The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-18 00:00:00

_ '_C
~ . ~
~
.t ,ta {.,
a..
_ \-`` ,

PR1CE.........4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

felony, and then assisted the felon, he could not be con-
victed,
The prosecution against Smedley was then withdrawn,
and the case closed against Green, and it being nearly five
o' clock,
The learned Judge said he should not sum up the case
to-night, and would, if Mr. Meicalle wished, now adji4urn.
The learned counsel, however, elected to address the jury
on behalf of his client at once, and urged strongly upon the
jury the very unsatisfactory nature of the medical testi-
mony.
The Court Vjourned at the conclusion of Mr. Metcalfe's
speech.

I...,.,••••••••••

HOME CIRCUIT.—MAIDSTONE, Dec. 17.
(Before /sir. Baron Pigott.)
CHARGE OF ARSON.—Sydney George Snead, 33, a re-
spectable looking man, turrendered to take his trial upon a
charge of having feloniously and maliciously set fire to a
dwebing house in bis occupation, persons being therein at

the Uwe. _
Mr. Barrow prosecuted and Mr. Ribton defended the
prisoner.

This case stood over from the last assizes. It appeared
the prisoner carried on the business of a tailor at Rochester,

and that his mother lived with him, and two maiden sisters
named Anne and Elizabeth Garish, who occupied two rooms
—one on the first Haw- as a sitting room, and another as a
bedroom. The fire that was the subject of inquiry took place
on the night of the 30th of March last a
the two ladies above-mentioned went to, that
bednd appearedt quarter
to 10 o'clock at night, and very shortly afterwardsaou a
they
heard the prisoner's mother go to her bedroom, din few
minutes thereafter the prisoner also went to au
n a
and, according to the evidence, almost immediately s oroom,af te
wards the house was discovered to be on fire. The ladies
endeavoured to go down the stairs, but there was such a
quantity of smoke coming from the lower part of the house
that the) were unable to do so, and they eventually made
their escape by a ladder from their bedroom window. The
prisoner and his mother also got out, and none of the inmates
of the house received any injury, although no doubt but for
the timely discovery of the fire their lives would have been
seriously endangered. Mr. Radley, superintendent of the
Kent constabulary, and some of his men obtained admission
to the premises very soon atter the alarm was given, and they
succeeded in putting out the fire before any material amount
of mischief was done; and it appeared the company with
which the prisoner had effected an insurance (the Commercial
Union) paid him the amount of his loss by the fire, the agent
stating, as was proved daring the trial, that " it was not
worth their while to contest claims of such a trifling cha,-,
meter, or to prosecute, whatever their suspicions might be."
The magistrates of the city of Rochester, however, from the
facts that were laid before them, felt it to be their duty
in
the interest of the public to take up the matter, and it ap-
peared that the prisoner was in the first instance summoned
before thew, and the result was that he was committed to
take his trial upon the present charge, which would have
been disposed of at the summer assizes, but an application
was made to Mr. Baron Channellto postpone the trial, which
was granted, and in the meantime the prisoner was allowed
to be at large upon bail. The principal facts that appeared
to be relied upon in support of the charge were, that accord-
ing to the opinion of the two ladies who lodged in the house,
at the time the prisoner went up to his bedroom the house
was actually on fire, and he must have been aware of the
fact ; and it appeared that they made an observation to this
effect to the prisoner on the night the fire happened, and he
replied it was all right when he went up to bed; and this,
according to the theory of the prosecution, could not have
been the case. Another circumstance relied upon to sup-
port the charge was that upon the police going into the
house they found fire under the stairs, and after they had
extinguished the fire they discovered that the counter in the
shop was on fire in two places, and it was suggested that
these were all distinct fires, and could not have been commu-
nicated one to the other. It also appeared that when prisoner
was questioned about the fire by the superintendent be said
the house was quite safe when he left the lower part of it,
and that he was in bed when the alarm was given ; but
upon the officer going into his bedroom the bed did not ex-
hibit any appearance of having been slept in. Besides this,
it appeared that in the bedroom of the prisoner's mother
there was found, fastened to the bed, a long cord, knotted
and with a hook at the end, which was evidently ini ended
as an instrument to facilitate the escape of any person in case
of the house being on fire. The whole of toe facts proved
in support of the prosecution appeared, however, merely to
make out a case of suspicion ; and with regard to the last-
mentioned piece of evidence, it appeared that the prisoner
told the officer that the rope had been in the possession of
his family for a great many years, and there were no grounds
for doubting this to be the fact. A good many of the suspi-
cious circumstances in the case were also to a considerable
extent explained away in the course of the cross-examina-
tion, and it was not at all distinctly negatived that the fire
was the result of accident.
Mr. Ribton made an able address to the jury on behalf of
the prisoner, and he contended that the evidence had alto-
gether failed to establish the fact that the fire had been oc-
casioned wilfully, and he urged that it was monstrous to
suppose that the prisoner should have committed such an
act, which might have resulted in the death of his own
mother, without, as it appeared to him, anything like an
adequate motive for the commission of such an atrocious
crime. In the course of his observations the learned coun-
sel said that it was clear the case had been got up by the
police, and that it exhibited a strong illustration of the want
of a public prosecutor ; and be said if there had been such a
functionary, he felt satisfied that such a charge would never
have been brought forward. He then proceeded to com-
ment upon the facts of the case, and said that fires were
constantly occurring which could not be accounted for, and
that this had been the case ever since, the Fire of London,
which was at first generally attributed to the Papists, with-
out the slightest foundation for such a suspicion; and he
I cited the well-known lines of Pope upon this subject :
" Where London's column pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies."
He then called a number of witnesses, who gave the prisoner
an excellent character.
The learned judge having summed up, the jury, after a
short deliberation, returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and
the prisoner was then discharged.

MIDLAND CIRCUIT.—Yong, Dec. 16.
(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)
Joseph Hartley, Charles Shepherdson, Robert Haigh,
and John Scott, were charged with night poaching, being
armed, at Womersley, on the 30th of October. There was
also a second indictment charging the prisoners with shoot-
ing Thomas Hiles, with intent to do him some grievous
bodily harm, at the same time and place.
Mr. Maule and Mr, West prosecuted ; Mr. Blackburn
appeared for Haigh and Scott, and Mr. Bruce for the other
two prisoners.
It appeared that on the night named in the indictment
Lord Hawke's keepers and some watchers were out near
Daffy-wood, at Womersley, and hearing a shot in the direc
at
-
tion of another woad named Broad Oak, the party went
once to the edge of it. On their arrival some of the watcher
rest
stationing themselves behind the trees in the immediate
neighbourhood. While they were there four men, who were
stated to be the prisoners, came out of the wood, and one
of the party at once exclaimed, the moment he saw the
keepers, "There are the keepers; shoot them ;" using at the
same time a coarse expression. On this one of them who
had a gun, and was stated to be the prisoner Shepherdson,
immediately fired at Thomas lilies. The shot took effect,
and Hiles became partly insensible. One of the men then
added, "Go in and finish him," and the keeper was a good
With w
deal maltreated. In order to connect the prisoners
•
the
offence Hiles deposed that he had known Haigh before' and
recognized him. A day or two after the oct.nrreneeLord
Hawke offered a reward of £5O for the discovery of
offenders. In the meanwhile the superintendent the
Riding police at Pontefract, Mr. Hall, ha • eut of Nest
Riding
municated with, he, accompanied by on been com-
p-el:tended two of the men, who lived near of
his
officers,
at).
at Pontefract. They were each found ea
the Old Church
partly dressed, and when asked how in bed, one of them
were in bed at that time of day, it it happened that they
the forenoon, one of them attemptedthen being the middle of
saying that although he had to account for it by
work, he had not obtained i been at Fetherstone to seek
when he returned. Rai t/ and had therefore gone to bed
village of linottinglegh was taken the same day at the
places being in the Y.' and
Shepherdson at Tanshelf, both
about four miles from immediate vicinity of Pontefract, and
the prisoners vi, era the Broad Oak wood. To show that
ere all mixed up with the affair, and to cor-
roborate Hiles,
on his way to waormk ban named Salkeld, a labourer who was
o
ofv the prisoners, whom uhto 6kno'ecwloccioimninthg
up a
by.
r'oad from
.1 otuersley to Pontefract. Mr. flail obtained the boots worn
by the prisoners, and on comparing them with footprints
left by the side of the wood, they were found to correspond
exactly.
in cress-examination it was elicited that Hiles during the
day before had been drinking, and he admitted that although
he saw Mr. Hall, the superintendent, the next day, ho did
and one
had forgotten for
being pressed
not mention Ilaigh's name to him,
his reason for not having done so,
said hto
_ _ .

do it..
In defence, Mr. Blackburnurged that practically the pri-
soners were sought to be convicted on the testimony of Hiles,
almost unsupported, and that he was in such a state from
his previous day's drinking as to be totally unreliable,besides
which he bad admitted that he did not mention Haigh's
wane, although he said he had recognised him, until after
that
to
Lord Hawke had offered the reward.
Mr. Bruce (who commenced his address
bye
ruess stating
sorryting
he appeared for Mr. Campbell Foster, who, he
say, was preventee by illness from coming to court) urged
the like topics, and further insisted that i_e hjury must, not
place too strong a reliance upon the fact of the correspond.