The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-05 00:00:00

himself of the professi• nal assistance which could
nothave been refused by any of the Learned Gentlemen
on the circuit, and vainly imagined that he could
conduct his own defence with greater skill and judg-
ment than any of the talented gentlemen whose
services on the occasion he so foolishly repudiated.
They, indeed, had good reason to njaice at being
spared a task so painful and disgusting, a task which
nothing but an overwhelnining sense of duty could
induce any person to undertake ; but the fate of the
criminal was thereby rendered inevitable. He sealed
his own doom by his absurd self-reliance. It is
scarcely possible that the most skilful advocate could
have struggled against the overwhelming array of
facts that were adduced, but every chance was
flung away when he determined on acting as his
own counsel.

How could he have hoped to break down the
testimony of the unfortunate woman whom he had
ruined under a pro mise of marriage a promise
sustained and strengthened by a hypocritical affec-
tation of religion, and a plausible but most futile
and infamous train of reasoning? Every question
by which he endeavoured to entrap his victim into some
apparent contradiction—to cast upon her the imputa-
tion of perjury in addition to the deep injuries he had
already inflicted, only prejudiced his case, and added to
the deep feeling of disgust and condemnation that
must have been entertained by every one who had
heard of the atrocious outrage, and who witnesed the
audacious bearing and the almost inexplicable con-
duct of the assassin. It afforded an additional and
most powerful illustration of the truth of the old
adage—

" Quem Deus volt perdere, prius dementat."
As we have already stated, the case was one com-
pletely of circumstantial evidence. It .was true that
all those who witnessed the awful transaction
expressed their thorough belief that the
prisoner at the bar was the assassin.
The faithful girl, ELIZA. CHUTNEY", who was so
seriously wounded, spoke with the greatest degree of
certainty, and described the reasons by which she
was influenced. There was, however, no complete or
satisfactory identification, and unless their evidence
had been corroborated by additional and more conclu-
sive testimony, the crime could not have been
brought home to the offender. But when we find
four unimpeachable witnesses, all agreeing in
describing the demeanour end aspect of the mur-
derer as coinciding with that of the prisoner,
so that every one was at the very moment impressed
with the opinion that he was the nesn--
when in addition we find the motives for the offence
in the animosity he entertained against the murdered
gentleman, the long course of litigation in which he
had been involved, and the fictitious deeds, which
could only be rendered available after the removal of
the party whose signature had been forged, the
proof of his handwriting to the notice dropped in the
Hall, notwithstanding the disguised character in
which it had been prepared ; the coincidence of the
paper on which it had been written with two books
found in the farm, of a set of three that had been sold
to him by Mr. JAItROLD, one being unaccounted fur;
when, we say, we find him absent from home at the
very time that the frightful butchery was going for-
ward—his hurried return—the singular caution he,
with a species of half-confi fence, gave to his compa-
nion, and his own statement that he was aware of
something extraordinary having happened at Stanfield-
hall, and that he knew he would be suspected, and
that he consequently buried the coat he wore in the
pig-stye, where it must have been eaten by the pigs,
no reasonable doubt could remain, but everything
connected with the murder became but too painfully