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

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE,

HOME CIRCUIT.—MAIDSTONE, JULY 30.
(Before Mr. Justice Blackburn.)
Henry Croucher, a young man, surrendered to
take his trial for the manslaughter of Henry Miles.
Mr. Russell prosecuted, and Mr. Ribton was
counsel for the defence.
It appeared that the prisoner was employed to
frighten birds from an orchard, and he had a gun
loaded with shot for that purpose. While he was
watching he saw something black in a tree at some
distance off, and imagining it to be a bird he
thoughtlessly fired at the object. It unhappily
turned out that the deceased, a young lad, had
climbed up into a cherry tree, and that he was the
object aimed at. He received the whole of the con-
tents of the gun in his body, and died almost imme-
diately afterwards. The unfortunate deceased, it
appeared, was trespassing, and had no business
whatever to be in the tree, and the prisoner ex-
pressed the deepest regret at what had taken place ;
and there was no doubt that to a certain extent the
unhappy catastrophe was the result of accident.
Mr. Ribton made a very able address to the jury
on behalf of the prisoner, in the course of which he
, earnestly urged them not to add to the misery he
had already undergone by convicting him as a
felon. when it was perfectly clear he had not the
slightest intention to injure the deceased, or any
reason to believe that it was a human being in the
tree when he fired.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

(Before Mr. Justice -Williams.)
George Brett, an aged man, who appearedto beto
paralysed and hardly able to walk, surrendered
be tried upon a charge of bigamy.
Mr. Meadows conducted the prosecution.
This was rather a singular case. It appeared
that the prisoner was first married at Canterbury
so long ago as the years 1823, and a few year after-
wards the prisoner's wife left him, and in 1843 he
was again married to a woman named Mary Anne
Leman. The second wife, it appeared, was aware
that the prisoner had been married before, but he
told her his first wife was dead, and they continued
to live together until last February, when the
second wife became lunatic, and she was removed
to her legal settlement at Camberbell, in her maiden
name of Mary Anne Leman. From something that
subsequently transpired the relieving officer of
Camberwell went to make some inquires of the pri-
soner, in anwer to which he told him that his mar-
riage with his second wife did not hold good, as he
had a wife living at the time. The relieving officer,
upon hearing this, told the prisoner he would get
into trouble if he did not mind; to which he said,
"I trust in the Lord, for I have taken the advice of
one of our divines (the prisoner, as it appeared, was
a Wesleyan), and he told me that under the cir-
cumstances of my wife going away and committing
adultery, I could marry again."
The prisoner, when called upon for his defence,
made a rambling statement to the effect that he
lived with his mother, and she became so old that
she was not able to do up the house, and Mary
Anne Leman, the second wife, came to the place as
charwoman. The period of seven years having
passed away, he said that people used to come to his
house and say, " Brett,
you look very comfortable ;
you may as well marry Mary Anne Leman." He
said that his first wife went away with another
man, and he did not know whether she was alive
or not, and, under the circumstances, he thought he
was justified by the Bible in marrying again. He
thought that as he had not heard from his first wife
for so many years he was free to receive Mary Anne
Leman as his wife for her kindness to him during
a period of seven years. At the time he married
her he had not heard of his first wife for eighteen
years, and when she went away she told him that
she would rather break her legs then come back
again. (Laughter.) She went to London with an-
other man, and he heard nothing of her till very
shortly after the second marriage, and he then saw
'
her getting out of the train, and she said to him,
" John, I should have been down here before if I
had known,what you were about." (Laughter.)
The jury found the prisoner guilty, and the
learned judge said he would consider what punish-
ment, under the peculiar circumstances of the case,
ought to be inflicted upon him.