The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-16 00:00:00

THE MURDER. AT PLUMSTEAD.

The adjourned inquest on Mr. George Bodle was re.
newer! yesterday.
A gentleman in tl,e room observed that he could state
one fact in confirmation of the prisener'e statement,
viz., that he Was attended by Dr. Halifax for the cam.
plaint to which the prisoner bad alluded.
The prisoner was here brought into the room.
The CORONER said—You said that you was attender'.
by Dr. Halifax for the itch, but that he did not advise you
to use arsenic, nor did any other person give you such
advice? Prisoner answ,r. din the afilirm,tive.
CORONER—You said you -used hellebore root I,efor.
; did any one advise you to use it? Prisoner—No.
CORONER-Then, it was in consequence ef arsenic
being stranger th in hellebore that you thought it would
he successful? Prisoner—Yes.
CORONER-The consumption of your stuff depend d
upon the tine the disease continues ? Prisotier—y,
Sometimes I did not use it for a month. When Al
disease was bid I applied it two or three times a-day.
The CORONER then asked Mr. Butler whit effect art.r ail
would have when applied in seluti in, and wile& r it
would affert the skin or system generally ?
Mr. Butler said that cold solution of arsenic would not
have any injurious effect, and would only dry up pimples
such as the prisoner had stated. But he considered that
if a mixture comprised of six ounces of water and half an
ounce of arsenic was used, it would cause sickness and con•
stitutional symptoms.
The CORONER directed the attention of the jury to aes ne
cases of death by poison in Chrisrison's treatise, int wit ch
it was stated that persons had died by poison rubbed ou
the skin. One case, which resembled that of the prisoner,
was that of a young man who applied arsenical prepara-
tion for an itching irruption, and the next day he was ill
in bed. Another case was that of a woman, who trying
to cure an inveterate itch by arsenical lotion, was ettattked
by er>sipelas. which terminated fatally in two ye ire. He.
hoverer, did not mean to state that similar eymptorne
would have been observed in the prisoner if he had used
arsenic in the mintier he stated, but it was to be pre-
sumed that such symptoms would have appeared. Mr.
Butler admitted that it was dangerous to we such a tat a -
cure as the prisoner said he had.
Dr. Hussey stated that it was an undoubted fact that
arsenic, when applied to the surface of itching pimples,
would :am! them, but he should he afraid to use it in the
manner the prisoner *aid lie had,
The Conotres then proceeded to sum up the evidence.
The y were called upon to inquire when, how, and by wkat
rne.ins George Budle ceme by his death. He observed,
in reference to the testimany of the medic .1 geetdenen,
that it was extremely important to know that two of them
agreed in opinion that the death of the dece,s-d was
caused by poison, produced try a small quantity of are.
rite, which had caused inflammation, and ,t hich extended
through the various ch noels Ind muscles of the holy. It
was evident that the family's illness was caused by the
csffee, with which arsenic had been mixed. Me. Evans's
statement traced the possession of arsenic to the prisoner ,
which he said be had purchased to destroy tat. ; but
when the nature of the complaint which he had laboured
under was explained, it was not extraordinary that he
should conceal the purpose for which hr required i,. Tie
evidence of Morris, the constable, he conceived, was SO
contradictory to the truth, that he should entirely put it
out of the luestiun. If there was ground for chatglng the
prisoner with having administered the poison, Morris had
complete'', knocked the case on the head by exhibiting the
packet of poison which he found in the prisoner's box to the
company in several public houses, where it was banded
about from one to another. Oa the part of the prisoner,
it was relied upon by Mr. Celquhoun that the arsenic that
was lost out of the packet, was lost by Morris, when in a
drunken state, allowing it to be shown about, when it was
fingered and taken up in the same manner that a person
would take a pinch of snuff, and a portion of it was lost.
He was inclined to place reliance on the evidence of Mary
Higgins, and did not think that she inten led to make an

incorrect statement. Mrs. evidence was contra:
di,!tory to the testimony of some of the witnesses, but it
should be considered that it was the evidence of a neither
speaking against her son, and it was natural that she
-hould le in towards him. Although she had therefore
contradicted Mary lizeins, her evidence was not to upset
the statement made by that young woman. With re-
!erence to the evidence of John &idle, it was full of
contradictions, did not tally with the evidence of any
of the witnesses, and contained so much important matter
affecting the lite of his eon, that he should leave it entirety
in the hands of the jury. When he saw a father so
anxious to saddle his son with the commission of
such a crime, he could not avoid tematking that ha
considered it exceiidingly unnatural, and he was quite at
a loss to account for it. There was one very important
link required in the chain of evidence ; no arsenic was
found in the kettle, and it was not alleged that any was
put into the coffee when it WAS made. The reason why
it was not found in the kettle was, that the kettle was
washed and cleansed several time to remove the arsenic
which was supposed to have been put in.
Some of the. Jury having expressed a wish to hear Dr.
Halifax, that gentleman and Mr. Clark, who was in
partnership with bim, stepped f irward and deposed that
they attended the prisoner about four years ago, for the
complaint he mentioned.

Toe Jury they retired to consider their verdict, and
aft r corrulting togerher about half an hour—
The foreman ,aid--" The verdict of the Jury that
John Bails, the )ounger, the prisoner in custuriy, it/guilty
of wilful murder, as :,gaunt George Bole."
The pri,oner, who was removed before the verdict was
returned, was here ;)rought into court.
The CORONER said—lt wi.l be my duty to commit y6u
to AI iidstone gaol for trial, and I trust that better bilelTh
will atrend you there, than it has here.

The pris,mer did n.t evince the slightest emotion, or
,sake any reply. He shook hands with some of his
iriend, and qui•ted the room in custody.
The CORONER then sent for Mr. Mason, one of the de-
ceased's executors. On his arrival he inquired what he
was sent for ?

CORONER—To bind you over to appear as a witness,
and prosecute.

Mr. Mason—Why atn I to ba selected to prosecute
CottoistEß—B cause I think it necessary.
Mr. Mason—Teen I shall protest against it.
CORONER—The law decrees it necessary that sorce one
,huulti be selected to prosecute, otherwise f lons would
escape. Are you content ? Mr. Mason—No ; Ido not
feel content.

CORONER —You must say you are content, or I have
no other alternative b to commit you to M ,idsione gaol.
Mr. Alison—Under muse circumstances I must submit.
Several other witnesses, who were in attendance, were
also bound over to appear at the ase:zes, and the Court
was aojourned.

The proceedings terminated at half-past ten o'clock hot
night.

per gufuu.— ,3 orccsterJour!cal.
c:31:ueohl:
yaNri,Tolxe,:voiefi:Det:Le;tsAtot;lcu........irder is delivering n this city by
DREADFUL ACClDpEolsl:c--::pare tc'ithin
'our
e
r
ith the ides of saviae he:
miles of Tuam. A w,,m,n had spread rut a large quanti
f flax to dry br6,re a u se; and
e`t three of her children for
tes dune in the
uneina:a.ybeAt
avvfiloi
nd sf perished—the mother and ;ter tt,rte
allcolibumed to deal) in thtiflain,?4!--

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

When on Thursday last we alluded to the'
shameful disclosures made before the municipal
commissioners at Cambridge, of the corrupt
s ....administration of that burotteh, we had only
j''-seen seen the Cambridge Independent Press of the
2d inst., and were not acquainted with the paper
of the 9th, which contains the conlusion of the
inquiry. After reading attentively the ten days'
proceedings recorded in these two journals, we
are almost tempted to recall the patent of pre-
cedence, or the honours of senior optime
which we had conferred on the bold and pre-
sumptuous abuses of the municipal body of
Leicester, and to transfer the " bad pre-etni-
nence" to the corporation of Catnbridgs. Pro-
bably no judicial investigation into a psblic trust
ever brought to light more shameless profligacy
or more inveterate dishonesty ; more barefaced
venality in politics ; a more heartless disregard
of the claims of the poor, in the perversion of
the funds left for their benefit, or a more de-
grading subserviency to the views of the rich,
, when they appeared in the shepe of patrons or
distributors of places—a more insatiable cupidity
in the corporate officers to enrich themselves with
the corporate property—or a more entire neg-
lect of their duties and functions as magis-
trates, than are presented by the evidence now
before us. The mass of corruption here col-
lected is so great, and the whole management of
the borough appears so deeply tainted with the
vices of the close system—hardened by the im-
punity of ages—that we scarcely know where to
begin, or in what terms to denounce it. Like
other close bodies enjoying the elective franchise,
the Cambridge corporation found in the manu-
facture of Members of Parliament one of the
chief sources of its own corruption, which in its
turn it reflected upon the Legislature, through
the venal choice of its Tory representatives. The
patrons of the borough for nearly the last fifty
years, without interruption, have been the Rut-
land family, who at first obtained this ascendancy
by the agent of their estates in the neighbour-
hood. Their supremacy, though sometimes
threatened was never in any real danger from
1788 till the passing of the Reform Bill, when,
as if to show expressly that the corporation (lid
not speak the sentiments of the inhabitants, and
that the latter had never been accomplices, either
before or after the fact, in returning the nominees
of the Duke of Rutland, two Whigs were elected
after a generation and a half of' Tories. At this
moment his Grace of Rutland is High Steward
of the Corporation, and his brother is Recorder,
—two offices which seem to have little affinity
with the habits, rank, or qualifications of those
noble persons, and from which they will, no
doubt, forthwith withdraw when they perceive
tog they confer no elective influence. When
the Tory party had effected a lodgement in the
corporation for the Rutland family, it was im-
possible to drive them out by the enactment of
re:)rm, which, by creating a new consituency
nom without, destroyed the object for which
they had entered. Though the inhabitants of
Cambridge are estimated at 21,000, the corpo-
rate body took care to keep down the number
of burgesses entitled to vote at elections to the
manageable handful of about 100, or, as they
are stated at present 148 ; and before even they ad-
mitted any strangers into this conclave they ascer-
taised their political sentiments by a rigid in-
quiry. The mode in which the corporate offi-
cers, the May or and Aldermen, were selected
from this limited corps,—not larger sometimes
than the College of Cardinals at Rome,—allowed
no politics to strain through the electoral ma-
chinery, and reach the chair or the bench, but
such as suited the original majority. For 33
years out of the 49 which have passed since
1784 we find only three names as Mayors.
In that interval we have John Mortlock, 12
years : Sir John Mortlock, 9 ; Francis Mort-
lock, 4—making twenty-five years of office
in the same family. Then we have 8 years
of the family of Furlows, who are said to have
been the creatures and the victims of the Mort-
locks,—and 7 years of the Purchases, who have
acquired a notorious celebrity in these proceed-
ings. The following is a curious return of the
Mayors of Cambridge since 1784 :—" Mr.
Chevell put in a return of Mayors from 1784
to the present time, during which space it ap-
peared that John Mortlock was Mayor 12 years,
John Furlow 6 years, John Furlow, jun., 2
years, Samuel Francis 4 years, Sir J. Mortlock
9 years, Mr. F. Mortlock 4 years, Mr. Alder-
man Purchas 5 years, Mr. Alderman Coe 1 year,
Mr. Ingle 1 year, Mr. Abbot 2 years, Mr. Cot-
ton 3 years, Captain Purchas 2 years ; and Cap-
tain Coe, the present Mayor." It is proved,
on the evidence of several witnesses, that the
most respectable inhabitants and tradesmen
have been excluded from the corporation on
account of their political principles ; that the
corporation sometimes even rejected the
claims of the sons of freemen who had be-
longed to their own body, because they
entertained doubts of their political subser-
viency; that persons to whom admission was an
object in the way of their business were driven
from the door of the Common Hall ; and that,
when they entertained any fear of mutiny, they
made out-voters or non-resident freemen on the
Rutland estates, " who used to be sent in car-
riages to the poll from Belvoir Castle and Che-
veley." Some of these non-resident tenants on
the Duke's property confessed to one of the
witnesses that lie was ashamed to come to the
Cambridge elections, but was compelled. Titus
a monopoly of civic privileges was kept for the
benefit of the corporators, to the exclusion of
the citizens of Cambridge, to whom a participa-
tion in such privileges would have been useful,
but with the partial admission of distant agri-
cultural tenants, to whom they could only be an
inconvenience or a badge of slavery. The man-
ner in which the Noble Patrons, or Lords of
the Corporation, maintained their influence,
would scarcely deserve notice, except from the
long duration and skilful management of their
authority. Jobs, places in the Excise and
Customs, Cornmissionerships, and other political
favours, to the Mayors' and Aldermen's families,
could easily be commanded from the Govern-
mint by the Rutlands during the long Tory
reign of the last fifty years. Their Graces or
their nominees, knowing likewise that the hearts
of corporators lie very near their stomachs,
took care to penetrate to the former through
the latter by the most prodigal hospitality.
A monthly feast was spread out at the Eagle
for 30, 40, 50, or 60 guests, composed of the
corporation and their friends. The viands and
wines were provided by a
invisible
order, and the
reckoning was paid by an hand. The
jovial burgesses asked no questions, and the
kind landlord of the Eagle told no tales. The
latter is even so little disposed to reveal to the
profane the bountiful providence which paid his
bilk, that he has kept away from Cambridge
.•
during the whole of this municipal Inqulry,
though aymmoivid thrice w attend the Commi-
,f

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