The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVfiNING, DECUMBER 10, MO.

to manslaughter, and among these circumstances it
has been laid down that if a man find his wife in
adultery, or have such reasonable cause as to lead
him to believe she is guilty of adultery, and imme-
diately kill the paramour, it is manslaughter. This
being the law it is for you to say if the circum-
stances justify you in fluffing the prisoner guilty of
manslaughter. His lordship then read over the evi-
dence.

The jury found the prisoner guilty.
Mr. Justice Keating passed sentence of death in
the usual form.

MIDLAND CIRCUIT.—LINCOLN, DEC. 8.
(Before Mr. Baron Bramwell.)
Thomas Richardson, labourer, charged with the
wilful murder of Alexander M'Brian, by shooting at-
him on the 20th clay of October, at Wyberton, and
also charged with the same offence upon the coro-
ner's inquisition, pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Stephen and Mr. Huish conducted the case for
the prosecution; Mr. O'Brien that of the defence.
The deceased, a policeman, was on duty on the
night of the 24th October, and the course of his beat,
lay through Wyberton churchyard. It appeared
from a deposition made by him before the magis-
trates, and in presence of the prisoner, some four
days afterwards, that about 1 a.m. on the 25th,
while going along a pathway by the churchyard, he
saw a man who was a stranger to him, and who upon
his approach pulled a billycock hat, which he wore,
over his face, and shied off. Noticing that there was
something bulky in the pocket of the man's jacket
M'Brian called to him, " Hilloa ! what are you off
with there ?" The man upon this turned round,
and as M'Brian said, " shot slap into me." The
charge of the gun lodged in the part of the arm
between the elbow and the shoulder, entering it in
a mass, and inflicting a large wound, into which a
button, torn by the force of the discharge from
M'Brian's coat, and also a portion of the lining of
the sleeve, were driven. Notwithstanding the
severity of! the injury, M'Brian managed to reach
the house of the Rev. Mr. Moore, which was near
the spot, and knocked at the door. Mr. Moore, on
being roused, looked at a clock at the foot of his bed
and noticed•the time, which was 6 minutes past 1.
He let the wounded man in, gave him a little brandy,
bound up his wound as well as he could, and sent
him in a cart, under the care of the groom, to the
lock-up, where M'Brian lived. M'Brian gave a
description of the man who had wounded him, and
and on the following morning about 8, Superinten-
dent Manton and another police-constable went to
the house of the prisoner, which was about 450
yards distant from the spot where the shot had
been fired, and there found a double-barrelled gun,
the left barrel of which was still leaded, while
, the right barrel had all the appearance of
Laving been discharged within 24 hours. A billy-
coas hat was also found in a back kitchen of the
house. ,An endeavour was made to draw out the
charge from the left barrel of the gun, but this
failing it was discharged into the ground, and the
paper which haA been used as wadding was picked
up, and on being examined appeared to be portions
of a newspaper. The prisoner was asked by Super-
intendent Manton what he had used as wadding for
his gun, and replied "A sort of brown paper."
" How, then," said Manton, " does it happen to be
loaded with printed paper ?" The prisoner made
no reply. Some pieces of printed paper, chared at
the edges and having the smell of gunpowder or
sulphur were found by Superintendent Manton on
the spot where M'Brian had been wounded, and
the collation of these with those discharged from
the left barrel of Richardson's gun formed the
damning evidence in the case. Mr. Thomas Cope,
the publisher of the limes, who was also its pub-
lisher in 1854, proved that the pieces of paper
found in the churchyard and those also that had
come from the left barrel of the gun had formed
part of the Times newspaper on the 27th of March
of that year. This he knew, not only by the cha-
racter of the type, which is used in no other news-
paper, save that of the Evening Mail, which is
printed at the same office, but also because in cer-
tain letters there were particular defects which were
apparent also in a perfect copy of the Times of the
same day, produced in court, and of which 50,000
copies had been sold, all of which would be fac
similes of each other. The first and second columns
contained information respecting officers engaged
in the Crimean campaign, and a statement as to a
brigade, in which the following names appeared :
—" Capt. Neville, Scots Fusilier Guards; Lieut. J.
England, 55th Foot; Major-General his Royal
Highness the Duke of Cambridge, K.G." Upon a
fragment of paper found in the churchyard ap-
peared this part of the passage—s' Royal Highness
the Duke of Cam"—while the remaining part—
" bridge, K.G."—was contained in a piece from
the left-hand barrel. So too a piece picked up on
the spot contained portions of the names of
" Major Lord Burghersh, unattached, Lieutenant-
Col. Somerset, Coldstream Guards, Capt. Kings-
cote, Scots Fusilier Guards, Lieut. the Hon. J. S.
Calthorpe," whose names appeared at length in the
first column of the perfect copy of the Times. The
examination upon this part of the case was very
minute, and resulted in a very confident opinion on
the part of Mr. Cope that all the pieces produced
had formed part of a copy of the Times of the 27th
of March, 1854. Capt.Bicknell, the chief constable,
further proved that, upon collating two pieces
found on the spot with one from the left barrel,
they made up names corresponding with those that
appeared in the first column of the Times of
March the 27th, 1854. A bag of shot of num-
bers 3,4, and 6 was found in the prisoner's
house, and the shot lodged in the arm of M'Brian
was found to be nmixture of those numbers and in
the same proportion. The gun, shot, and cap were
left in the house of the prisoner until the next
day, when he was arrested ; lie had made no attempt
to escape, but had gone as usual to his
work. He was asked where he had been the night
before, and the account which he gave of himself
up to half-past 12 or 20 minutes to 1 was that which
was also given by his brother-in-law, King, a man
named Burrell, and others who were called on the
part of the prosecution. He had passed the latter
part of the day in company with them and a farmer
named Oldham, drinking at the Crown and Anchor
publichouse, about a mile and a half from Skirbeck,
and left it, together with King and Burrell, about
12 p.m,, with whom, all being more or less drunk,
he walked towards Wyberton until they reached a
point where the road to King's house diverged from
the path of the other two, who occupied adjoining
houses under the same roof. The prisoner was at
that time carrying some pigs' food, had no gun,
and wore no billycock. Burrell saw him enter his
house and afterwards heard footsteps up the stairs,
as though going to the bedrooms. He himself then
went to bed, and did not hear any one leave the
prisoner's house afterwards. From the point where
King left the prisoner to King's own house the dis-
tance was 312 yards, and to the prisoner's it was 307.
King had been in his house, which was about 10 yards
from the churchyard, only two or three minutes, by
his account, when he heard the discharge of a gun ;
but the time was more accurately noticed by a
neighbour, Mrs. Alliss, whom the report disturbed,
and who, looking at her watch, which was a minute
or two in advance of others, observed that the time
was three minutes past one. Two minutes after the
shot was fired some one came to King's door and
wanted him to open it, which he did not until some
time afterwards, and then, looking out, he saw no
one. Richardson, who worked for him, came as
usual to work the next morning. Four days
after M'Brian was wounded the prisoner was
brought before him and recognised as the man who
had discharged the gun. M'Brian had been hope-
ful of recovery, but, growing worse and his case
hopeless, he was told by his medical attendant that
his chances of recovery were very poor. Ho replied
that it was " a very bad case ; a bad job." He
was asked if he had made his peace with God, and
said ho hoped he had. After much argument
as to the admissibility of what he subsequently
said, it was admitted, and amounted to an affirma-
tion of his former deposition, concluding, " If I am
a dying man the prisoner is the man who shot me."
He died from the effect of his wound shortly after-
wards, and an inquest was held on Nov. 21.
In cross-examination it was elicited that the spot
where the deceased was shot was between a garden
wall 10 ft. high, and a moat, beyond both of which
were high elm trees ; but it also appeared that the
night was light, the moon vertical, and nearly full.
It was elicited that Burrell had been taken on the
charge of !murder, and that a man named Allen,
who lodged with the prisoner, was in the habit of
using the gun ; but it also appeared that Allen was
not there on the 24th of October.
Mr. O'Brien, in addressing the jury for the pri-
soner, remarked upon the absence of any assignable
motive for murdering the deceased, who was a
stranger to the prisoner, reviewed the course of the
prisoner homewards on the night of the 24th,which
scarcely admitted of the supposition that he could
within the space of 20 minutes have got the gun,
changed his hat, and gone to the spot where
M‘Brian was wounded. He was never heard by
Burrell to leave the house. King and he had equal
distances to go from the point where they parted,
yet King had only loosed his shoes when he heard
the shot. The pocket of the man whom M'Brian
saw stuck out, but it was inconceivable that the
prisoner could within that time have possessed
himself of any booty, the guarding of which might
supply a motive for firing the gun. Without ques-
tionins, M'Brian's truthfulness, his accuracy might
be doubted considering how sombre and dark the
place would be rendered by the tall trees on both
sides, and that the man who was seen was a
stranger, and wore a slouched billycock cap.
The possession of so common a cap could not
weigh against the prisoner. M'Brian, when he saw
him four days after the event, was weak from loose

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