The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-18 00:00:00

S IN _DECEMBER 18, 1847.

dent occurred to him, viz., when the wheel passed
over his head.

Mr. POLLOCK addressed the jury for the defence,
submitting to them the question of whether it was
not probable that the prisoner bad in fact suffering
greatly from the injuries he had sustained on the
head, and been rendered by them so subject to tem-
porary paroxysms of temper as to have been incapable,
on a sudden cause of irritation, to reflect upon the
consequences of an act such as that which it could
not be denied he had committed.

After his Lordship's summing up the jury retired
for about twenty minutes, and on their return found
the prisoner Guilty.
Sentence of death was then passed in the usual
form ; the Learned JUDGE intimating to the prisoner
that he could hold out to him no hope of his life being
spared.
The prisoner, who seemed to listen to his Lord-
ship's address with earnest attention, repeatedly
protested that he was not guilty, that the evidence
against him was untrue, and that he had not struck
his wife at all.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.

OLD COURT.

ALLEGED MATRICIDE OF MRS. SHERIDAN.

(Continued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.)
Frances Johnson was called—l um the sister of the
last witness. My husband is a fire lighter in the Excise
office, and we have been separated more than two years.
I lived with my mother after the separation, and for the
last six weeks of her life was entirely dependent upon
her bounty, my husband having stopped my allowance
of five shillings por week, which he formerly allowed
me. The prisoner frequently complained of having to
support me and my child, and said that he would not
have mo in the place; but my mother used to say that I
should be there; and a conversation of this description
took place a few days before my mother was taken ill.
The witness detailed what took place on the 17th of Oc-
tober in the same terms as the last witness. Some arrow-
root had been ordered a few days before, and it was
kept in a paper in the front room. The deceased partook
of this arrow-root, which witness generally prepared,
and the prisoner was in the room on almost every occa-
sion when she did so, and she frequently left the room while
the arrow-root was in the course of being prepared. On
the Wednesday after deceased was taken ill, she rallied,
and appeared to get better, but there was a speedy
change for the worse, and they found it necessary to
send for Dr. Macon. Witness had given her mother some
arrow-root at eight o'clock, and she was taken worse
about ten or eleven. On the day she referred to the
deceased had rallied so far as to know witness and her
sister ; before that she had been in a constant state of
stupor. After her mother's death her sister took some
of the arrow-root, and immediately afterwards she corn
plained of a burning pain in her mouth arid stomach.
Cross examined—l put on my bonnet and shawl before
I went out on the night of my mother's death, which
night I spent out of the house. I was so anxious and
maddened by despair I don't know much about the
matter. I did swear that I had slept at the house of a
friend on that night, but it was a mistake. I certainly did
take a little drink when I was in the state I have
described. I had half a quartern of brandy at a public-
house. I don't know where I went after this.

Mr. CLAnKsoli cautioned the witness, and told her
that her brother's life might depend on her answer.
Witness—l have no knowledge of what Imppened. I
cannot say whether I went into six different public-
houses during that night. If I did I didn't know it.
I felt very sick from grief. Ido not know whether I
fell down drunk in the street.

Were you not so drunk when you were to be examined
as a witness before the coroner, that the beadle would
not admit you?—l don't recollect it ; I may have had a
little to drink.

On the night before your mother died, when you left
the house, did you not attempt to conceal u satin scarf ?
—I did, in order to take care of it.
Did any one take it away from you?—Yes, my brother.
Whose shawl was it?—Nly poor mother's.
Where did you get it from?—From the drawer iu the
bedroom.

While your mother was dying ?—Yes.
On the Wednesday before your mother died did you
not take away this unhappy man's trousers ?—Yes, I
was starving.

What ditryou do with them ?—I sold them for a shilling.
Were you not lying asleep and drunk on the same day
your mother died?—l have heard them say they would
not let me be in the room. I will Wear I was not drunk
that day. _

F. Janson, tile daughter of the last witness, a child
• j "at a olti, deposed that on Siun.l. y not I'7. prignnnr
mo•
ther a glass of it before her uncle had any. Her
grandmother seemed very well then. She went to the
Sunday-school, and returned at fivo o'clock, when she
found her grandmother lying on the sofa, and the pri-
soner sent her for some more gin, but she did not know
what was done with it. At this time her grandmother
was sick and appeared to be very ill. She also saw her
grandmother was sick after she had taken the gin the
first time.

Cross-examined—Three half-crowns were given to
her by the prisoner to pay a tailor's bill, and her mother
took ono half-crown and her aunt another, and this made
her uncle angry.
Mr. W. Eyre, a surgeon at Hackney, deposed that he
saw the deceased on October 19.:She was labouring un-
der severe irritation of the bowels, and aff, cted by a
degree of stupor. He thought she was labouring under
an attack of cholera arising from the use of intoxicating
drinks, and he treated her for the symptoms he ob-
served. He only attended her till the following Sunday,
when she was still suffering under the same symptoms,
but he ascertained in the meantime that his medicine
had not been regularly administered. Tho symptoms he
observed were those which would be produced by the
administration of arsenic.

By the COURT—Autumnal cholera joined to intoxica-
tion might have produced all the symptoms he saw.
Mr. W. Tidy, another surgeon, who saw deceased after
the last witness, said the symptoms he observed imme-
diately excited his suspicion that some irritant poison
had been taken by the deceased. He was at first in-
formed that no medical man had been called in, but he
afterwards ascertained that there had, and he therefore
declined to act any further in the case.
Mr. Toulmin, another medical gentleman who was
called in to see the deceased, said that the appearaces
exhibited by the deceased were those that would arise
from an irritant poison, but might result from many
other causes.

Mr. E. Hacon, the partner of the last witness, gave
evidence of a similar character with regard to the state
of the deceased. On the Wednesday after witness was
called in the prisoner came to his house, and, from his
boisterous conduct, he believed he was intoxicated. He
wished him to go to see his mother, and he dispatched
his assistant. Witness went himself the next morning,
and found a great change for the worse in the condition
of the deceased. She appeared to be dying.
Dr. Letheby, lecturer on chemistry at the London
Hospital, deposed that he analysed the contents of the
stomach of the deceased, the intestines, and a portion of
the liver. He described the tests he employed, abd
stated as the result the detection of arsenic to the extent
of about six grains in the liver and the intestines, and
this quantity, he said, was quite sufficient to cause
death; and, according to his judgment, the arsenic had
nut all been exhibited at once, but in successive por-
tions, which had quietly and gradually infused them-
selves into the system, eventually occasioning a fatal
result; and from the circumstance of his finding a por-
tion of arsenic in the intestines and none in the stomach

itself, he was of opinion that a dose had been adminis-
tered shortly before death.
Mr. Randall, the landlord of the house in'which the
prisoner and his family resided, proved that there were
frequent quarrels between then', and upon one occasion
he heard the deceased say that the prisoner had struck
her three times on the head.

Mr. S. Giles, clerk to the London Life Assurance
Company, deposed that on the 25th October the prisoner
came to the office respecting a policy of insurance for
5001. upon his own life, effected in May, 1829, which he
wished to dispose of. Witness gave him the necessary
form, and the prisoner filled it up, and brought the
policy to the office on the following Friday, and received
961. Ss. 6d.
Mary Armstrong deposed, that on the day after the
deceased died she saw the prisoner throw two little
papers, doubled up, into the fire. The prisoner's sister
Catherine followed him about, and said he had poisoned
his mother ; and the prisoner looked about as if he was
silly, and made no answer. She met the prisoner after-
wards, and he abused her very much, and said it would
never have come out if she had not gone to Dr. Tidy.
Evans, the beadle of Hackney, deposed that he was in
company with the prisoner while the surgeons were
making the post mortem examination, and he appeared
very much excited, and said he should be ruined. He
was also very anxious that a report of the proceedings
should not appear in the newspapers.
Martha Mills said that she was called in to assist in
laying out the deceased shortly after her death. The
same afternoon she saw Catherine Sheridan, stirring
some brandy and water, and the other sister was sitting
by her, and Catherine said to her, " You have killed
your mother." . The other sister replied, " Indeed I have
not; if I have, I have not done it myself."
Mr. CranxsoN then rose to address the jury. He did
not at all complain that the present inquiry had been
taken up by the Government, nor of the mode in which
the case had been presented to them by the prosecutors;
and he wished he could say the same of another public
functionary, the Coroner, who had taken a very active
part in the preliminary inquiries, and that he could
have been spared from making the observations
which he felt it his duty to offer in reference to his
conduct. If he had not been present perhaps he might
have refrained from making those observations, but as
he saw he was in court he would beg him to take an
example from the conduct of the jury, and practise in
future the patience and forbearance he had witnessed
that day, and that when he was conducting an inquiry
in which the life of a fellow•creature was involved that ,
he would not take upon himself to decide that he was
guilty. The summing up of the coroner, a report of
which he held in his hand, and which had been proved
L to be correctly reported, was composed, in his opinion, of

[PRICY, 3D.

a farrago of ignorance, and evinced the greatest proof
of want of judgment ; and he had no duubt that but for
that summing up the coroner's jury would not have re-
turned a verdict of wilful murder against the prisoner.
Instead of confining himself to his legitimate duty, the
coroner had taken upon himself to utter a maudlin com-
mentary upon the supposed connexion of the prisoner
with the family of a deceased man of eminence, for
which it appeared there was not the slightest founda-
tion, and be suffered himself to remark upon the sup-
posed proof of the prisoner beimg of dissipated habits,
and then talked ignorantly of the probability that
existed of the prisoner having held the poisoned
chalice to the lips of his mother. In his opinion nothing
could be more abominable than that summing
up, and he believed that when the jury had heard the
portion of it that he should read they would be of the
same opinion. The Learned Counsel was then about to
read a portion of the matter in question, when he was
interrupted by
.tir. Justice WrGuTmAN, who said ho did not think it

was competent for the Learned Counsel to read any do-
cument of this description unless ho intended to put it in
as evidence.

1 The Learned COUNSEL proceeded—He should not take
the course alluded to by the Court, and in concluding
his observations upon the conduct of the coroner, he
wanted the jury to contrast such a summing up as that to
which he had alluded, redolent of pipes and tobacco, with
the calm, kind, and forbearing observations which they
would hear from the Learned and excellent Judge who
was now presiding over them. The Learned Counsel
then addressed himself to the circumstances of the case,
and contended that at the utmost nothing more than a
case of suspicion was made out against the prisoner, and
he said he was sure they would dismiss altogether from
their minds the evidence of his two worthless sisters,
and he concluded his address by emphatically calling
upon the jury to acquit the prisoner.
Mr. Justice WIGHTMAN then summed np.
The jury retired at a quarter past seven o'clock, and
in ten minutes returned into court with a verdict of Not
Guilty.

Tb-ere was an attempt at applause when the verdict
was returned, but it was speedily repressed by the
officers.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
MANSIOA-HOUSE.

On Thursday Samuel Uriah Stoter, the letter-carrier
and sorter of the Newington district, who was some
days ago charged with having committed forgery and
robbery, was brought up for re-examination. Mr. Mul-
lens, of the firm of Bush and Muliens, solicitors to the
Committee of Bankers for Protection against Felonies
and Frauds, attended for the prosecution.
It will be recollected, that upon the first examination
of the prisoner it was proved that a boy was sent by him
to the Bank of England for gold for banknotes for 551.,
and that suspicion having been excited, inquiry was
made, and it was discovered that the notes were the
produce of a forged cheque upon the banking-house of
Masiorman and Co. The discovery led to an investiga-
tion at the Post-office, and it was ascertained that in
several instances that establishment had been made use
of by the prisoner as a means through which his
fraudulent plans might be turned to his advantage.
Some additional evidence was brought forward in the
first case, and

Alderman GIBBS directed that the depositions should
be made out, and stated that the prisoner should be corn-
mitted for trial at the Central Criminal Court.

GUILDHALL.
Yesterday Mr. Lane, from Goldsmiths.-hall, attended
to present a donation of 101. to the poor-box from the
Goldsmiths, Company.
Mr. Alderman COPELAND begged Mr. Lane to make
his best acknowledgments to the Court, and assure them
their benevolence would effect a great deal of good. Op-
portunities of employing the money beneficially were
constantly recurring.