The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-05 00:00:00

THE WESTMINSTER MURDER.

A notification was received yesterday at the gaol
of Newgate, directing that the sentence of death
passed upon William Maloney at the October ses-
sion of the Central Criminal Court, for the murder
of his wife, should be commuted to that of penal ser-
vitude for life. As so long a time has elapsed since
the trial, the public may probably have forgotten the
circumstances under which the conviction of the pri-
soner took place, and which were of a somewhat
extraordinary character. The prisoner was an Irish
labourer, and he lived with his wife in Legge-court,
Westminster, and they were in the habit of getting
drunk and quarrelling, and on the day before the
murder, they had been to a funeral, and both of
them drank very freely, as is usual upon such occa-
sions among the lower order of Irish people. The
prisoner went home to his dinner, and very soon
afterwards, without any alarm or quarrel appearing
to have taken place, the deceased woman was found
mortally wounded in the throat, and she died with-
out giving any explanation of the circumstances
under which the injury was received. The state-
ment made by the prisoner was, that he had quar-
relled with his wife on account of her having got
drunk on the previous day, and that she, in a fit of
passion, exclaimed that she would have no more
quarrelling, and inflicted the injury upon herself
with a knife that was upon the table at which they
had been dining.
The moat singular part of the case was that after
the first examination had taken place before the
magistrate, a witness, a man named Saunders, came
forward, who stated that, being on the look out for
lodgings, he happened quite accidentally to down
Legge-court at the time the affair occurred, and
that he looked into the prisoner's room and actually
saw him stab the deceased in the neck. He was
severely cross-examined by the prisoner's counsel,
and also questioned at considerable length by Mr.
Justice Pyles, who tried the prisoner, but his an-
swers appeared to be very satisfactory, and the jury
evidently believed the evidence he had given, as
they convicted the prisoner. They, however, recom-
mended him to mercy, upon the ground that they
believed the deceased had excited and provoked
him before he committed the act. The prisoner,
ever since his conviction, has continued to assert in
the most positive manner that he is innocent of the
crime, and when the announcement was made to
him of the commutation of the capital punishment,
he again declared that his wife destroyed herself,
and that he had been unjustly convicted.

A telegram was received at Lloyd's yesterday, via
Alexandria, announcing the destruction by fire off Port
Philip Heads, of the Empress of the Seas, a fine ship of
1,360 tons register, bound for England. The gold and pas-
sengers are stated to have been saved.

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