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

GLASGOW A UTUMN CIRCUIT.

GLASGOW, SATURDAY.
The Glasgow Autumn Circuit was opened here
on Monday last by Lords Ivory and Deas, and
brought to a close this evening. On Tuesday Lord
Ivory broke down from indisposition, when Lord
Cowan, who was sent for by telegraph, took his
place. On the following day Lord Cowan also
succumbed to illness, when the telegraph brought
Lord Ardmillan, who, with Lord Deas, completed
the work of the 'circuit. In all there were 61 cases,
in which 81 persons were implicated, the great ma-
jority being thieves, housebreakers, returned con-
victs, &c., who were convicted and sentenced to
periods of penal servitude varying from 10 years
downwards. There were, however, only two cases
which excited especial interest, the one being that
in which Margaret Gallacher, or Boyle, John
Boyle (her husband), James Boyle, and Charles
Kerr were accused of a very foul act of conspiracy.
From the evidence it appeared that Francis Pater-
son, a writer and house factor in Glasgow, had
1 1 a shop in M'Alpine-street to Boyle and his wife,
who were brokers. The rent was not regularly
paid, however ; but finally he was induced to go to
the shop on the pretext that he would be paid £5
on account. When he arrived the woman Boyle in-
vited Paterson into the back shop (a dimly lighted.
, place), saying it was requisite that he should exa-
mine the watr crane, which was out of order. No
sooner was he there than the woman seized him by
the neck, when she fell to the ground, and
dragged him on the top of her, at the same time
exposing her person. Paterson struggled to get
away, but meanwhile the woman raised the alarm
that that he was attempting to commit a criminal
as-
sault upon her. Boyle, the husband, and theotherprisoners, who were waiting at hand, then
rushed in, attempted to tear down Paterson's
clothes, and assaulted him severely.. They then
called in the police, when he was given in charge,
and in a few days tried before the police magistrate
for assault upon the woman, but acquitted on ac-
count of discrepancy in +l,
' evidence.
An accomplice, named HelenM.;Call, or Duffy,
said,—l have known John Boyle and his wife for
seven months. Mr. Paterson raised a small debt
action against them,.
em , and they attended the Small
Debt Court.
Onentiglht I spoke to Mrs. Boyle
about the case. She
me that if I would go to
the back shop when Mr.od Paterson came and assist
her to trip him down and keep him down Mr.
Lumsden would give me a new dress. I said I
would not, but I would be a witness. This was on
the 24th of February. A few days after Mr. Lums-
den and Boyle tried to get him down in secret, and
she told me, and Charles Kerr, and her sister. Mrs.
Boyle told me she had told him she had £5 if he
would call for it, and that she would take him
down into the store. On Wednesday morning, the
2d of March, I wont up to the house, and I heard
John Boyle say to his wife that Mr. Lumsden had
said she was to prepare herself, as Mr. Paterson
would be in in an hour. It was all arranged how
they were to come in. Mrs. Boyle was to pull him
down and expose herself and also him; and the
little girl, Mrs. Boyle's daughter, was to cry "Mur-
der ! my mother is being killed," and I was to go in
with another person and be a itness. All this
was arranged in the morning. Stewart, Charles
Kerr, and James Boyie were to rush in. I was in
the shop, and the little girl was placed at the door,
to watch Mr. Paterson. The little girl came cry-
ing " Here are Mr. Paterson and Mr. Stewart
corning." James Boyle stopped Stewart, and Mr.
Paterson came down alone. When I went in a little
after I saw Mrs. Boyle lying on a shake-down.
James Boyle and John were together. Charles Kerr
and I were outside. She took hold of him.
There was a bed on the floor, and I saw her lying en
it, with her person exposed. Charles Kerr and John
Boyle had gone in, and I found them there. His
shirt. was open from the throat down, and he WCS
bleeding in the left cheek. Mrs. Boyle was taken
home to her own house between 7 and 8 o'clock.
We went to a public-house. They called for half a
mutchkin of whisky, and John laughed and said
they had the old chap safe enough now-. I recollect
the day after the affair happened speaking to Mrs.
Boyle. She expected the police doctor to visit her.
She asked me to get a pennyworth of blood, and
she daubed the sheets with it. I went and bought
the blood from a young girl in Market-lane. (Mar-
garet Cameron called.) This is the person from
whom I got the blood. Mrs. Boyle put s•me blood
in a bottle, and put the bottle below her pillow, so
that she might pour it about her when the doctor
came in. I saw her put some upon the sheet and her
person. I never saw Paterson except when he was
coming to them for the rent. I did not tell my hus-
band till it was all past. They told me not to tell

him.
It also came out in evidence that the object of the
prisoners was to extort hush-money from Paterson
to prevent exposure, or to obtain damages from him
by means of sit action at law.
After a trial which lasted two days the prisoners
were on Friday night found guilty as libelled. This
morning they were brought up for sentence.
Lord Ardmillan, addressing the prisoners, said
the jury had, after. a painstaking investigation,
come to a unanimous verdict, finding the four pri-
soners guilty of the crime of conspiracy as libelled
to extort money, or found a false claim for damages
against Mr. Francis Paterson, by means of a false
accusation of a criminal offence, knowing it to be
false, and by means of perjury. A more heinous
offence could not be committed, and one more
wickedly and more cunningly devised or more
determinedly persevered in it was difficult to
imagine. Up to the trial, and during its
progress, all the prisoners at the bar persisted more
or less in maintaining that false accusation of an in-
decent assault by Mr. Paterson upon the person of
the female prisoner at the bar. The jury in the box
had been compelled yesterday and the day previousto
consider whether that accusation of the as-
sault was or was not perpetrated by Francis Pater-
son. If it had been proved before the police magis-
trate, a much more serious crime would have been
committed by them. It fortunately happened that
under the circumstances the case was only tried
h.:nnv the police court, and Mr. Paterson was ac-
gain ed by the intelligent and discerning magis-
trate, who had seen ' is innocence through the
e,hes t bat the prisoners had tried to spread
ar,ned him, but he might have been tried for that
oikete in this court if it had been laid under a
difirent denomination, and he might have been
convicted ; if that story which they had concocted
hid been believed, he would have been convicted
.f this most serious offence, and transported for a
torrn or penal servitude, and a Severn sentence
would have been pronounced v;ainst an innocent
man. A more wicked scheme, and one more wickedly
earrird out, he (Lord Ardmillan) had rarely heard
of. Then came the oaths by which they had sup.
ported that false accusation—oaths taken in a pub-
lic court to what they knew to be false. They had
sworn before Almighty God, and as they would
answer to God at the great day of judgment, to this
lying and malicious accusation, which now had been
found, by evidence that would satisfy every human
being who had heard the trial, to have been totally
untrue. A more grave offence than that of penury

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 had 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, arid 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. Then 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
been clearly shown that both were present at the
assault upon Francis 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 Deas next addressed the prisoners, and
briefly referred to the circumstances attending the
conspiracy, after which his lordship added that he
could not conceive a 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 tz ial of
Michael Cassidy and Robert Henderson for the
murder of Mr. John M'Pherson, a literary gentle-
man connected with Glasgow, author of several
dramas, and lately editor of the West of Scotland
Magazine, &c.
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 in 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, an d 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 made. 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. Ou the
body of the deceased there was found nothing by
which he colld 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
then
intheaftleary-
noon, remained there till evening, and
upon the bed, having .quarrelled with no one what-
ever. She expresses much astonishment at hearing
of the man's death. The whole case is now
shrouded in complete mystery, and only an inves-
tigation can bring everything connected with it to
light."