The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—A case of murder just tried at the Cen-
tral Criminal Court is remarkable for the mixture
of certainties and uncertainties pervading the evi-
dence, and may be ranked, indeed, in the strangest
class of these strange and gloomy stories. The crime
itself was committed wit h unparalleled openness and
effrontery, the victim being called out of his own
house by the murderer and shot dead at his own
door. The deed, too, was brought home to the per.
pet rator by a chain of evidence in meet respect() sin-
gularly pieced, but, on the other had, the identifica-
tion of the criminal was but imperfectly managed,
end nothing like a sufficient motive was brought
home to the accused. William Davey, a policeman
of the T divisicn, was on duty at Acton, his regular
beat, in the month of January last. His wife had
been put into an empty house in those parts to take
charge of the premises, and there she and her hus-
band lived for the time. Not far off lived two brothers
named Brooks—Joseph and Isaac, Isaac being mar-
ried, and Joseph residing with him as a lodger. On
the evening of Jan, 19 Davey went home to supper
at about half past eight, and a few minutes after-
wards there was a ring at his door bell. His wife
answered the summons, and heard somebody asking,
in the dark, whether D tVey was at home. She re-
plied in the affimative, and called her husband out.
He went out, and as he stepped over the threshold
he was shot dead. His wife, who had scarcely turned
round to re-enter the house when the gun was fired,
found her husband lying on the ground with his
head blown to pieces. Except in Irish murders,
where such details are not very uncommon, a more
audacious crime has seldom been known. The wife
of the victim actually saw the murderer, and was
present at the deed. Her husband was killed at
her very feet. It was dark, however, and, except
for the outline of the man's figure, and the sound
of his voice, there was nothing by which he could
be identified, Now follows another strange part
of the story. The guilt of this dreadful crime
was charged against Joseph and Isaac Brooks, and
brought home on the trial to the former of these
men, and yet it does not appear that they were bad
characters, or that Joseph could have been actuated
by any adequate motive in committing the deed.
But what did come out in evidence was this:—
On the night of the murder, Joseph, Isaac, Isaac's
wife, and a young w. man named Jane Lake, to
whom Joseph was engaged, were sitting together
after tea at Isaac's house. Between 6 and 7 o'clock
the two brothers went out together, remained out
about a quarter of an hour, and returned. Joseph
then sat some time without speaking, till at length
he asked what time the pawnshops closed. On
learning that they were closed about 10 o'clock, he
asked his sister-in-law to take a pair of his trousers
to a certain pawnbroker's in Hammersmith, pledge
them, and redeem with the money so obtained a
gun which he had pledged at the same shop two
days previously. Mrs Brooks departed on this errand
accompanied by Jane Lake, and in due course the
two women returned with the gun, which they gave
to Joseph. He took it, and left the house with it,
saying that he was going to sell it at a place which
he named, After an absence of " about 20 minutes,"
he came back, looking very hot, and with such an
expression of countenance as induced his sweet-
heart to say that she thought "he had been doing
something wrong." So ends the description of the
fatal evening. Five hours later three police officers
came to the house,knocked up the two brothers, and
arrested Isaac as he opened the door. They then
went upstairs to Joseph's bedside. Challenged by
the chief officer, who was in uniform, and with hie
lamp, Joseph answered " ' Yes,' in a trembling
voice." He was then charged with the murder,
and asked if he had any firearms. Ho said that he
had a gun, but that it was at the shop at Acton.
Being told to get up, he rose, and the officer then
found concealed between the bed and the mattress a
gun, black and greasy with powder, and smelling
as if recently discharged. This was the gun which
had been redeemed from pawn, which, when re-
deemed, was clean, and which Joseph said he was
taking out to sell. In one of Joseph's pockets was
a powder flask, in another some loose shot, which
corresponded exactly with those extracted from
the murdered man's brain. Those were the strong
features of the evidence against the prisoner.
The evidence brought to establish the fact of
Joseph's having been at Davey's house was not
strong. Mrs. Davey herself only saw "the cap of
a man over the pillar of the garden gate," so that
her observation in this respect went for little. She
had heard his voice, but she identified it, to the best
of her belief, as the voice, not of Joseph, but of
Isaac, though this might have been accounted for
by the fact that Isaac was made to speak before her
at the police court, and Joseph was not. Four wit-
nesses were then produced, who spoke to having
seen a man in such places and at such times as would
consist with the theory of the prosecution, but only
one of these witnesses expressed a strong belief as
to the identity of Joseph Brooks with the person
observed. The descriptions given by the others
were not actually at variance with this assumption,
but they did not tend much to establish it. Then
came the point of the motive, and this certainly
seems as weak as could well be imagined when ba-
lanced against the atrocity of the act. The two
brothers were workmen in the building trade, and
it appears that some old woodwork had been felo-
niously carried off from a house in the neighbour-
hood. The attention of the police had been called
to this theft, and they were asked to keep an eye
upon the building, so that if Joseph had been the
thief he might have felt a grudge against the con-
stable whose vigilance annoyed him. But the
theft, such as it was, was not brought home to the
brothers, nor had they, as far as any proof went,
been concerned in the matter at all. Nevertheless,
this was all the motive that was even suggested for
a murder committed with such extraordinary cir-
cumstances of deliberation and audacity. The cri-
minal turns over in his mind the means of procur-
ing his weapon, sends his own sweetheart and sister-
in-law to fetch it, rings the door bell of his victim,
calls him to the gate, and shoots him dead at the
feet of his wife. There was no evidence of any
previous quarrel. It was quite true that the two
brothers knew of the charge given to the police to
keep an eye upon the building from which the wood
had been taken; in fact, it was Isaac Brooks himself
who called upon poor Davey, and gave him the mes-
sage to t his effect; but all this had been taken in good
part. Not a glimpse appears of any such quarrel
as might have been expected to end in blood. So
completely was the evidence confined to the actual
circumstances of the deed that at first Jane Lake
herself, who went and fetched the gun for Joseph,
was committed for trial also, as implicated in the
crime, and was released only upon re-consideration.
Isaac actually was placed at the bar, but he was
proved to have remained in his own house during
the time of the murder, and was acquitted without
the trouble of defence. Such are the particulars of
the Acton murder. For deliberation of purpose on
one side, and slightness of provocation on the other,
the deed has rarely been equalled. For a mixture
of strength and weakness in the evidence the trial
could hardly be matched. The jury, apparently,
had very little doubt. The Judge was perfectly
satisfied with the verdict, and yet he was compelled
to observe that the motives which had promoted
this most wilful and bloody murder remained, to a
great extent, a secret still. Truly may we say that
the mysteries of crime are unfathomable.

HERALD.—It looks very much as if the Greeks
would get their King upon the self-same day that
their Kalends become due„ The Sovereign of whom
they had made sure seems to have a chance of escap-
ing from their clutches, and if they lose him, whom
can they get ? Earl Russell, who has assumed the
duty of finding them a Sovereign, searched in vain
amongst the petty houses of Germany for a prince-
ling so strangely ambitious, or so desperately weary
of a humdrum life, as to accept their throne. It was
refused point-blank, without a minute's reflection,
by the captain of a British man-of-war, and all hope
of filling it seemed gone, when Earl Russell pounced
upon Prince William of Denmark, and by his im-
portunities obtained from him and his father a
promise to take the matter into consideration.
Prince Christian now puts forward the condi •
tions he had reserved, conditions which the organs
of the Government assure us cannot be granted,
and the King of Denmark, in his turn, has named
the terms which he must demand for his assent.
Whether the conditions named by Prince
Christian and the King of Denmark be exorbitant
and inadmissible or not, the English Government
and its organs have not the slightest right to attack
them. Both had a perfect right to refuse that astsheneir
and both could give very excellent reasons for
refusal. Earl Russell has no claims upon the
inducee
grati-
tude of the Danish Government which should
it to sacrifice one of their heirs to the Throne to get
him out of a difficulty. The throne
illi
of Greece is no
am that his father
such great chance for Prince
ought to have unconditionally
well refuse to allow his
accepted it. On the
Contrary, any father might
son to accept such a throne, and would be bound to
take certain securities on his behalf. We do not yet
know what the conditions demanded by Prince
Christian are, and therefore we say, let them be ever
so inadmissible, the English Minister has no right
to complain. According to the showing of his on
organ, Prince Christian, whilst expressing a general
assent to the proposal, declared that if he did accept
it, be would only do it under certain conditions
which he would formulate, and if Earl Russell has
been imprudent enough to take the acceptance for
granted before he gets the final answer of Prince
Christian, he is deservedly punished by conditions
which he cannot accept. He has no right to com-
plain of Prince Christian, and his organs will de-
ceive nobody by their absurd attempt to cover
their employer's folly by denunciation of the Prince,
and the King of Denmark, The King of Denmark

has, on the contrary, especial reason to complain
of the conduct of Earl Russell. The succession to
the Danish Throne has been settled by treats• to
Prince Christian and his sons, and upon the failure
of that line the whole vexed question as to the suc-
cession of Holstein would be reopened. Denmark
cannot, therefore, afford to lose one of the three
sons of Prince Christian, and if she should resolve
to give him up to tha Greeks she has a right to ask
as some compensation that the security of the
succession shall receive any further guarantees
possible. And we believe Denmark has asked
nothing more, although, in her natural indigna-
tion at the treatment she has received from Earl
Russell, she might well do so. A con-
temporary has made a great noise about the con-
ditions suggested by a leading Danish newspaper,
as if they were the conditions of the Danish
Government, but there is no reason to believe that
Danish writer referred to anything more than the
natural resentment of the public, and, on the other
hand, there is good ground to assume that the
Danish Government has asked nothing but a guar-
tee of the succession as regulated in 1852, and, per-
haps, some stipulation for the abandonment by
Prince William ot Greece for Denmark should the
throne of the latter country become vacant and none
of his line remain to fill it. There is nothing ex-
travagant in this demand. The terms of Prince
Christian are, we are told, inadmissible, but so were
those of the Duke of Saxe Coburg, and no one denies
him the right to refuse the throne except upon his
own terms. We shall be sorry for the Greeks if
they are again disappointed, but the disappointment
will again be the work of Earl Russell. If he had
adopted a more conciliatory tone towards Denmark,
if he had treated its King and Government with a
little more courtesy, the business would not have
met with these difficulties. But his lordship never
forgives those whom he has insulted and attempted
to injure, and at the very time that England is
drawn, by the marriage of a Princess who has won
the hearts of all to the heir to its throne, into closer
connection with Denmark, Earl Russell takes the
occasion to show, in every possible way, his spite
against the Danish nation.
MORNING POST.—Although sufficient time has
not elapsed in order to obtain the opinion of the
people of Holstein on the proclamation lately issued
by the King of Denmark, there seems little reason
to doubt that it will not be received with uni-
versal satisfaction. Between Holstein and Schles-
wig there exists no other connection than
the fact of the German language being
spoken by a large sprinkling of the population
of the latter. We throw out of account the
circumstance of their both owing allegiance to the
Crown of Denmark, because Holstein has long and
consistently endeavoured to shake that allegiance
off. Holstein is a duchy, and, as such, is a mem-
ber of the German Confederation. Schleswig is,
and has been for centuries, intimately connected
with the Danish Crown. There is no more reason
therefore why Schleswig should be taken under the
protection of the Diet than Jutland, and to dictate
to the Danish Sovereign in the government of the
one is just as unreasonable as it would be in the
other. However, the distinction between the rela-
tions of Holstein and of Schleswig to the Danish
Crown is so clear as to exclude the possibility of
any difference of opinion between persons prepared
to investigate the subject with impartiality. It is
evident, therefore, that if the Estates of Holstein
should refuse to accept the constitution now offered
to them on the ground that its provisions do not
apply to Schleswig, they cannot justify such a
course on any grounds which established Govern-
ments could consent to recognise. If they have
been, as they have hitherto represented themselves,
struggling for a constitutional government, they
ought to be satisfied with a form of government
which must satisfy their every wish, which grants
them the supreme control of their own finances,
and which secures the fullest enjoyment of civil and
religious liberty. But, on the other hand, if they
set themselves forward as the champions of others
with whom, except by that weakest of all bonds,
a spurious nationality, they possess no connection ;
if they demand not only certain privileges for them-
selves but for the inhabitants of another and totally
distinct State; if, in a word, they require that the
existing Government of Denmark should be en-
tirely changed, and the monarchy itself dismem-
bered, then the public opinion of Europe will im-
mediately pronounce their demands to be prepos-
terous, and the independent Powers of Europe will
interpose should any attempts be made by foreign
aid to carry them into effect. The Estates of Hol-
stein would do well to reflect before they yield to
pernicious counsels, and, by refusing to accept the
form of government which is now offered to them,
place themselves in the wrong in the eyes of the
entire world. The present arrangement has been
consented to by the Danish Crown with the view
of finally determining its relations with the Federal
Diet. Those relations arise entirely from the con-
nection ot Denmark with the Duchy of Holstein.
In the government of Schleswig the Danish Crown
cannot, and will not, recognise any interference,
either by Holstein or any of the other States which
constitute the German Confederation.

--------
QuEEL—The latest phase of the Polish insur-
rection is, that the Grand Duke Constantine has
withdrawn from the command of the Russian arms
in Poland, and that ho is succeeded by Gen. Count
Theodore de Berg, the ablest, but at the same time
the cruellest and most unscrupulous soldier in the
Russian service. Gen. de Berg is a commander of
the old Suwarrow stamp ; a man who does not make
war with kid gloves, but who does what he is ap-
pointed to do per fas ant nefas ; in a word (to bor-
row the description which was once applied to
another commander), a soldier who would rather
cook his supper over a blazing hamlet than at a
common fire. The appointment of this man shows
that Russia means to use her power in the harshest,
the cruellest, and the most unscrupulous manner to
crush out not only the flames of insurrection, but
every spark of liberty in Poland. Meanwhile the
diplomatists are talking about a triple letter of re-
monstrance addressed to the Czar by England,
France, and Austria—a measure which may be com-
pared to the conduct of a man who, on hearing that
his friend and near neighbour is being murdered in
his bed by villains, does not hasten to his assistance,
but calls on the man next door and the man over
the way to join him in a polite letter requesting the
murderers to be kind enough to desist. It., however,
the Polish insurrection survives a month after the
new appointment, Russia will tremble. At the pre-
sent juncture of affairs, either England,
Turkey, or
her in her Austria, by taking action, might arrest
course for ever.

Alleged Enlistment of Irish for the Federal

Armies.

We have been favoured with the following cor-
respondence which has taken place on this subject,
and which speaks for itself:—
"Thornhill-house, Elderslie, April 1, 1863.

" Dear Sir,—My attention has been called to the
remarks of a late Cork paper, which insinuates. in
very plain terms, that the remarkable emigration
now going on from the south and west of Ireland
to the United States of America is caused by agents
of the latter Government enlisting men for the army
and navy of the United States. This charge has
since been repeated by a Liverpool paper, and ex-
tensively copied into other journals. I also observe
that, in the debate last Friday night in the House of
Commons on the Alabama, Lord Palmerston made
use of the following language, viz.:—' We have
been informed—it may be erroneously—that not
only have arms gone to the northern part of United
States, but that endeavours have been made, in
Ireland especially, to enlist persons to serve in their
army and navy.' As it is of the utmost importance
at this moment that such statements, if untrue,
should be contradicted, I take the liberty to inquire
of you, as the official representative of the United
States in Glasgow, whether you are cognisant of
any such acts of the Government you represent,
either in Scotland or Ireland, and also what the
nsul,
general tenor of your instructions are upon this
subject.—l remain, dear sir, yours most respect-
fully, " A. F. sTODDARD.
"W. L. Underwood, Esq., U.S. Co
la
ConsulateGofsgthoew.
United States, Glasgow,
April 5, 1863.
" 'My dear Sir,.-4 hare
heretofore noticed the
charges to which you call
favour of the Ist instant.
ac-
customed to the 111 y
Butattention a
m
your
misrepresentations and suppres-
sions of truth in publications intended for the
British
eye concerning my country, that I
had passed by the mis-statements to which
you refer, with that negligence with which I have
taught myself to regard this class of injuries. I
am happy to inform you, however, that the United
States looks alone—and with that confidence which
unbroken experience teaches—to the loyalty
of her own citizens to crush the impious rebellion so
causelessly waged against her constitution and laws ;
that she had had no agents enlisting men for the
army and navy of the United States' outside of her
own territory ; and that by no agent of hers have
endeavours been made in Ireland especially to
enlist persons to serve in her army or navy.' Not
only ' the general tenor of my instructions,' but their
letter also, is in conflict with any such action ; and

such I believe to ba the case with all the United
States Consuls in Great Britain. And I have—and

I believe they have—faithfully obeyed these in-
structions, Nevertheless, scarcely a day passes over
my head but repeated applications are made to me
by citizens of this country for facilities to go to
mine, which lam compelled to deny. And perhaps
no higher compliment on earth can be paid to our
country than That, even in the midst of her calami-
ties and war, she still by her plenty and her pri-
vileges wooes the poor and the oppressed of other
nations to her shores.--I am, very truly, your friend,
" W. L. UNDERWOOD,
"A. F. Stoddard, Esq., Thornhill-house, Eldetalie.'