The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVEAING, JULY 2, 1867.

Sheffield Trades' Union Commission.

At the sitting of the Court on Friday Mr. Sugg

said that he wished to offer the evidence of a volun-

tary witness to show that on the night ➢ir. Tyzack
was shot at with a revolver he fired the revolver off

himself.

Mr. Tyzack was then recalled, and stated—On the
night that he was shot at, in Abbeydale, no woman
came to him and asked him to take her up in his

gig. He never said to anybody that night that he
was loaded, and could not take anybody up at that
time of night. The person who, as he supposed,
fired a revolver at him was on the right hand
side of the road, on the footpath, going to Abbey-
dale—on the plantation adjoining Mr. Cockayne's

premises. Ile and his brother had had revolvers for
some years before this occurred—ever since revolvers

were invented. They had spent dozens of nights in
watching their premises, revolver in hand, after de-
predations had been committed. lie had never in
his life fired a revolver as he was going home. lie
was not carrying it when he was shot at—he re-

gretted that he was not, for then he would have
faced his assailant. He was quite sure he was shot
at in 1862, and not in 1859.
Mary Ann Needham, wife of Thomas Needham,
who was sentenced to four years' penal servitude in
1865, for blowing up Mr. Tyzack's wheel, at Dron-
field, was next examined. She said her husband
was an engine-tenter. After his conviction she went

with Sam Crookes to Derby to see him. Crookes
asked her to go, and paid her railway fare. Crookes
went in his own name, but he told her to say at
Derby that he was her brother. She stayed in
Derby a week. She asked Crookes for money, and
he gave her some. Before she went to Derby, and

at different times afterwards, he gave her some,

amounting to £3 in all. Before her husband was
sent away from Derby gaol she went to see him,
Crookes asking her to go, and paying her expenses

as before. Crookes's wife and witness's sister-in-
law and a brother-in-law went as well. On this
occasion Crookes gave witness a new dress and
bonnet. She applied to him for money be -
cause her brother, Bradley, told her to do so.
She lost a child, and Bradley told her to go to
Michael Thompson for money to bury it.
Thompson referred her to Crookes, saying he did

not know her. She said she would make him know
her. She said this because she thought by her hus-

band sending to Thompson that Thompson knew
something about what her husband was suffering for.
Mary Ann Morton, sempstress, was called by the
defence committee to say that when going home to

_ -
Abbeydale, one night about nine years ago, Mr.
Tyzack, the witness who was shot at, passed her in
his gig. Immediately after she heard a revolver fired
off three or four times. A person to whom she spoke,
Mr. Hall, said it was Mr. Tyzack, who fired it, and
added that Tyzack's men were out on strike. Thein-
ference the committee wished the Court to draw
from the evidence was that Mr. Tyzack was in the
habit of firing off his revolver when going home,
and that it was he who fired on the night when he
alleged he was shot at either by accident or by
design.
Mr. Tyzack was recalled, and denied in every
particular the evidence of the last witness.
Mr. Hall, of the firm of Martin, Hall, and Co.,
the gentleman to whom Morton said she spoke
when she heard the revolver fired off by Tyzack,
was called, and he denied ever having seen Morton.
'The evidence she had given, so far as it had
affected himself, was utterly untrue.
Morton was recalled, and was told by Mr. Over-
end that if she had said that which was untrue, it
would be the duty of the Court to prosecute her
fur perjury. The Court, however, would allow her
to save herself if she chose to withdraw what she
had said. The witness said she was prepared to

stand by her statement, and she gave the names of
several persons to whom she related at the time
what she had seen.
Joseph Machin, secretary to the Scythe
Grinders' Union, said the story told by
Morton was related to him on Saturday by Wm.
Sharpe, and he asked Morton to repeat it before
the Court. In further examination witness admitted
that a number of rattenings previously spoken to
had been done on behalf of the trade. Witness's
cash-book was examined, and in 1862, at the time it
was stated the union found money to send Need-
ham out of the country to prevent his giving evi-
dence against Michael Thompson for having found
money to pay for the blowing up at Dronfield,
there was a balance in hand of £124. The contri-
bution book of the same date showed that the ac-
counts had been fallified, and that the total at the
bottom of each page was considerably less than the
sum actually received. Witness was still unable to
account for these discrepancies. Some of the ba-
lances represented that more had been received than
wag the case. The page in the cash-book opposite
to the one containing the balance of £124, and the
one which most likely contained entries of how that
money had been expended, had ,been torn from the
book. By whom and how that was done witness
could not say. The auditors had passed the books
as they appeared.
Thomas Bamforth was called and was questioned
respecting the shooting at Mr. Tyzack. He denied
emphatically that the woman Morton had ever men-
tioned the circumstance to him.
The witness Morton was again called, and she
persisted that her statement was true, and refused to
withdraw from it. The Court told her she might be
prosecuted for perjury. At present they would not
say what they would do with her.
Michael Thompson, formerly secretary to the
Scythe Grinders' Union, admitted having been im-
plicated in the outrage at Dronfield. lie paid money
from the funds of the union for the support of
the wife of Needham, who was convicted of the
outrage. He made no entries in his books of the
payment of this money. lie was aware that Need-
ham admitted to Mr. Tyzack that he (witness) em
ployed him to do this outrage. He took little notice
of this rumour, and did not see Needham after he
came out of prison. Witness denied having had
anything to do with the shooting at Mr. Tyzack,
and he did not find funds to send N eedham to

America.
Joseph Crossland, secretary to the union of the
pen and pocket blade grinders, said he succeeded
Bromehead, and most of the books when he came
into office had been destroyed. It was said they
had been buried with Bromehead. (Laughter.)
At a general meeting a question was raised, respoct-
ing the sum of £7O, which had been invested in the
savings bank in the name of four persons, and the
names of three were necessary to draw it out. The
money had been taken out, and one of the persons,
Geo. Law, complained that his name had been forged.
Nothing could be learned as to how the money had
been got or what had become of it, and at a meeting
on the 10th April the following resolution was come
to :---“That, after a great deal of investigation, we
are of opinion that the £7O was drawn out of the
bank for trade purposes ; but, at the same time, we
deprecate the manner in which it has been drawn
out, and hope in future the committee will be very
particular in the mode of doing their business."
Witness admitted rattening was practised in his
trade, but hoped it would soon be done away. Ho
had no doubt the books had been destroyed to con-
ceal improper entries.
The Court then adjourned until Monday morning.

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Spirit of the American Press.

WOMEN AND JURIES.
It appears to be a settled principle of jury-made
law that offences against chastity may be punished
with death by the woman's nearest relative, or, in
default of a male relative, by herself, and that no

warning need be given to the culprit nor explana-
tion asked of him. Moreover, it is no longer neces-

sary that he be taken flagrante delicto in order to
warrant his killing, or that the evidence against him
be at all conclusive. A simple statement of a woman
that a man has insulted or seduced her is now re-

garded by juries as sufficient to justify his being
slain unawares, with all his imperfections upon his
head. We might fill a column with illustrations of
what we are here asserting, in the shape of stories

of cowardly murders perpetrated by women, or
friends of women, which juries were asked in vain
to punish. The last case of this kind is one of
which everybody in this State is now talking—the

murder of Mr. Iliseock, a member of the Constitu-
tional Convention at Albany. He is shot suddenly

by one of his friends, a Gen. Cole, and in defence of
his crime the murderer tells three different stories

-- first, that Iliscock had violated his wife; secondly,
that he had seduced her ; and thirdly, that he hid

simply insulted her—all of them resting on the state-
ment of the wife herself, who, it appeared, did not
discontinue her intercourse with Hiscock in conse-

quence of anything that had happened. The only
bit of corroborative evidence drawn from the hus-
band's observation consisted, it seems, of the highly
suspicious circumstance that the murdered man
asked him one day, " when was he going away ?"

So that if Cole should be acquitted we shall have

fresh support for the theory that any woman who
has a jealous or crackbraiued husband, and little
regard for her own reputation, may have any man
shot or knifed by reporting him as having behaved
unhandsomely to her. In fact, a bad woman who
had tried to seduce a man and failed, might in this

way gratify her rage and desire of revenge by hav-
ing him incontinently " taken off;" and if juries
allowed this doctrine to take root and flourish, the
best and most proper man in the community would
hold his life at the mercy of any worthless couple
who happened to have an acquaintance with him,
and might for any reason desire his destruction.
The law, we believe, forgives the slaying by
a husband of a man taken in adultery ; but it
does so not because it approves of the prac-
tice of avenging one's own injuries, but because it
supposes some injuries to be too great for ordi-
nary mortals to submit to them in cold blood. In
other words, it is presumed that a man who wit-
nessed his own dishonour would be sure to lose all
self-control. But there is in this no sanction what-

ever for the modern doctrine if A. hears or suspects

that B. has been ruining his domestic peace he may
go in search of him with deadly weapons, and
whenever he meets him, be it days or months
afterwards, kill him on the spot. In fact, a good
many of these moral murders are now committed
not only in cold blood, but by gentlemen and ladies
who are not much troubled at all by the loss of
their " honour," and sleep just as soundly as if
they still had it in their keeping. They kill
" seducers" simply because it is " the thing" to do,
and the public expects it of them ; or because they
think it will procure them a little pleasing noto-
riety. Nothing could better prove the debauched
condition of public opinion, as expressed by
than juries, the fact that some of the mur-

derers whose wrongs have excited most sympathy
have been themselves rakes and adulterers of the
worst kind, and, after polluting other peo •
pie's homes for years, have been supposed
—poor fellows—to be incapable of enduring the
pollution of their own. We all know the way in
which these beautiful justifications of the uncon-
trollable indignation of the injured husband or the
betrayed woman arc got up. The murder is gene-
rally committed in some public place, so that there
may be plenty of witnesses. As soon as it is done,
the murderer, though pale, becomes perfectly calm,
and surrenders without difficulty, and after giving
some slight signs of intended but easy-to-bc-foiled
suicide is conducted to prison, where he is the object
of marked attention on the part of the gaoler or his
wife, and is waited on soon after by some of the
liveliest and most graphic members of the " repor-
torial corps." Then come the most delicious mo-
ments of the whole drama. The murderer gives his
own version of his wrongs, with the delightful con-
sciousness that he cannot be contradicted, the only
person who could contradict being dead. lie tells
of his agonies, of " the fire in his brain," his
sleepless nights, his horrible misgivings, his early
happiness, his passionate love, his wonderful sa-
crifices for " the frail being" for whose sake he
has assassinated ; and down it all goes on paper,
and soon appears in print. And while the
tale is fresh the newspapers are never weary
of making additions to it, and the hero enjoys
more notoriety than ever he hoped in his wildest
dreams. When the day of trial comes on it is a
grand day. The court is crowded ; the audience
and the jury lay in extra pocket handkerchiefs ; the
prisoner is dressed simply, but with care, and wears
an interesting and melancholy air. The leading
masters of balderdash at the bar are engaged for the
defence, and the defence consists mainly of fulsome
praise of the assassin and abuse of his victim. All
that fustian can do is done to make woman appear
a kind of pretty animal without sense, or discretion,
or conscience, whom any naughty man can seduce,
and whom naughty men must, therefore, let alone
on pain of death. Then comes the description of
the husband's agonies, if the husband be the mur-
derer. lie is presented to the jury as a mad bull,
whom the mere sight of " the destroyer of his
peace" rouses into uncontrollable fury, and who
has to go about trying to kill him by a law of
his being, just as tigers have to prowl and spring
and tear in order to satisfy their hunger. Now we
think the better portion of the public has reached the
conclusion that we have had enough of this sort of
thing ; that it is high time that the old doctrine that
premeditated killing, no matter what the provoca-
tion may be, is murder, and deserves, in the interest
of society, to be punished as murder, ought to be
reasserted. The only possible excuse that can be
put forward for the conduct of juries in refusing to
convict " injured husbands" for killing seducers in
cold blood, is that the honour of wives cannot be
preserved in any other. way ; but this excuse we
imagine very few men would be willing to accept as
valid if presented to them in its naked simplicity.
If wives need any legal assistance in preserving
their virtue, it ought to be supplied in the regular
way, by making adultery a criminal offence ; so that
when a man is accused of destroying anybody's
peace, he will at least get a hearing for his version
of the affair ; and even if he is to be put to death
on conviction, will be put to death with decent
human formalities instead of being shot like a
mad dog. But pending the provision of legal
punishment for these offences, wives and hus-
bands must be left to take care of their own
honour, and must find other means of taking
care of it than the use of deadly weapons against
anybody the wife chooses to point out as her " be-
trayer." We think that, however opinions may
differ as to woman's fitness for the suffrage, very
few people will be found to deny that, in her pre-
sent state of mental and moral development, mar-
ried women, at least, ought to be able to take care
of their owu chastity, and ought to be made to do
it, and be punished, if anybody is punished, when
it is lost. Their whole training from childhood up
is concentrated on their preparation for this one
duty, and society and the Church have surrounded
the discharge of it with the most terrible sanctions.
Married women, too, have what young unmarried
women have not, the knowledge and experience ne-
cessary to warn them of their danger; and there is
something false and ridiculous in the popular theory
that when they fall they are the innocent victims,
the men the real criminals. Women, to be sure,
are proverbially " frail," but o are men ; and in
the existing state of opinion a woman brings to
the violation of the marriage vow a much stronger
and more deep-rooted sense of the sin of it than a man
does, and is, therefore, on any sound theory of account-
ability, by far the guiltier of the two. The theory
of woman's character and position on which blame,
in cases of adultery, is now distributed, and on
which the murder of seducers is justified, is really
very little superior to that set out iu the laws of

Menu. She is so helpless, so conscienceless, so ready
to fall, that to throw temptation in her way is con-
sidered the foulest act a man can commit, and it is
so hard to keep her from falling that public senti-
ment authorises the husband to assassinate his best
friends in broad daylight for the protection of her
purity. The case of young, unmarried women is,
we admit, different. Whether rightly or wrongly,
they are so educated that they neither know when
they are running risks nor how to guard against
them, and as long as this system of education is or
has to be continued, fathers and brothers must be
armed with summary powers for protecting them,
or the legal penalties of seduction must be made
vastly heavier than they are now. But, as a matter
of fact, the women who take the law into their own
hands, and kill their faithless lovers and secure im-
punity from juries, are hardly ever youthful inno-
cents. They are generally tolerably mature spin-
sters, who know perfectly well what they are about,
both when they are lavishing their affections on the
unworthy object, and when they are pistolling
him for running away, and there is probably no
more repulsive spectacle to be witnessed than the
mock trials of offences of this kind by which our
courts are sometimes disgraced. In fact, side by
side with the agitation in one portion of the com-
munity for woman's admission to greater social
freedom, is growing up a tendency, in another
portion, to release her more and more from both
legal and moral responsibility. There is strong re-.
luctance abroad to convict a good-looking woman of
any offence whatever. We even doubt whether
Bridget Dorgan, who killed her mistress the other
day in New Jersey, would, though not good-look-
ing, have been convicted, had she simply killed her
master. But when it is made to appear that love is
at the bottom of a young woman's crimes, juries
become deaf to the claims of order, and law, and
morality. As soon as the tender side of the tra-
gedy begins to show itself in the evidence the jury-
men wipe their eyes, the court blows its nose, the
counsel's voice grows husky, and the " poor young
thing" is dismissed with the deepest emotion, and
the friends of the dead man sneak to their deso-
late homes amidst the frowns of the indignant and
virtuous crowd.-7he Nation.