The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-15 00:00:00

MON9AY EVENING, DECEMBER 15, 1862.

he remembered attending Mrs. Witt while'she was
living at Mrs. Cox's. That was in February, 1861 ;
it was the first time he, had ever seen her. He
attended her six times. She wis suffering from
gre debility. She said she had had a miscar-
riage, She was in great nervous excitement. Her
general health was very weak. The urgent symp-
toms were relieved in the first two or three days of
his attendance.

Mr. Clover, a surgeon in London, said he did not
knbw Mr. or Mrs. Witt before their marriage. On
the 11th of January, 1859, he was first called in.
That was four days after her confinement. She was
naturally delicate, and she continued weak, and
had been so ever since. He was in attendance upon
her every mouth in 1859, except in July and Octo-
ber. She was very seldom able to leave her sofa.
In August and September she was delicate, and in
the last month she had a miscarriage. She was
then fin ther debilitated, but she subsequently got
better for a short time. He attended her again in
December. In the early part of 1860 she was still
very delicate, and on the 25th of June she again mis-
carried. The child was ill in October, and a nurse was
engaged. That was the first week in December. He
again attended her in Jan., 1861. She was then
pale, with a very weak pulse. He had given his
advice that Mrs. Witt should not sleep with her
husband, and he spoke to her husband about it. He
afterwards gave him to understand that his advice
would be acted upon. Mrs. Witt went to Ton-
bridge Wells at his tidvice. She was then very weak
and could hardly walk without assistance. When
she returned from Tonbridge "Wells she was better
than when she left, but was still delicate.
Mrs. Elizabeth Green, a nurse, who attended
upon Mrs. Witt in 1859, said she attended her for
a month and two days. Mr. Witt kept very bad
hours.

The further hearing of the case was adjourned to
Wednesday next.

ASSIZE IN7ELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT—LivmtrooL, Dec. 13.

(Before Mr. Commissioner Gurney.)
THE CHARGE OF WILFUL DESTRUCTION OF SHIPS.

The trial was resumed to-day before Mr. Com-
missioner Gurney, by Mr. Overend, Q.C., address-
ing the jury for the defence, The learned gentle-
man said that he felt keenly the great responsi-
bility which he incurred in defending a case of so
much magnitude, and of such importance to the
commercial interests of the country. Bat important
as it was in this view, it was also of the greatest
possible importance to the administration of justice
that persons should not be found guilty of enormous
crimes unless npon the safest and most conclusive
evidence. Mr. Overend then complained of the
disadvantage at which counsel for the defence had
been paced by the production yesterday of an over-
whelming mass of evidence as to insurances and
other matters of which they had not received the
slightest notice, and which they had not the means
of refuting from the books and papers of Ruston,
which had been swept away by the police when
the prisoner was apprehended, and since retained
in the possession of the police. Thus everything
that could explain the transactions as to insurances
had been taken out of the hands of the defence,
while Ruxton's mouth was closed from explanations
from the fact of his being a prisoner. Was there
ever a grosser case of injustice and tyranny ? Not-
withstanding these difficulties, however, Mr. Over-
end hoped to be able to show that all the imputa-
tions of fraud which had been cast upon the prisoner
were delusive. With regard to the question of insur-
ance, Mr. Overend did not dispute the amounts for
which the Roscoe had been insured, but he denied the
correctness of Mr. Ellis's calculations, and said that
the calls, commissions, and other allowances, would
reduce the actual amount which would be received
by Buxton to much less than £4,000, and, in fact, not
much more than the actual value of the ship. He (Mr.
Overend) took the amount of insurance at £3,000.
The value of the ship was stated at £l,BOO ;
but by what evidence ? It might be worth much
more ; in reality was worth more, for only nine
months previously Ruxton had himself paid £2,100
for the ship, which had since been repaired at very
considerable cost, and was almost converted into a
new ship. Of course Ruxton looked at what the
vessel had cost in his books, took her at that value,
and insured her accordingly; so that if she was
worth £2,103, and the subsequent repairs had
greatly increased her value, the insurance couid not
be excessive. Nor (the learned counsel contended)
was the freight over insured. Buxton's freight was
£l,OOO, and he had a perfect right to insure for the
whole amount of freight which the vessel would
earn for the whole round, including the voyage to
and from Quebec. With regard to effects not actu-
ally on board having been insured, Mr. Overend
urged that the testimony adduced upon this point
was most loose and unreliable, and totally unworthy
of being acted upon by the jury. Next was the
accusation that the vessel was insufficiently found
for a voyage which included Quebec in its round ;
but it was admitted by James, the mate, that the
vessel was well found for a voyage to Smyrna, both
in provisions and spa, s. The prosecution assumed
that this evidently showed an intention not to pro-
ceed to Quebec at all, else the vessel would have
been provisioned at Liverpool for the round ; but in
thp absence of evidence to the contrary, Mr, Over-
end asked the jury to believe that provisions of all
kinds could be obtained more cheaply at Smyrna
than at Liverpool, and that had the ship suriived
to reach Smyrna she would have been reprovisioned
accordingly. Thus, then, the premises upon which
the prosecution built their case, viz., that the pri-
soner in the large amount of over-insurance had an
inducement to the alleged crime, fell to the ground.
Coining next to the charge of setting fire to the
ship, the learned counsel asked if it was possible to
suppose that a greater scoundrel could exist than
Jamieson, the chief witness for the prosecution—the
man who had sunk the ship and imperilled the lives
of those on board in order to deceive the under-
writers, and who had admitted that in the statement
made at Smyrna, as to the loss of the vessel, he had
perjured himself. Jamieson, in fact, had covered
himself with eternal infamy, and his evidence was
not worthy of the slightest credit. If Ruxton had
ordered him to commit such a deed, and he had ac-
tually perpetrated it, was it likely he would do so for
nothing ? But did he claim any reward from Rux-
ton on his return from Smyrna? Did he come back
and claim, and receive £2OOO, half the profits of the
viilan- ? No ; he came back, made no claim, actu-
ally entered again into Ruston's service as captain,
had even disputes and a lawsuit with him about
wages, but never mentioned the destruction of the
ship, and the charge against Ruxton, until five
years afterwards, and when the reward and free
pardon were offered by the Home-office. But was it
to be supposed that if the story now told by Jamie-
son were true, and Ruxton had thus become Jamie-
son's sl ive for life, he would not have been bled
both by Jamieson and by James to the uttermost ;
whereas, on the contrary, neither of the men had
asked him for a farthing of " hush money" during
the several years which had elapsed ? They had, in
fact, gained nothing by their knowledge of the pri-
soner's guilt, though they had everything to gain
by coming forward before and impeaching him.
The fr et th,,t they did not do so was, Mr. Overend
urged, the strongest possible proof that the story
told by Jamieson and his confederates was a con-
cocted one, and that the protest which they made at
Smyrna shortly after the destruction of the ship was
the true version of that destruction. With regard to
James, if he did hear the conversations which he had
described, was it not his bounden duty to have re-
monstrated, and made some inquiry into the matter?
Pee might certainly have told the crew, and it was
unreasonable to suppose that out of regard for his
own safety alone he would not have done so, and ac-
cused Ruxton before the world, instead of allowing
five years to elapse. Besides, the story of the de-
struction of the ship was improbable on other
grounds. Was it likely that if fire was to be the
mode edopted the prisoner would have spent £ll7
upon brandy and other spirits, whereas ss. worth of
turpentine would have done the work better? The
whole of the circumstances of the case were consis-
tent with the view of the fire having arisen from
accidental or spontaneous combustion of the coals.
If water'got amongst coal, stored as that was on
board the Roscoe, the coal would become ignited,
and it was most natural that with a head wind, and
straining as she was, water would find its eiay into
the hold, while the opening of the hatch which com-
munieeted with the sail room would tend to aggra-
vate the fire. It was proved that the hatch had
been opened for the men to get at the sails to mend
them, and by the air thus introduced, Mr. Overend
contended, the smouldering fire had been awakened.
In conclusion, the learned counsel commented upon
the evdence of Bickley, which he said deserved no
more credit than that of Jamieson and James. They
were all in the same boat, and Bickley had confessed
himself to be a scoundrel and a villain by the ad-
mission that he had listened to the contemplated
fraud upon the underwriters and had shared in the
plunder.
No witnesses being called for the defence,
The learned Judge summed up, analysing the
evidence with great care, and pointing out the por-
tions which were of the most importance for the
jury to consider. With regard to the value of the
ship, it would have been more satisfactory to have
had evidence from persons who had surveyed the
ship at the time she set out on her voyage. The
jury. therefore, must form the best judgment they
could of that value. Almost the only direct evi-
dence against the prisoner was that of Jamieson, an
accomplice (supposing the prisoner to be guilty),
and whose evidence was tainted in every possible
way. Having commented upon Jamieson's and
James's evidence, and shown some contradictions,
his lordship did not attach so mach importance to

the words " Be back soon," which Ruston was
heard to say to Jamieson on parting in the Channel,
nor to the fact that James did not expose the con-
versation immediately atter he h<•:d heard it in the
cabin. There was, his lordship thought, more im-
portance attaching to the declaration which James
had made at Smyrna, that the vessel was acci-
dentally destroyed ; and to tne strangeness of the
eircumstr, nce that James, when he had known

the ltocoe to have been purposely destroyed,
should have entered on board another ship, of
which the prisoner was the owner and Jamieson
the captain. It was only fair to suppose that unless
James was utterly unable to obtain employment in
another way he would have preferred sailing in a
ship owned and commanded by other persons. The
evidence of I3iekley, his lordship thought, was fairly
open to most of the objections made to it by th©
learned counsel. He (the learned judge) could have
no opinion of the honesty of a man who, having
heard the statements which I3ickley had described,
could not only remain silent and not inform the
underwriters, but who, according to his own
account, was to receive a portion of the proceeds of
the fraud in the payment of his own debt..
The jury then retired to consider their verdict.
After several hours' absence they returned with a
verdict of not guilty. 4
The prisoner, however, on leaving the court, was
arrested on another charge, which will be preferred
hereafter. The arrest was made by detective officer
Carlisle under a warrant from the Lord Mayor of
London. The warrant charged Ruxton with con-
spiring with others to defraud en insurance company
of the sum of £6OO.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.—WORCESTER, DEC. 13.
(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)
_ MURDER.

Ochold, an old man, whose age was
stated at 69, was indicted for the wilful murder of
his wife, Sophia Ochold, at Oldbury, in this county,
on the Bth November last.
Mr. Richards and Mr. Griffiths conducted the
prosecution, and Mr. Benson, at the request of the
learned judge, defended the prisoner.
The prisoner and the deceased had been married
just half a century, and the old man carried on the
business of a tailor, in which his wife assisted him.
They did not live very happily together; the pri-
soner accusing his wife of intemperance, and fre-
quently beating her. The deceased had for soma
time past suffered from disease of the kidneys, and
on Friday, the 7th November, was ill from that
cause. On that evening a young woman named
Maria Grazebrook, a servant at a public-house near,
who was very intimate with the Ocholds, called in
to see the old people (whom she called her grand-
father and grandmother, although not related to
them), and found the prisoner seated on a table at
work at his trade, and the deceased lying on the
ground apparently in great pain. The young wo-
man offered to get the deceased some tea, but she
declined, and the prisoner also said" No; she wants
to go to bed and groan, and keep me awake all night
as she did last night, but she shall not keep me
awake again to-night." Soon after the son and
daughter of the deceased came in, and after giving
her some tea, put her to bcd. She was unable to
walk, and her son carried her upstairs. About 3
o'clock on the following morning, as policeman
Hutchins was passing the house, he heard a noise
which he thus described in his evidence :

Police-constable Daniel Hutchins deposed—l was
on duty between 3 and 4 o'clock on the morning of
Nov. 8, and passed the prisoner's house. Heard the
prisoner down stairs cursing and swearing and
making a great noise. He seemed to be cursing at
some one up stairs. Herd groans up stairs. 1 went
away and in about 10 minutes returned, when I
heard some one whom I believed to be the prisoner
go to the foot of the stairs. I listened and heard the
prisoner mock at the groans. He said " You --
old cat, you're very bad, I dare say, but I never
knew you when you were good." He also said
" -- your old eyes, if you don't come down stairs
I'll ' Did not hear the rest of the sentence.
Remained in the street till 4 o'clock, and heard the
prisoner repeat his mocking and swearing. Had
often heard it before.
Jeremiah Bradley was in the stables, about 10
yards from the prisoner's house, about 4 o'clock on
the same morning, and heard the prisoner use very
bad language to his wife. Heard the deceased say
" Oh, Bill, don't kill me ; my head is ready to split."
It did not strike him that he ought to interfere.
Maria Grazebrook deposed that on going again
to the prisoner's house on the morning of the Bth,
and asking after his wife, the prisoner said she had
been drinking with one Jack Hadley on the previous
night. (This statement was afterwards disproved.",
He objected to her going upstairs to see her, but she
persi ted in going, and then found her lying dead
on the floor with her face covered with blood. There
was a broken mopsti,l in the prisoner's room down
stairs. There was also blood upon the stairs, and
witness picked up a quantity of the deceased's hair.
Mr. Cooper, surgeon, of Oldbury, made a post-
mortem examination, and found several bruises on
the body, but the chief injuries were in the head.
There was an extravasation of blood on the brain.
The right temporal muscle was reduced to the con-
sistency of a piece of liver by recent violence • and
on dissecting it down to the cheek bone he found the
arch of the cheek bone broken. The other cheek
bone was healthy. This injury could not have been
caused by a fall, but might have been produced by
blows from some hard substance, not the fist.
Mr. Benson, for the prisoner, made a powerful
defence, and urged that the crime was one of man-
slaughter, not murder.

His lordship carefully summed up, and rather
favoured the same view.

The jury, however, after being locked up for an
hour, found the prisoner Guilty.
His lordship then proceeded to pass sentence of
death upon the prisoner in the usual form, and in
reference to a recommendation of mercy made by
the jury on account of his advanced age, said that
recommendation should be forwarded to the proper
quarter,

711 E POWER OF A 111AG1STRA7E 70
RECEIVE BAIL IN CASES OF FELONY.

Mr. Beard, the solicitor for the plaintiff in the
case "Ricketts v. Stone," which was an action for
false imprisonment tried on Wednesday last before
Lord Chief Baron Pollock, and who also gave evi-
dence in the case, happening to be present in the
Lambeth Police-court on Saturday, to defend an
omnibus summons, was addressed by
Mr. Norton, who remarked that from what he
read in the papers of the trial, there must be some
misconception in the minds of the Lord Chief Baron
and jury respecting his (Mr. Beard's) application
for bail, and what took place on that occasion.
In the first place, he (Mr. Beard) must have known
that he (Mr. Norton) had not the power to accept
bail at all—a fact which seemed to have been lost
sight of altogether—while in his (Mr. Beard's) evi-
dence, it appeared that be (Mr. N.) " declined to
entertain the application," without going into any
reasons for his refusal, Ho could not charge his
memory with recollecting what passed when the
application was made, but he could venture to assert
that he had given some reason for his refusal—
such as that he had not heard the case, or that he
bad not the legal power to accept bail, and he
t ought it was but lair that the reason given for
his refusal should have been stated to the Court.

Mr. Beard was free to confess his igorance of the
fact that while prisoners were under examination
on thr commitment of one magistrate they could
not be admitted to bail by another until he read
his worship's explanation in print, and he might
add that his opinion in this particular was not
singular,as it was the opinion of a popularmetropo-
litan magistrate, who was set right also by his (Mr.
Norton's) statement. He (Mr. Beard) did not re-
collect what had taken place on the occasion of his
application to his worship, but he did recollect
that his reply was substantially a refusal to enter-
tain his application for bail. He begged further io
say that the question as to the refusal of bail did not
originate with the counsel engaged by the plaintiff
or himself, but in giving her evidence the plaintiff
herself said she had been in prison for a week,
whereupon the judge made some remarks, and he
(Mr. Beard) was called into the witness-box to ex-
plain the matter.

Mr. Norton—On referring to the case, I find
that the examination of the parties took place on
Tuesday. Now, if they were so respectable as de-
scribed, why had you not made your application on
the Wednesday, when you would have found Mr.
Elliot sitting, and that magistrate would, I feel
satisfied, have been most happy to release your
clients, if you could have shown anything favour-
able to them.

Mr. Beard--The fact was that • the parties had
been locked up at Norwood on the Monday night,
and had therefore no opportunity of communication
with their friends. On 'luesday they were re-
manded to Horsemonger-lane, and I received no in-
structions in the case until late on Wednesday, or
on the Thursday morning.
Mr. Norton—lt is really hard that my name
should have been called in question, and that I
should be held up to the public as one who acted
not only harshly, but illegally, in a case where the
liberty of the subject was concerned; that a whole
jury should step out of their province to denounce
the practice of this court, of which they can know
nothing. From a very lengthened experience I am
prepared to say that, as regards the liberty of the
subject and the formal business of the court, there
cannot be a better regulation than that of one magis-
trate sitting the first three days of the week, and
the other the last three days.
Mr. Beard—That, I am bound to say, is also the
opinion of Mr. Selfe and other magistrates. Mr. ,
Norton--I lAye not hiul an opportunity or

seeing Mr. Elliott on the subject, but I have read
over the depositions in the case, and I am bound
to.say that it was not one in which I should have
accepted hail, and that a week was as little time as
could be given to trace out the property alleged to
have been stolen. The magistrates are always as
accessible as the judges. I myself have frequently
attended at this court to receive bail in doubtful
cases, and should not at any time have the slightest
objection to receive at my residence an application
for bail for persons under remand, or committed,
where anything favourable to them could be shown,
and I feel satisfied Mr. Elliott would do the same.

Mr. Beard—l should not feel justified in troubling
a magistrate at his private residence.
Mr. Norton—l cannot see why you should not,
where the liberty of the subject is concerned. I re-
peat, that I feel my name has been most unfairly
called in question in a matter in which I only acted
in strict accordance with the law, and I cannot sub-
mit to rest under an unjust imputation while I feel
I am right.