The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-31 00:00:00

THE DANBURY MURDER.

Our readers will remember that at the late
assizes for the county of Essex, a married woman
named. Martha Spencer Weaver was convicted of
the murder of an illegitimate child, two years
and a half old, belonging to another woman re-
siding at the village of Danbury, near Chelms-
ford, by strangling it with a shawl under very
peculiar circumstances. The prisoner, who was
separated from her husband, who is a working man
living in London, had gone down to Danbury,
which is her native place, and she subsisted upon
an allowance of seven and sixpence per•week made
her by her husband, and any work she was able to
obtain, and it appeared that she was very fond of
the child in question, and was constantly playing
with it, and sending it upon errands, and she
always seemed pleased to have it with her. On
the day the murder was committed she asked the
mother of the child to allow him to go into the vil-
lage to buy a box of lucifers for her, and she, of
course, willingly consented, and the poor child
went to the prisoner's cottage, and was never seen
again alive. Upon an alarm being given he was
discovered quite dead in the prisoner's bedroom,
with the end of a shawl tied No tightly round the
throat as to cause an abrasion of the skin, and the
prisoner herself was lying upon the bed in the same
room in a state of almost deadly stupor, and appa-
rently utterly unconscious of what had taken place.
The condition of the prisoner was accounted for by
the fact of her being in the habit of taking large
doses of laudanum for the purpose, as she described
it, of "stilling her nerves," and there was no doubt
that on the day the fatal occurrence took place she
had taken a very large dose of that deadly ingre-
dient ; and when the discovery took place she
appeared to be almost stupefied, many hours
elapsed before she recovered her consciousness, and
she then seemed to be utterly incapable of giving
any explanation (Jf the circumstances under which
the unhappy child met its death. The defence set
up for the wretched woman was that at the time the
act was comitted she was not in a condition of mind
to enable her to distinguish between right and
wrong; but as there was no evidence to show that
her mind was really affected, the jury, after a good
deal]of deliberation, found her guilty ; and sentence
of death of course followed upon that verdict, and,
according to the usual custom in the county of
Essex, the execution would have taken place to-
morrow. It is always the custom in those painful
cases, after all the facts have been submitted to the
consideration of the Secretary of State for the Home
Department, if they should be considered of a
character to justify a recommendation of the cri-
minal to the mercy of the crown, for an application
to be made to the learned judge to state his opinion
atwasof the case, and whether it was one that would
justify a commutation of the capital sentence; and
it iss
to understoodthe
effect
that hat
if Mr. Justice
tried the prisoner, as referred to, and his reply
w
the case was one that did the
GoverhhiWenitllicaomnssidwerhedo
not call for the infliction
of capital punishment, he was of opinion that there
were circumstances connectedi with the condition
of the prisoner at ' the t
into
time the act was com-
mitted, and also takingconsiderationatwoiildjustify
the
pleasure
utter absence of motive for it,
th
the mercy of the Crown being extenlsextendedto th
e
prisoner.
A respite during her Majesty
morning, and itCwas at
was of course the result, and a formal document
to that cffect was received at the gaol at
e.app,
the under-sheriff of Essex, in the presence of Capt.
oSnpereincgofimelmduonnica3tleodndtoaythe prisoner by Mr. ri
M'Gorrery, the newly-appointed governor of the
ined
an idea that her life would be spared, and the com-
prison. She seemed to hate all along entertained
munication, therefore, did not seem to have so
much effect upon her as it otherwise would have
done, and she merely expressed her thanks, and
then shed a few tears. As a matter of prudence she
was informed of the terms of the respite, and that
the sentence was merely postponed during her Ma-
, jesty's pleasure ; but, of course, there is no chance
of the capital punishment being inflicted, but,