The National Register.
London, England, 1819-03-28 00:00:00

[PRICE 91d•

the course of his argument, mentioned in the House
of Commons: and though we have very long been
in possession of the particulars of this melancholy
instance alluded to, yet we have scrupulously for-
borne to state them, because we thought it a case
which could hardly fail to find its way to a British
judge and jury, and were therefore unwilling to
`subject ourselves to the imputation of-biassing the
public mind upon it. It has now however gone forth,
and all further restraint is needless. his as follows;
A poor woman named Worm, whose husband was
employed in a nursery-.garden occupied by a man
named Martin, and adjoining a cover belonging to
Lord Suffield, in the parish of Thorpe and imme-
diate neighbourhood of Gunton, happening to tres-
passinto the said cover, for the purpose of gather-
mg a few sticks, in the latter end of January last,
had proceeded but a very few steps within it, when
she unfortunately touched the wire of a spring gun
constructed with two barrels, and received, almost
from the very mouth of the muzzles, the whole con-
tents of the charge in her legs. We need not add that .
her. situation was for some time exceedingly pre-
cartous, or that her sufferings were extreme. The shot
had penetrated so deep as to admit of no extraction;
and there, though the poor creature is now recover-
ing, they still remain. The keeper (who called on
her the day after) congratulated her on even such art
escape; and told her chat a few yards further there
was a gun planted with thr:e barrels, which must
have lulled her. Now that the noble lord himself
thinks the adoption of such means for preserving
his game perfectly justifiable, that he shrinks from
no consequences which may follow them, however
dreadful ; nor even contemplates such cases as we
have above cited as having any claims even to his
charity and compassion,—we can have no doubt;
because otherwise they would not be pursued in the
first instance, and in the next some reparation would
have been made to the wretched sufferer. Oa the
contrary, his lordship has never once condescended
to visit her, or to bestow upon her one single farthing
from his own pocket. Upon a humble and urgent ap-
peal made to him by her husband, his lordship did
indeed, as a magistrate, recommend her case to
the officers of. her porish, and directed them to allow
her one shilling a week for goals. They have also
since paid two shillings a week for the board ea
nurse who attended her. We must here state that the
poor sufferer has three children, the eldest fouttees
years old and a cripple; that the earnings of her
husband have never exceeded nine shillings a week;
and that she was at the time of committing the
trespass in a state of the greatest poverty. We
mention these things however, solely to prove what
must be the feelings and impression of his lordship
upon the perfect right and justice with which such
destructive engines may be used even in the open day
time: and it is because we presume to differ from
-him in tote, both upon the lawfulness, the natural
justice, and the humanity of such measures of pre-
caution being applied,--that we do most earnestly
wish that tins case may yet be tried. It is import-
ant to society that we should know whether we have
any right to be our own avengers on such occa-
sions, or whether the laws be not the proper au-
thority to which offence; should be referred. And
even if the interference of the laws may be thus su-
perseded, still again it is important that we should
know whether we have a right to inflict a much
heavier punishment than the law itself awards, and
even to take away the life of a fellow creature for
an act which our existing
.statutes would at most
punish by a few weeks imprisonment. We remember
a case of this sort tried before Baran Richards a few
years ago, in the Midland Circuit, in which a boy
had entered a wood for the purpose of cutting a
stick, And was wounded by a spring gun; when the
jury not only awarded very heavy damages to the
party injured, but the judge also distinctly assured
the defendant, that if the boy had died, he should
have held him liable to answer for the murder. Now,
for the honour of our county, we should be ex-
ceedingly sorry to see our Lord Lieutenant re-
duced to such a predicament; and we therefore
earnestly implore him, for his own personal security,
to satisfy himself more perfectly upon the propriety
t of the course he is pursuing.