The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-20 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN ClRCUlT.—Liverpool, Aug. 19.
CROWN COURT.—(Before Lord Chief Justice

CAMPBELL.)
John Slaney, aged 25, was indicted for the wilful
murder of Margaret Baines, at Liverpool, on the 6th
of July last.
Mr. Blair and Mr. Aspinall prosecuted, and Mr.
Monk and Mr. T. Atkinson defended the prisoner.
The prisoner, on the 6th of July last, was in the
fire brigade police force, and appeared at the dock in
his uniform. The 6th of Jnly, being the eve of the
election, there were disturbances in Grosvenor-street,
and the prisoner and several other of the police force
were sent to keep the peace there. A number of
Irish lived in the courts leading into that street, and
stones and brickbats had been flyicg about, one of
which struck the prisoner. The deceased woman
kept a lodging-house in No. 6 court in that ',street,
and had several lodgers. Five Irish witnesses were
called, some of them lodgers with the deceased, who
swore that they saw three policemen rush up the
court and go to the house of the deceased, where a
woman named Hughes, one of the witnesses, then
was. One of these policemen struck the deceased
with his staff and knocked her into the house,
bursting open the door. In the house was the
deceased's mother-in-law. One of the police-
men—the prisoner, according to their testi-
mony—then struck the old woman on the head, and
knocked her down. The deceased cried out that they
had killed her mother, and the prisoner said that she
was not killed, but he would kill her (the deceased),
and he immediately struck the deceased on the head,
knocking her down, and while she was on the ground
he punched her with his staff. The police then left
the court, and shortly after a witness (Ellen Baines)
went into the house and found the deceased speech-
less, and she died about a quarter of an hour after-
wards. Several Irish witnesses who lived in the court
identified the prisoner as the man who bad done this.
One of them, named Gallaghan, when called on to
point the prisoner out in court, looked in every direc-
tion but towards the dock, and said he did not see
him ; that he ought to have been dressed in the same
clothes ; when, suddenly turning toward the dock, he
said, with theatrical effect, pointing to the prisoner
with his finger, " That's the man. Several police-
men were called, who stated that on the night in
question great excitement prevailed among the Irish
in that street, and that there had been a succession of
rows. They proved that the witness Gallaghan was
the man who threw the brickbat at the prisoner, and
that the prisoner immediately chased him into a
house, and took him prisoner. This was after
the deceased had been killed, and the witness
never mentioned then anything about the prisoner
having been the man who struck at the deceased.
They also proved that the prisoner was not one of
the policemen who entered the house of the deceased,
A policeman named Doane had been one of the police
there, and he had absconded, and the police had in
vain endeavoured to have him apprehended. Another
of the Irish witnesses, named Patrick Hughes, who
swore positively to the prisoner's identity as the man
who struck the deceased ; it appeared from the evi-
dence of the inspector of the division of police, had
gone to the station-house the night the deceased was
killed to identify the man who did it. All the
policemen were drawn out in file before him, the
prisoner among them, and he twice walked up and
down their front, and halted before a man named
Little, differing altogether in personal appearance
from the prisoner, and said " That is the man. The
inspector told him he thought it right to inform him
that Little could not be the man, as he had been on
duty at quite another part of the town at the time.
The witness again went up and down before the
men, and again said, "If Little was not the man, he
did not know him. The prisoner received an ex-
cellent character for temper and forbearance from his
inspector. He had saved on one occasion the lives of
three children, at the risk of his own, by rushing into
a house on fire to save them after their parents had
been compelled to fly to save themselves.
Mr. Morax, in a very able speech, in which he
spoke of his experience of Irish witnesses having pre-
pared him to expect evasion, prevarication, and un-
truth when a case depended upon their testimony,
drew attention to the conduct and manner, and evi-
dence of the witnesses in this case, especially to that
of Gallaghan, whom they could not but believe
to know well enough where the dock was in court,
and where the prisoner would be placed, and who
affected to look all round tha court with a manner of
the greatest anxiety to be cautious in his evidence
.
e
and then, as if by accident, pouncing en the paison
when he saw him in the dock. The trick, and c er
ofthbiseencopurldov
very
d that this v not have deceived
tnbienmg,,aenvieinhuhtnibdug it
not
man wus actuated by malignant motives against the
prisoner for having taken into him custody that night
after the death of the deceased, and that he then said
nothing about this charge against the '
prisoner which
ha now came by his evidence to establish.