navel, and its
bowels all out : they sent for the surgeon, and,
washing the b.rdy, they found a wound upon the
temple, and one or two marks upon the face; it
teemed a perfect child
Francis Norton was Cal . .d to prove the finding of
' de child in the privy.
James Witkinsun, surgeon, said. that on the Si
slay of December last, he went to the house of Mr.
Roodhouse to examine the body of au intent child.
He found that its bowels were all out, but the body
appeared to have arrived at the full period of birth ;
1 the nails and hair were perfeft, which could not'
have been the case it a premature birth; the child
was in length nineteen inches and a half. He found
two small punctured wounds on the left side of the
face, which might have been made with any sharp
instrument ; a small cut on the left angle of the
mouth, a small pen ture on the right shoulder, and
an incision &.nn the right ear down to within an
inch and a half,* the navel ; that the knife pro.
duced could bare Waded, the operation ; found the
Prisoner in such a state as women usually are upon a
'emit delivery. •
Mr Foster, before whom the inquest was taken,
proved the proceedings. and the examination of the
Prisoner was produced and read in Court. Before
Mr. Foster, the Prisoner confessed that she had
borne the child, but had not murdered it; and that
the reason of the knife being bloody was her having
killed a fowl a day or two before. Here the evi-
dence for the prosecution closed.
Mr. RAWL here observed to the Judge, that the
prosecution had failed in its effeas upon the Pri-
soner ; in the first place, they had not brought forth
any evidence to completely satis' y the minds of the
Jury that she was not a married woman ; and in the
second place, there was not a tittle of evidence that
the child had been barn alivo.
In answer to these objelions, the Learned Judge
said, that though it was true there was no (tired evi-
dence of the Prisoner being a single woman, or that
the child had been born alive, yet there was
wrong, irresistible evidence of her being a single wo.
man from her being in the capacity of a servant,
which is not a very common thing to do when wo-
men get married, though it sometimes does so hap-
pen ; and she not bringing forward any evidence of
her being aetually married at the time ; that. from
these circumstances, he thought the presumption fair,
that she was a single woman ; and, as to the want of
evidence to prove that the child was born alive, he
thought it peculiarly convincing that it was born
alive, from the evidence of the surgeon. who said
that he never saw a finer child in his life, and that
it had come to the full pet and of birth ; if so, the ne-
cessary inference to be drawn is, that it was born
alive ; and if it had been killed by the operation of
birth, there would have been no necessity for those
lacerations on its body, which had been stated.
The Jury, after a short time. returned a verdict of
and upon the. Judge preparing to pronounce
sentence of death, the Prisoner went down upon her
Lees, and in a manner which drew tearsfrom several
who beheld her, she professed her innocence of the
murder. and implored his Lordship for mercy. So
continued were her solicitations for mercy, that it
was some atm before his Lordship could obtain a
hearing frs the Prisoner to pass sentence of death
upon her; which he did in a manner she most solemn
and effeetnig, giving her at the same time not the
slightest hope of mercy.
I he Prisoner was afterwards asked, whether she