The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-11 00:00:00

in conspiracy against an innocent man could
scarcely be committed. They might be very thank-
ful they had been found out before the injury they
had meditated had reached the innocent man.

They would have one day felt remorse if he had
been falsely convicted upon that evidence. That
great judgment-day to which they hid alluded in
their oaths must come to them, to him (his lord-
ship) and to every one. They would do well to con-
sider the crime they had committed; and might thank
God for the one hope for them, and all, on that day.
Great as the impious crime was which they had
committed, there was mercy even for them. They
might really be thankful to God that the justice of
man had traced and discovered their crime before
that awful day came, when the solemn and certain
judgment would be pronounced which they had
impiously invoked upon their guilty heads. He
could not, consistently with his duty, but visit
their crimes with a severe sentence upon each of
them. Thera was some little difference in the
enormity of their guilt. The originators of the
crime were John Boyle and Margaret Boyle. The
other two, James Boyle and Charles Kerr, were, as
appeared from the evidence, brought into the con-
spiracy after it was started, and although it had
bean clearly shown that both were present at the
assault upon Fra:ncis Paterson, yet they did not
appear to have resting upon them the same degree
of guilt as rested upon the other prisoners who
originated the atrocious crime. Some distinction
would, therefore, be made in the term of penal ser-
vitude to be awarded to each of them. The sen-
tence of the Court was that John Boyle and Mar-
garet Boyle be subjected to penal servitude for
seven years each, and James Boyle and Charles
Kerr to five years' penal servitude each.
Lord Dens next addressed the prisoners, and
briefly referred to the circumstances attending the
conspiracy, after which his lordship added that he
could not conceive fi, more atrocious offence than this,
which was worse in some respects than an attempt
against the life of a person, as it struck at the root
of any man's character, which might be destroyed in
the eyes of his wife, his nearest and dearest
friends, as well as in the eyes of the public in
general—an affair which struck at the very root of
all law and justice. His lordship concluded by
saying that he did not think the sentence which
Lord Ardmillan had proposed to be at all a severe
one ; on the contrary, he thought it was very
lenient, and one in which he fully concurred.
The prisoners were then removed.
The only other case of importance was the ti ial of
Michael Cassidy and Robert Henderson for the,
murder of M. John M'Pherson, a literary gentle-
man connected with Glasgow, author of several
dramas, and lately editor of the West of Scotland
Magazine, &e.

Mr. M'Pherson had been meeting some friends at,
Bothwell on Saturday, the 30th of July, and on re-
turning to Glasgow with a friend, at 9 o'clock, went
with him into a hotel in King-street, it being very
wet, and remained there for a short time. On leav-
ing it Mr. M'Pherson's friend went in search of a
cab, and Mr. M'Pherson walked along Trongate,
when he was set upon and knocked down. He
died in an hour afterwards from the injuries he re-
ceived. The evidence against Cassidy and Hender-
son was not such as to sustain a charge of murder,
and the Advocate-Depute withdrew it, and insisted
on one of culpable homicide.
Two of the witnesses swore distinctly to Cassidy
tripping up Mr. M'Pherson, but the evidence
against Henderson was very far from clear.
The jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty
of culpable homicide against Cassidy, and by a ma-
jority found the charge not proven against Hen-
derson. .

Cassidy was sentenced to four years' penal servi.
tude, and Henderson was set at large.

MURDER IN .NEW YORK,

The New York Journal of Commerce of Sep-
tember 28 says :—" Last evening a most singular
case came to light in the sixth ward, the dead body
of a man, evidently murdered, being found at
the corner of Little Water and Worth-streets. The
scene of the tragedy used to be the resort of mur •
derers and thieves, and years ago, when the Five
Points were much worse than at present, Crown's
Corner,' as it was known, was decidedly the worst
locality in the neighbourhood. The building,which
is a three-story one, is now occupied by prostitutes,
organ-grinders. and thieves, and maintains some of
its old reputation. On the second floor, a man
named John H. Benjamin, who sells hot cakes
around the Park for a living, occupies a-room, with
a mistress named Jane Bradford. Last evening
when he went home, he found the door of his room
bolted on the inside. All demands for admission
brought no answer, and supposing that all was not
right he went down stairs to get assistance in solv-
ing the difficulty. As he passed out of the hall
he happened to look up towards the window of his
room, which is on Little Water-street, and saw a
man i- the act of jumping out of the window. The
fellow, observing Benjamin, immediately jumped
back into the room. Benjamin went into a liquor
store, kept by a Mrs. Gordon, in the lower part of
the building, and secured the assistance of an
acquaintance, and then went upstairs. The door
of his room was now opened, and he entered.
The room was dark, and everything was quiet;
so, striking a light, an investigation was imme-
diately ma e. Jane Bradford, the mistress, was
there apparently alone ; but upon looking
at the bed, the body of a man, covered
with blood, was discovered. He had evidently been
choked to death, as marks upon his throat indi-
cated, and the blood was still running from his
nose. Officers Donaghty and Higgins were noti-
fied and conveyed the body to the station-house in
Franklin-street, and then arrested Benjamin, Miss
Bradford, Jane M‘Cabe, and Josephine Smith, the
two latter being supposed to have some knowledge
of the affair. They were all locked up. On the
b'dy of the deceased there was found nothing by
which he coald be identified. In the bed and
beside him, however, there were some naturalisa-
tion papers, which may have belonged to him,
The name of James Magee was upon them. It is
rather a singular circumstance that these papers
should have been found where they were. The
girls all profess to have no knowledge of the affair.
Miss Bradford states that a man in a red shirt,
whom she does not know, met her in a liquor
store downstairs in the evening, and insisted on
going with her. She emphatically declares that
he was repelled by her, but several witnesses are
positive that the man who was about to jump from
the window (and who afterwards did so) had on a
red shirt. It may be that he is the perpetrator of
this deed. Still, another of the girls declares that
Jane Bradford told her that Benjamin killed the
man, but that person informed our reporter that
the deceased came into her room early in the
after-
noon, remained there till evening, and then
upon the bed, having quarrelled with no onelay
what-
ever. She expresses much astonishment at hearing
of the man's death. The whole
case is
shrouded in complete mystery, and now
only an inves-
tigation can bring everything connected with it to
light."