The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-07 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE,

OXFORD CIRCUIT.—STArFORD, The. 6.
_ . .

(Before Mr Justice Bytes.)
Charles Brough, 24, miner, was arraigned, charged with
the wilful murder of George Walker, on the 27th of July
last, at Bignall Hill, in the parish of Audrey.
Mr Boughey and Mr Brindley were for the prosecution ;
and the prisoner, having no counsel, Mr Pritchard was in-
structed by the Court to defend him.
Deceased was 74 years of age, and was a broken-down
farmer, living in a hut on the verge of a farm of some 120
acres, which at one time he for many years held as tenant.
He had well-to-do relatives who were willing to afford him
hospitable and comfortable shelter, but he preferred the
hermit life which exposed him to the death which he ulti-
mately suffered. He slept in a rude hut, with hay for his
bed, and cultivated the piece of waste land on which his her-
mitage stochl. On the night before the murder a relative
gave him half a crown, and a friend, named John Norcop, a
labourer, spent some time with him in his rude home. When
Norcop left him on that evening, the old man seemed to be
in the enjoyment of his usual robust health. In fulfilment
of his promise, Norcop resumed his visit on the following
evening, between six and seven o'clock. Norcop then found
the deceased lying a corpse, and his skull frightfully frac-
tured, in front of his hut. His face also was much disfigured,
and there wag a large quantity of blood, both within and
without the hut. About two months before that time a
gamekeeper named Obery bartered an old watch with the
deceased, who wrote down the number (45,177) with chalk
on a beam in his hovel! This watch Wei gone, and there
was no money either on the deceased or in his wretched
tenement. A de:cr;ption of the watch was circulated
amongst the pawnbrokers of Tunstall, and at about 2 o'clock
in the afternoon of Friday, the 29th July, the prisoner offered
a watch in pledge, at the shop of Mr Hulnre, of that town,
which is only throo or four canals Cross. 44...,...ann of the
murder. He was detained, and at night, when in custody,
he sent for a policeman and made the following confession. :
" I took the watch from the old men. I had had a quarrel
with my father. He (the father) struck me, and I left the
house, and went to the hovel to got a sleep. The old man
came to the door, but would not let me in. I struck him on
the head with a piece of wood which I found near to the
door. I don't know if I knocked him down. lie began to
call out, and I hit him again. Is he dead ?" The police-
men said the old man was dead. The prisoner then con-
tinued—" I then struck a match and took the watch from
him. It was about midnight. I did it myself. Nobody
was with me." This confession he repeated in substance to
a police-sergeant after he had been cautioned, and evidence
in corroboration of it- truth was given.
The prisoner's counsel pleaded that the number was not
sufficient identification for the watch, inasmuch as other
watches might be marked with the same figures. The
confession, he said, was fanciful, as several recent confes-
sions of murder had been, and the prisoner at the time was
suffering from great pain, and was not master of himself.
But if the jury should think the prisoner guilty, then he
contended that he was guilty only of manslaughter, for he
had said that he did not go to the hovel intending to kill the
deceased, and did not intend to cause Ili; death when he
struck him.
The learned Judge, in summing up, expressed his belief
that when the prisoner went to the deceased's hut, he did
not meditate murder, but his lordship did not advert to a
suggestion urged by Mr Pritchard, the prisoner's counsel,
that the crime was that of manslaughter only,
The Jury found the prisoner guilty of wilful murder, and
Mr Justice Byles sentenced him to death in the usual
form.
MIDLAND CIRCUIT.—LENESTER, Dec. 6.
THE DOUBLE MURDER IN LEICESTERSHIRE.
Timothy Baum, 28, wheelwright, was arraigned before Mr
Justice Mellor, on the charge of 'a ilfully murdering his
wife, Jane Baum, end child, Emma Baum, at Syston, on the
night of Friday, Nov. 25.
Mr Inglesant conducted the prosecution; end Mr Met-
calfe the defence of the prisoner.
The jury having stated that, in their opinion, the pri-
soner was competent to understand the evidence, he was
arraigned, and pleaded not guilty.
The evidence in the case was then gone into.
Mrs Shelton, mother of the deceased woman, deposed that
the prisoner, who had been married for about five years,
had of late been in a very low way, and had been under
medical treatment. On the night of Friday, Nov. 25, he
went to bed at 9 o'clock, and when in bed she gave him, by
the doctor's direction, a draught. After she had been in
bed some time she was awoke by the child, who slept with
the prisoner and his wife, screaming. She got out of bed
and went into the prisoner's room, when she found the pri-
soner standing at the side of the bed holding a knife, which
she dashed out of his hand, and in reply to her inquiries he
said he would cut his throat; he then ran by her and went
down stairs. While he was gone he raised an alarm, and
the prisoner then returned upstairs with the knifebox in his
hand. This she also knocked out of his hand, and after a
struggle with him she got him seated in a chair, and assis-
tance came. The child lived till 2 o'clock in the morning.
James Toone, apprentice to the prisoner, Matthew Toone,
and William Adcock, neighbours, gave evidence as to the
assistance they rendered on being called in,
Adcock said that when holding the prisoner he picked
up a fork which lay on the ground, and said he would do for
himself, and he also said "You have come too soon; I
meant to do it, but it was too stiff."
Matthew Toone said when he saw the prisoner's wife
and child were dead he went to the prisoner and said " Oh,
Tim, what have you been doing? you have killed your
wife and child." Prisoner replied " What have I done f"
He repeated what he had said, and prisoner in an apparently
unconscious way, kept saying" What ? what ? what ?"
Mr Robinson, surgeon, of Syston, deposed to having
recently attended the prisoner for inflammation of the
covering of the brain, which the prisoner accounted for by
lying on his back to paint the under part of a timber drag.
At 9 o'clock on the night in question he saw the prisoner,
who appeared much worse, in consequence of having
been up all day. His eye was very bright and glassy,
and his pulse very quick. He ordered him to bed and to
take a draught which he had sent him in the morning.
He was called to the prisoner's house about two hours afblood
ter,
when he found the prisoner's wife in bed in a pool of
and quite dead. The child had a small wound on the right
side of the throat, which he dressed. The woman had a
wound on the left side of the throat. The knife's Point
both had
entered the carotid artery. He was of opinion that
wounds were caused by one blow—that the knife entered
the woman's throat and passed to the child's. lie went to
the prisoner and asked him how he was, and he m.umblr ' d
e
" middling." Ho apprehended delirium from the prisones
disease, He believed prisoner would not be able to tell
whether he was doing right or waong—hat he would be
acting under a sudden impulse.
Mr Bonfield, surgeon, was called, anti said ho saw the
prisoner shortly after hie admission into the gaol. He found