The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-24 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

HOME CIRCUIT.—LEwEs, JULY 23.
(Before the Lord Chief Justice Cockburn.)

ALLEGED MANSLAUGHTER EY A SCHOOLMASTER.

Thomas Hopley, 41, a person of gentlemanly ap-
pearance, surrendered to take his trial upon a charge
of the manslaughter of Reginald Channell Can-
cellor.

This case excited the most intense interest, and
:he court was crowded densely an hour before the
irne appointed for the commencement of the pro-

ceedings.
Sergeant Parry and Mr. Knapp conducted the
prosecution ; Sergeant Ballantine and the Hon. G.
Denman were counsel for the prisoner.
Sergeant Parry, in opening the case to the jury,
said that he did not remember a more painful and
onerous duty being cast upon him than the one he
was then about to discharge as the counsel for the
prosecution in the present case. The prisoner was
a man of high character, and his position in life
was such as to give him no temptation to commit
crime; and these facts rendered the present inves-
tigation doubly distressing •, and in the onset he
entreated of them to dismiss from their minds every
rumour or statement they had heard in reference to
the case, and be guided in the decision they would
arrive at solely by the evidence that would be laid
before them. The prisoner, he believed, was a man
of high attainments, and he was the principal of a
school at Eastbourne, in this county ; and the
charge that was made against him was that by a
course of brutal and cruel conduct he had caused
the death of a young gentleman, 15 years old, who
had been entrusted to his charge and care, and over
whom it was his duty to have thrown a shield of
protection. He and his learned friend had atten-
tively considered the evidence, and he felt it right
to state that the only reason why a charge of wilful
murder instead of manslaughter had not been pre-
ferred against the prisoner was that he stood in
the position of a schoolmaster, and that the father
of the deceased young gentleman had delegated
his authority to him ; and as the law of Eng-
land sanctioned the use of corporal punishment
to a moderate extent in such a case, and in the
present instance the death was alleged to have
arisen solely from the excessive use of that power,
it was thought the more advisable course to pursue
was to prefer a charge for the minor offence only
against the prisoner. He then proceeded to state
that the deceased was the son of the late Mr. Can-
cellor, formerly one of the Masters of the Court of
Common Pleas, who had died since this unfortunate
transaction, and he was the godson of the late
leader of this circuit, Mr. Baron Channell. In order
to show the position of the parties, he informed the
jury that the prisoner was to receive a stipend of
£lBO per annum for taking charge of the deceased.
The lad, it appeared, was undoubtedly an obstinate
and to some extent what was called a slow boy ;
and it appeared that at Christmas last he was
punished to some considerable extent by the pri-
soner, he having at that time been only a few
months under his charge. He went home for a
short time at Easter, and then returned to the
school, and about the middle of April the prisoner
wrote a very extraordinary letter to the father of

the deceased, in which he stated that he had tried
every means in his power to conquer the boy's ob-
stinacy and induce him to perform his studies, but
they were of no avail, and that the only thing that
could be done was to resort to strong measures of
corporal punishment, and he asked the consent of
the father to the adoption of this course. The father
of the deceased permitted the prisoner to act as he
thought fit, but he, of course, never intended to
sanction the infliction of any cold-blooded or heart-
less violence, such as was imputed to the prisoner,
upon his unfortunate child, neither had he the
power to do so, and if the prisoner or any other per-
son in a similar position fancied that the law gave
him any such power, it was high time for his own
sake and for the protection of the public that he
should be undeceived, and be made to know
that the moment a person in the position of a
schoolmaster went beyond the bounds of rea-
sonable and moderate correction to a pupil he
was acting unjustifiably, and rendered himself
amenable to the law. The learned serjeant then
proceeded to state the facts of the case, and
said he should be able to prove that for a period
of nearly two hours the prisoner beat the unhappy
lad with a skipping-rope and a stick, and that at
12 o'clock at night, at which period the punish-
ment wasinflicted, he left him a corpse; and it was
under these circumstances that he appeared befere
them to answer the charge of manslaughter that
was now preferred against him.
Sergeant Ballantine made a most eloquent and
powerful address to the jury for the prisoner, but
the lateness of the hour at which it was delivered
precludes doing more than to state that he endea-
voured to show that the prisoner had no intention
to cause any mischief to the deceased, and that the
melancholy result was to a considerable extent to
be attributable to accident.
The Lord Chief Justice summed up, and the jury
almost immediately returned a verdict of guilty.
prisoner,' and
His lordship then addressed the
after commenting upon the brutal character of the
offence of which he had been convicted, sentenced
him to be kept in penal servitude for four years.