The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-17 00:00:00

SUMMER ASSIZES.

WESTERN CIRCUIT.—BrasTeL, Aug. 16.
(Before Mr. Justice Keating.)
JACKSON BY NEXT FRIEND V. WILLIAMSON.
BREACH OF PROMISE OF MARRIAGE.
The trial of this cause was resumed at 9 o'clock.
Mr. Collier, Q.C., and Mr. Coleridge were for the
plaintiff; Mr. Carter for the defence.
Mr. Carter said, with reference to what occurred
up to last night, he held in his hand an affidavit
which he wished to bring under the notice of his
lordship. He referred to the absence of a material
witness for the defence, who was present awaiting
to be called up to 2 o'clock on Wednesday, and al-
leged that plaintiff or her friends and advisers had
employed some means of removing one of the de-
fendant's witnesses from the court, which he had
been attending from day to day- to give evidence.
Some discussion took place, after which his lord-
ship ruled that he could not receive the affidavit, as
no application was made upon it. It could, how-
ever, if that course was thought desirable, be made
use of on another occasion.
The learned counsel on both sides having ad-
dressed the jury, his lordship'sn mmed up, when the
jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff—damages
£lOO,

NORTHERN CIRCUIT:—LrvERPooL, Aug. 16.

CROWN COU'ELT.

Mr. Baron Martin resumed the trial of prisoners
,n this court at nine o'clock.

WIFE MURDER IN LIVERPOOL.

Thomas Gallagher, apparently about 40 years of
age, was charged with the wilful murder of his wife
on the Bth June last.

Mr. Aspinall appeared for the prosecution ; the
prisoner was undefended by counsel.
Upon the prisoner being arraigned he said, "I
did not know that I did it." The prisoner was a
shoemaker, who formerly lived in Summer-street,
in Liverpool, with his wife and family, but had re-
cently separated from his wife and gone to live over
at Birkenhead, in Cheshire. On the Bth of June he
came over to Liverpool, and at an early hour in the
morning he called at a house in Silver-street, Cop-
peras-hill, where his daughter by a former wife, a
girl about 16 years of age, lived, she at that time
being confined to her house by ill-health. At that
time the prisoner was in drink. Later in the day
he by accident met his wife, and they were seen
walking together towards the girl's house, and
when at the door the prisoner was heard by a wit-
ness (Miss Deitrichen) to invite her in, but she re-
peatedly refused, but at last he caught hold of her
shawl and pulled her up the steps into the lobby,
and they then went into the parlour, where his
daughter was lying in bed. Soon after some noise
was heard in the parlour, the prisoner being very
excited, and the daughter (who has since died from
the effects of the fright and previous ill-health) ex-
claimed, "Be quiet ; don't make such a noise
here," when he said to the deceased, " You will see
what I will do for you." Soon after the •daughter
called out, " Oh, murder ! murder ! he has stabbed
her ;" and upon the witness going into the room the
prisoner was found standing over the deceased with
a large knife in his hand stabbing the deceased in
the breast and shoulders. Assistance was then ob-
tained, and the prisoner wars secured until he was
handed over to the police, and the deceased was
conveyed to the Royal Infirmary, where she lin-
gered until the 6th inst., when she expired.
The evidence being completed, his lordship briefly
summed up the case, and the jury, after a short con-
sultation, returned a verdict of guilty of wilful
murder.

The prisoner, upon hearing the verdict, ex-
claimed, "My Lord, I hope you will have mercy
upon me—be merciful to me. I was never in a
gaol before, and I knew nothing that occurred until
I was told of it next morning."
His Lordship then put on the black cap, and, in
a most solemn and impressive manner, pronounced
sentence of death in the usual form.

The prisoner then said in an imploring manner,
" Oh, my lord, have mercy upon me !"
The prisoner was then removed from the dock,
evidently much overpowered with the sentence
which had been passed upon him.

(Before Mr. Baron Wilde.)
HARRISON T. AINLEY.

This was an action to recover damages for a libel
published by the defendant of the plaintiff, in
which the plaintiff alleged that the defendent said
of him as a schoolmaster that he spoke irreverently
of the Bible, and taught the children under his care
that it was full of lies. The defendant pleaded
" Not Guilty," and a justification that the alleged
libel was true.

Mr. Overend, Q.C., and Mr. Cleasby appeared
for the plaintiff; and Mr. Edward James, Q.C.,
and Mr. Leofric Temple for the defendant.
It appeared that the plaintiff in May last was a
schoolmaster at Messrs. Fieldefis factory at Tod-
morden, and that he was a Unitarian. A Rev.
Dr. Brindley in that month visited Todmorden to
deliver a course of controversial lectures, to hear
which the plaintiff and other Unitarians were in-
vited ; and after the lecture any person in the room
was challenged to controvert the positions taken
and the arguments of the rev. lecturer ; the plaintiff
accepted that challenge, and in the discnssion which
followed referred to and quoted from Griesbach's
edition of the Greek Testament, as having excluded
as a spurious interpolation a passage on which the
lecturer had relied. The lecturer required to see the
book, and on examining the text, and finding the
passage omitted, he got warm and insisted that it
ought to be there, and denounced Griesbach's edi-
tion as a " filthy book." This led to the discussion
assuming a warmer tone, and the plaintiff, not con-
sidering himself to have been fairly treated, as he
had been termed an " infidel," and other unplea-
sant names, wrote an explanation to a local paper,
which was replied to by the defendant, who is a
grocer and a Methodist in Todmorden, under the
signature of " One of the Audience," and this reply
ridiculed the assumed " reverence" of the plaintiff
for the Bible, and asserted that " he taught the
children in his school that the Bible was full of
lies." This was the libel complained of. The pub-
lication was proved, and the plaintiff was called,
and positively denied that he had ever taught the
children under his care that the Bible either con-
tained, or was full of, lies, or that he had ever en-
deavoured to inculcate any cf his own personal
views on the minds of any of the children.
For the defendant several children were called.
One of them, a little girl, 12 years of age, stated
that the plaintiff had taught the children in her
class that the Bible contained lies ; that the story
about Lazarus and Dives was a lie—that the rich
man could not call out from Hell to Heaven, as he
could not be heard—it was a lie. On being cross-
examined she said the plaintiff had sometimes
taught them the word " hell" meant " the grave"
in particular passages. Another child stated that
the plaintiff had said that the passage in the 20th
chapter of St. Matthew about the two blind men
calling out to Jesus to give them sight was a lie,
and also that the 12th chapter of Revelations was
not to be believed ; it was full of lies.
Several other children were called, who said
they never heard the plaintiff use any such ex-
pressions in his teaching.
The learned Counsel for the plaintiff, in reply,
contended that the plaintiff had simply, as was his
duty, endeavoured to explain certain passages of
the Bible aceording to the best received authorities,
and had explained that in certain passages the
word " hell" must not be taken literally as a place
of torment; that it meant " the grave," and the
learned counsel referred to several of the annota-
tions to the Oxford edition of the Bible in proof of
this, and this was so with regard to the passage re-
ferred to regarding Dives and Lazarus; and he
contended that the reference to the blind men in
the 20th chapter of St. Matthew had, in like man-
ner, been explained not to be correct, the other
Evangelists mentioning the same facts as occur-
ring to one blind man. It was these explana•
tions which the children had misapprehended,
and in the coarse language of the country they had
interpreted that which the plaintiff had endeavoured
to explain as an inaccuracy, and not to be relied on,
to be telling them it was a lie.
The learned Judge left the issue to the jury
whether or not the plaintiff had made use of the
irreverently
of imputed to him as speaking
of the Bible; and if they thought that he had not,
then they must say what damages they would give,
bearing in mind that the plaintiff was a school-
master, whose character was his livelihood. If they
thought that he had used the. language, then of
cour,e their verdict mast be for the defendant.
The jury retired, and after an absence of upwards
of an hour returned with a verdict for the plaintiff
damages, one farthing.

OXFORD CIRCUIT—GLOCESTER, Aug. 15.
(Before Mr. Justice Hill,)
James Hartland was charged with feloniously
assaulting and carnally abusing a little girl named
Elizabeth Jane Gwinnell, on the 4th of June, 1860,
at St. Owen's, in the city of Gloccster.
Mr. W. H. Cooke and Mr_ A. S. Hill appeared
for the prosecution ; Mr. Sergeant Pigott and Mr.
Gilltn.ore Evans defended the prisoner.
This case appeared to excite great interest in
this city, owing in part to the position of the pri-
soner, and in part to the extraordinary charge
which had been made against him of carnally
abusing two little girls named Elizabeth Jane
Gwinnell and Sarah Bryant, on various occasions,
from June 4 last, till about three or four weeks
afterwards, when the charge was made. The pri-
soner was in a respectable position, being a married
man with three children, and acting as foreman to
Messrs. Adams and Co., corn merchants at Gimes-
ter. Towards the end of June the little girl, E. J.

Gwinnell, who went to an infant school at Gioces-
ter, came home with a twopenny toy, which she had
purchased in the city, and on her mother making
inquiries as to where she had got it she said it was
given to her by a man at the dock under circum-
stances which she minutely described, On exami-
nation her person was found to be in a bad state
from inflammation, and the other girl, Sarah
Bryant, having made a similar statement to that
made by the girl Gwinnell, the prisoner was taken
into custody on the charge of feloniously abusing
the two children. As both the children were under
10 years of age the question of consent did not
arise. The general outline of the children's story
was, that they were one day picking up some peas
near the infant school, when the prisoner accosted
them, and asked them if they liked peas ? He then
took them to the warehouse of his master at the
docks and gave them some beans. He also gave
them a halfpenny, and told them to come again,
which they did several times, and when there he
took them across a plank to a cellar, where there
were some mats, and was there guilty of the crime
laid to his charge, with circumstances of filthy ob-
scenity which, in our experience, were never before
described in a court of justice. He gave them money,
and on the last occasion he gave the girl Gwinnell
threepence, she said she bought a bottle of pop
and the toy. This was found to be true, and the
general description of the place as given by the
girls was found to be accurate. Both the girls were
about eight years of age and of rather interesting
appearance.

On their cross-examination, however, they varied
both from their own evidence given before the
magistrates in June, and also contradicted one
another to a considerable extent. It was also
elicited that one of the mothers had a previous feel-
ing of hostility against the prisoner, and had made
a threat that she would do for him. At the close
of the case for the prosecution,
Mr, Sergeant Pigott submitted that there was no
case.

Mr. Justice Hill then inquired of the jury whe-
ther they thought it necessary to call upon the pri-
soner for his defence.

The jury, after some consideration, said they had
made up their minds to find the prisoner not guilty,
which they did accordingly.
Mr. Justice Hill said he thought that was a very
proper verdict, but at the same time he wished to
express his opinion that, after the statements which
had been made by the little girls, it was very proper
and necessary that the case should be investigated.
The prisoner was then discharged.