The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

TIIE PRESTON STRIKE.

COMMITTAL OF THREE MORE DELEGATES
PRESTON, FRIDAY.

The committal of seen of the operatives' leaders has
already been announced. Yesterday, the borough bench
was occupied with the cases of Jas. Waddington, Wm.
Parkinson, and. Jogopla Dolphin, gdoo charged with a
similar conspiracy. The proceedings occupied until late
in the evening. The following was among the evidence

produced :
William Abbott, warehouseman in the employ of
Messrs. Birley Brothers, cotton spinners and manufac-
turers, Preston, deposed :—I was sent over to Ireland
for the purpose of engaging hands. Succeeded in making
arrangements with a number to come to Preston.
Those persons were chiefly out of employment, and 130
of them were in the union workhouse of the Belfast
union. I paid the passage money and railway fare from
Belfast to Preston for 141 persons, who were workers.
I landed in a small boat before the steamer with the
Belfast emigrants got to the quay. I saw Joseph Dol
phin, William Parkinson, and another person I did not
know. Dolphin said I was a nice man to go and de-
lude persons in that manner, the father of a family, as I
was. I said they might mind their own business and I
would mind mine. W. Parkinson said, what would I
think if they sent them all back again. I said I thought
they could not do that. I next went to the railway
station at Fleetwood for the purpose of getting the oar.
riages down to the quay. The train was nearly due,
and I did not succeed in getting the carriages down.
Parkinson followed me, and took a ticket for Preston. I
did not see him afterwards. I went back to the Nile
steamer, which had then come alongside the quay. I saw
the man whom I did not know by name on board the
steamer, in the midst of the people I had brought
over. I heard him tell them that I had deluded them,
and they seemed quite exasperated at me. Previous to,
that time they had been quiet and contended. In con-
sequence of their feeling exasperated, I left them for a
short time. I saw no one interfering with them in the
steamer except the man I did not know. I returned to
the people in a short time, and found them landed near
to a public-house called the Victoria. Dolphin and the
man I did not know were amongst the people. Dolphin
said to the people, " Come with me and you shall have
something to eat." I said, "If you will come down to the
station with me you shall have plenty of good cheese
and bread, and hot coffee." I got nearly all to go with
me to the station. I kept my promise them, and gave
them good bread and cheese and hot coffee. While
they were in the station I saw Dolphin and the other
man, but did not hear either of them say anything to
them ; they appeared to be mixing with them at the sta-
tion. After the people had got refreshment at the
station, Dolphin and the other man went away,
and most of the people followed them. I brought
the remainder, 40 in number, on to Preston. I lost 101
at Fleetwood.
John M'Laren, 15 years of age, one of the immigrants
brought from the Belfast Union, said, when we got to
Fleetwood a mant came on board the boat and took us to
a public-house. He told us to go back to Belfast, and
not to go to Preston, or we would be killed ; he said he
would pay our passage back again and give us half-a.
crown a-piece. This was on board the boat, and he said
he would take us down to a house and 'give us some
coffee and bread and cheese ; I don't remember he said
anything more. Don't know who that man was. We
were afterwards told that if we went on to Preston we
should be killed, as there were 10,000 waiting for us
on Wednesday night. I went back to Belfast. We
should not have gone back to Belfast„only these
men told us we should be killed if we went to
Preston, and we were frightened. I remained in the
public-house all the day. I only got 2. s. to go back
besides my boat fare being paid. At night before we
went off, we got bread and cheese and ale. Dolphin
went back with us to Belfast, and landed us at the quay
and told us he would meet us at the workhouse gates at
four o'clock ;he met us there at four o'clock ; and he
went to the master to get us in. When he came back,
he said the master would not let us in without a line
from the relieving officer. I and some other boys who
had returned from Fleetwood went to the relieving
officer, and he gave us a line to go into the workhouse,
and we got in. Since then I came over to England aid
paid my own fare to Fleetwood with the two shillings I
got ; and an old man, a !grey-headed man, got us a
ticket for Preston.
The parties were committed for trial.

DEATH OF COLONEL MOUNTAIN.—Died, at Futtyghur,
India, on the 18th of last month, Colonel Armine
Simcoe Henry Mountain, C. 8., Aide-de-Camp to the
Queen, and Adjutant-General to her Majesty's Forces
in India. Colonel Mountain was taken ill on Sunday,
the 29th of January, when on the march with the Com-
mander-in-Chief, Sir William Gomm, from Cawnpore to
Futtyghur, and died in camp at the last mentioned place,
mourned and lamented by all. Colonel Mountain served
as Adjutant-General to the army under Lord Gough in
China, and was very severely wounded during that ser-
vice. On his return to India he was appointed Ad-
jutant-General to her Majesty's Forces serving there,
and on the breaking out of the war in the Punjaub
had the command of a brigade, with which he
served with so much distinction at the battles of Chilian-
wallah and Gujerat that, at the termination of the last
battle, he was promoted to the command of a division
under General Sir Walter Gilbert, and sent by him in
immediate pursuit of the enemy. At the conclusion of
the war he resumed his appointment of Adjutant-Gene-
ral. Colonel Mountain, it may truly be said, earned
distinction wherever he was, whether in camp, quarters,
or the field,i being alike distinguished for gentleness,
assiduity in the performance of his duties, and gallantry,
and he has died, a sad loss to the service as a Christian
and as a soldier. Colonel Mountain was a son of the late
and brother of the present Bishop of Quebec.

' Bucks County Prison, Aylesbury,
March 9, 1854, 8 p.m.
the"craopsleasinil, atto, in the presence of the governor and
says that for the relief of his own consci-
ence, and in order that what he is about to state may
make e
"Thethe
first following lbo
prove a warning to others not to be listeners, he desires to
m
eweniinngcnognfession, to go forth to the public
of it was on the Wednesday be-
fore Old Michaelmas-day last, when Mary Ann Stur-
geon asked me to lend her a sovereign to send home to
her friends. This was said in the kitchen, in the pre-
sence, but not in the hearing of Willis's cook from Nor-
folk, and it was plain that Sturgeon wished to have the
money without the knowledge of Mr. Willis's cook. They
were both of them dressed, and jest starting
to drink tea
at Burnham. I went upstairs and fetched my money,
amounting to about a guinea. I asked her when she
thought she should be able to return it again, as I
was going to leave. I told her that I had beforetime
lent money, and that I could never get it again. She
said she had been served the same. She said she had
never been so insulted in her life, as she felt to be by
that question, adding that she could easily send it me
wherever I might be, by post, at the same time turning
herself away from me, and saying, will never speak
a good word of you again.' On the following Sunday
week, in the afternoon, I was accompanying her as
usual part of the way to Burnham Church, when I told
her I would lend her either one or two sovereigns if she
liked. She made little or no reply, but in the course of
that week she twitted me several times with having re-
fused her ; whereupon I begged her not to tell me of it
again, promising to treat her with half-a-crown's worth
of anything if she would not do so. She replied that
she would not tell me of it again, but repeated that she
would never speak a good word of me any more. On
Monday, October 31, as we sat together at dinner, she
began twitting me and all the farm labourers, and the
master as well, with being a shabby let, saying that she
had heard the character of Burnham Abbey before ever
she came there. I said, I know where you got all that
from ; two women have been telling you that.' She
denied it. I persisted that I knew. She got up from
dinner, shook her head at me, and said, I meant to have
told you, but I won't, and you shall never know.' The
rest of that evening she would not speak to me nor sit
with me, but went up-stairs. All that afternoon she
was very angry with me. The next day it was worse—
I mean, she was more angry all day. I was employed
that day in cleaning the tin and copper ware, the silver
plate, and at other in-door work. When I asked her
for anything, she said I might get it from where I
liked, or do what I liked, for she would not speak to me
again. That evening again she would not speak to
me, nor sit with me. She set my supper out, and
afterwards went to Bunce's, and I went to my stable.
Soon afterwards I suspected that something wrong
was going on about me, between her and the
Bunces, at Bunce's house; so I went with my
shoes in my hand, and listened at Bunce's door,
which was about a foot open. I heard them talking
about me, and Bunce said, ' He's a very big eater,
isn't he ?" Yes,' said she, 'he's a very big eater.' ' Well,'
said Bunce, Mrs. Finch said he was a very big eater,
but that he did not eat much bread, but I thought she
was joking.' Sturgeon said, He's not a big bread eater,
but he eats so much meat.' " Mrs. Bunce said, I am
glad that he has got his master.' (Sturgeon had
ofteu before jeered me, and said that she was more of a
man than I was.' She was a very haughty woman.)
Leave him alone,' said Sturgeon, he's hanging
himself every day. He'll soon do it. Leave him
alone.' That throwed me at once. I was drove
into an agony with it. To think that I had been work-
ing for her ; neglecting my own work all day ! How
often had I favoured her and denied myself, and stayed
at home while she went out, and now for me to hear
this It drove vengeance upon me to hear her running
me down to all eternity. They were then about parting,
when, to prevent being seen by them, I leaped over the
palings, went into the stable, finished my work, and
went indoors for my supper. Then to throw more mad-
ness upon me, instead of bringing me a pint of beer as
usual, she brought me the pint half full. I could not eat
my supper, but I drank my beer, and she asked me if I
had had sufficient. I said I have had sufficient.' Those
were the last words I ever spoke to her. She looked so
evil at me, and I was so throwed, that I hardly know--
indeed, I did not know—where I was or what I did. I
could not. Then she went into the larder. I then took
the iron lard-beater, and stood at the door, thinking to
strike her down as she returned, but I could not do it,
and thinking to drive it out of my mind, I went out of
doors. I wished I might hear my master returning
home. Then I went in again. She again went into the
lard-house. I again took up the lard-beater, and, on
her return, I knocked her down in the passage. As
she was very strong, she threw me over once, but she
was no more than a child to me. She said, Don't,
my good fellow !' I accidentally dropped the lard-
beater. I kicked her with vengeance. She screamed
very. loudly. We had a great struggle in the passage. I
kicked her two or three times. It was in the dark, for her
candle had fallen, and the light had been put out. I
left her where the grease and blood and tooth and
hair-pin were found, and I returned into the kitchen,
I think, to fetch a light. She got up and ran
up stairs. I followed her, and caught her at the
bed-room door, and I threw her up in the passage. She
screamed again. I kicked her two or three times. She
cried, Lord have mercy on my soul ! ' I caught hold
of her and pulled her into her bed-room ; struck her
on the head with the poker two or three times, and
broke the peker. I pushed her clothes against the
grate, and they caught fire from the fire in the fire-
place. I left her room. Then I went to my own
back
an
hde srtboct e bed-room, and changedmy trousers
Iwent
ings, because they were bloody,
room and looked how the body was going on, and I took
and
slii
down a dress that was hanging on a peg and threw
it over her. Then I went to Mr. Goodwin's room
to take away something for a blind, to make be-

lieve that some thief had been in the house. I wiped
the lard beater on a dishcloth, and I burnt the bloody
string by which it is usually hung. Then I cut my
bloody shoes to pieces with one of Mr. Goodwin s
razors. Then I bolted the passage door inside, and
went out by the south front door, Then I went and
hid, among the scrubs, the pieces of my shoes. I also
hid, under the tree in the meadow, the articles taken
from Mr. Goodwin's room. They are still under the
tree, between the tree and the ditch. The tree is a
withy pollard, about the second or third near the Chip-
penham footpath. I have never seen the latter since,
but the former I removed from among the scrubs the
next morning, and threw the soles into a shallow well,
in the meadow, by the garden gate, and the upper
leathers into the drain leading to it. They are there
now. To go back to the Tuesday night :—After I had
hidden the pieces of shoes in the scrubs, I went and hid
my shirt in the pond, close to the house, treading it
into the mud, and my trousers under the roof of the
coal-pen. Then I went and lay down. Then the dogs
began to bark. Then I called Bunce from my window
—then he and I went round the premises as has been
deposed. Mr. Goodwin returned home. About six
o'clock on the Wednesday morning I went and removed
my shirt from the pond, and my trousers from under the
roof of the coal-pen, and I hid them in the ditch
of the meadow. Then, too, it was that I cut
n
the feet off my stockings, burnt the legs in the
kitchen fire, and hid the feet under the
tiles
of the mud wall in the paddock, where they must
now be. It was near the pond, and opposite the
dove-
house, On Thursday morning I again removed my shirt
and t
di tob? fromno
far from the me meadow ditch,
other,ditch and removed my shirt
put them into
a dry
grass. On Thursday night I again reoemvoen.vedngtthheemmwwhietnh
I went out on horseback, and threw the trousers, torn
in two parts, the one smaller part, back,
over a quickset hedge, close to the river,n
between the
two bridges, and the other larger part into the river—
theytor from the
had formerly been Mr. Goodwin 'B trousers. I
took my shirt back home, and buried it in the floor of
the middle stall of the stat•le, under the manger, where
it must now be. The drawers which I wore at the time
of the murder were bloody at the right knee ; but it
escaped
dpeodwu in a wrinklethenotice oft
whenhecon Istable, because the drawers
fell
Snyinmeinagatdon who firstaye me in was stripped. It was
charge to Webb. 'When
I first struck Sturgeon, it must have been between
room,
od
nd, n
buto t
ibtr eua ka u
gubpt
the deal thaballiepasint Sntiunrge eoo'cill'osekb.ed
fire, and was burnt in two, and fell upon her. I never
might (tahtero dnrem s
man,sing
placed any napkins or anything else under her. They
havetable. fallen
ink
th
aotni f
Bt the n
efleo,oerr fromany go
ooffd
had come in when she was screaming, I should have at-
tacked him. I thought of that at the time. Sometime
in the last fortnight of October Sturgeon threatened to
stab me if ever I mentioned a word about her—even half
a sentence—either to my master or any one else. I said,
Oh, but I should get out of your way. She replied,
'it would be of no use ; I should meet with you some-
time, and I would do it.' Perhaps I might have thrown
two dresses instead of one upon her ; but after the fire
had burnt through the floor it seemed to burn with a
draught. I consider it my duty to uncover my sin. I
do not hope for any'gsin in this world ; but I hope for
one in the next.
"The above statement is true, and I have nothing to
add to it. " MOSER HATT°.
" March 9, 1854.
"H. SHERIFF, Governor, Witnesses."
"G. A. CuxsoN, Chaplain,