The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-30 00:00:00

they would award. The child being born in January,
early in February an attorney's letter was sent, and the
defendant was prevented from coming to terms with the
Singleton family, and avoiding further exposure. A father
bringing his action for the seduction of his child usually
came into court showing that he had taken all proper
precautions to bring up his child in a virtuous manner,
but a case might occur, like the present, where the child
had had such license allowed as was inconsistent with a
virtuous line of conduct. He did no limpugn the cha-
racter of the plaintiff ; and it was said that it was the
custom of the country that the young men should court
the young girls after nightfall at there father's house.
He did not mean to say anything against such a custom,
but if such a custom did exist, no action to recover dam-
ages for seduction should be allowed to be brought in that
district. Looking at the facts of the case, ought the
plaintiff to recover damages for that which was the
consequence of his own conduct in allowing such a course
of familiarity ? This was not an action for any injury
sustained by the young woman, but for damage done to
the father ; and no doubt the same haste and zeal which
brought the present action for the purpose of enabling
the attorney to recover costs, would produce another
action by the young woman to recover compensation for
the breach of promise of marriage. The young woman was
not a young girl of 16, but of 25 years of age, who had
fallen, and having fallen under the circumstances proved
to them, the smallest damages would meet 'the justice
of the case.

His Lordship having summed up, the jury returned a
verdict for the plaintiff, damages 50/.

OXFORD CIRCUIT—HEREFORD, MARCH 28.
The two courts sat this morning for the trial of pri•
Boners.

James Greenhaf, a collier, was charged with the wil-
ful murder of William Peake, at Hope Mansell, on the
Bth of December last.
Mr. Skinner and Mr. Cooke were counsel for the pro-
secution ; and Mr. Huddlestone for the defence.

1 The circumstances of this case were rather peculiar.
The prisoner and the deceased were neighhours, and
there was no evidence whatever of an quarrel or differ-
ence between them. Peake and a few acquaintances
were at a beer-house called the Royal Oak, near the
Forest of Dean, from about five to eleven o'clock, on
Wednesday, the Bth December. The prisoner came in
about eleven o'clock, and had some drink too, and be-
fore leaving was, like Peake, the worse for liquor. They
both could talk and walk, and Peake was so much more
sober than he usually was at night that a police con-
stable, who came in about eleven o'clock, said to him,
"Peake, you are sober for a wonder !" He was a bigger
and stronger man than the prisoner. In the course of the
evening a farmer complained that he had had some sheep
stolen from him, and Peake said (pointing to two gip-
sies who were in the room), "These are the men who
are likely to have taken your sheep," at which the gip-
flies were very angry ; but he explained that he said it
only in joke, and he and they became friends, and drank
together, and they went away with the farmer in a di-
rection not very different from his (Peake's) way home.
When the police sergeant came in Peake wanted him
to drink, and pressed him to go home with him, but
did not state his reasons. The constable said he
could not go that night ; and thereupon the pri-
soner said he was going home, and would go with
him part of the way, and they both went off to-
gether, and were heard talking loudly for about a hun-
dred yards. At about a quarter of a mile from the
public-house the road the prisoner was to take branched
off to the right, Peake's going straight towards Ross ;
but before they came to that divergence there was
another way, more hilly, and difficult and longer, which
the prisoner, might take to reach his home, and which
the prisoner, when arrested the next day, said he had
taken, adding that he had not gone five yards with Peake.
On the Thursday morning, about five o'clock, Peake was
found dead on the road side, just at the corner where the
roads diverged, lying on his back, with his hat on, the
front of his dress quite clean and in proper order, with-
out any traces of any struggle on or near him, or of any
injury whatever, except a wound through the left eye,
which the surgeon said must have been inflicted with a
knife or other very sharp instrument being driven with
such force as to break the bone behind ball of the eye,
and so deeply as to divide the ophthalmic artery. Death
must have been instantaneous upon the blow, and he
could never have moved afterwards. The injury was
in such a direction that it was almost impossible for bim
to have inflicted it on himself by falling. It was possible,
• but very improbable. On the discovery of the body the
neighbours assembled, and three or four persons ran to
give the alarm. As the prisoner and his brother were going
to work, they met a woman who was coming from the
place where the body was discovered, and who told them
if they had been earlier they would have seen a dead
body; to which John Greenhaff said, " Is it Bill Peake,
the sawyer ?" and she said it was. In explanation of this,
it was elicited that many other persons had been to see
the body, and might have met the prisoner and his brother
previously. When the prisoner and his brother came up
to where the body was, they stopped awhile and passed on
without offering any assistance or going near the body.
An answer to this was that there were sufficient, as there
were ten or a dozen persons there to remove the body,
and ten and twelve others standing by looking on. On
the Thursday, the prisoner was seen using at dinner a
white-handled knife, such as might inflict the wound
that caused the death, and this could not be found on
the Monday afterwards, when attention was called to it,
and that day he was seen dropping something into a
deep quarry in the neighbourhood ; but the witness who
saw him do so admitted that he himself threw stones
into the same quarry for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the water was rising or sinking, and the quarry
was afterwards drained, and no knife found in it. On
the same Thursday a towel was found in the house of
the prisoner's father, where the prisoner lived, on which
there were some spots, which the police thought were
from drops of blood, but which the surgeons, when they
saw them a few days afterwards, could not undertake to
say were blood. This towel was left at the house from
the Thursday till the following Monday, and no attempt
was made to wash out or remove the spots.
At the close of the case for the prosecution,
Mr. Huddlestone asked his lordship if he thought
there was a case to go to the jury?
His lordship said he could not withdraw the case from
the jury.
Two witnesses having been called to give the prisoner
a character as a peaceable, quiet, and humane man,
His Lordship recapitulated to the jury the main fea-
tures of the case, pointing out the insufficiency of the
evidence to establish satisfactorily the charge against the
prisoner, and desired them to consider for a few mo-
ments, and if they were disposed to find the prisoner
guilty, he would read over the evidence to them.
They deliberated for two minutes, and declared him
not guilty.
This was the last case at these assizes, which closed at
a quarter-past three.
To-morrow is the commission day at Monmouth,
where, it is said, the business will be very light..