The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-24 00:00:00

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4sh:rnal, and let her jump up for it."
1 I said I would rather go to my grave
We went to the King of Prussia a.
shilling at Mrs. Davidson's. (Laughte_
for me on. the Monday morning and askia
got it. I said no, I was sum 1 could not gtTit
any shop in the town, No one would sell it. I had
not tried to get it. I said I would have nothing
more to do with it, and if she wanted it she could
get it some way else.' She said I was to say nothing
about it. She said, "Itis a bad job; I will be his
end some way or another." She said, "It is very
hard." I said I would have nothing to do with it.
Other witnesses having been examined whose
testimony was chiefly corroborative of what has
already been given,
The medical men who had made the post-mortem.
examinations of the two bodies said that they had
found large quantities of arsenic in the body of the
woman. They had not yet completed their analysis
in the case of Horsley, and the inquiry was ad-
journed till the 2d of May to enable them to do so.

EXECU:

'RECON.

The final sentence of the law was carried into
effect in front of the county gaol at Brecon, at
eight o'clock yesterday morning, upon William
Williams, who was convicted at the Brecon
Assizes, in March, for the wilful murder of his
aunt on the 19th of October, 1860. The culprit
had lived in the service of an uncle, on a farm
about seven miles from the house where his aunt
resided at. Fawydden, Talgnrth, about 20 miles
from Hereford. Williams slept at her house on
the night of the 18th October, and seemed on good
terms with his relative. He brought with him a
gun, which he Usually carried about his uncle's
farm for bird-shooting. The next day, in the after-
noon, his sister went into an adjacent field for some
hay, taking with her a little boy, an_ illegitimate
son of the aunt ; Williams was at this time in the
fold-yard, and his victim was in the house, sitting
in a highbacked chair by the fire, picking wool.
Just as the sister was returning, she heard thd
report of firearms, and ranning forward met her
brother aiming out of the house, who exclaimed,
" That his aunt had shot herself." On entering the
room the body of the murdered woman was found
in the chair, in a sitting posture, and the muzzle of
the gun had been placed so close to her that the
flame from the powder had absolutely set her dress
on fire. The Slugs, with which the gun had been
loaded, passed completely through the-body of the
unhappy woman, entering at her back, and passing
through the heart out of the body. Whnn
into custody, the, prisoner said, " The
off by accident while hie was passing through the
door,'' but he subsequently told the superintendent
of police and his wife, and also the chief constable
of the county, that he shot the poor. woman, his-+
words being," I did it ; I did it with all my heart to
get possession of her property, for I had no home."
It will be remembered that the testimony given by
the sister, a young woman more than 20 years of
age, exhibited a lamentable degree of ignorance.
She was not aware of the nature of an oath, and
her belief in a future state was merely to the extent
that perhaps there was one. She did, however,
believe in the existence of a God, and his power
to punish her if she did wrong. The moral charac-
ter of the murdered woman was very much tainted.
Since the culprit's sentence, which was accompanied
by a recommendation to mercy, but -which Mr. Jus-
tice Ryles warned him could hardly be expected to
avert his doom, the miserable youth (for he was only
19 years of age), for the first time subsequent to the
crime, appeared to realise his awful situation. He
has been attended with the most sedulous earnest-
ness by the Rev. David Price, B.D, chaplain to
the county gaol, and his ministrations awakened
the unhappy man to a sense of his atrocious crime.
He has constantly prayed most fervently for pardon
of hii sins, and was fully sensible that all hope for
him in this world was gone. He has been visited
by his relatives, the final parting with whom was
one of the most agonising description. He attended.
Divine service in the chapel on Sunday, and heartily
joined in the responses.. He rose at an early hour
this morning and requested to see the rev, chaplain,
who at once attended him, and continued with him
until the last. Upon the arrival of Mr. Maybury,
the under-sheriff, shortly after half-past 7 o'clock,
that gentleman, accompanied by Mr. Lazenby, the
governor of the gaol; proceeded to the cell, and in-
formed the wretched man that the hour was come
when he must meet his fate. His fortitude quite
forsook him, and he burst into a bitter and pas-
sionate flood of tears, which the exhortations of the
Rev. Mr. Price could not allay. The process of
pinioning having been •gone through with much
difficulty, the culprit rallied a little, and shook hands
affectionately with the governor, thanking him for
his great kindness, and also for that of the officers
of the prison. He acknowledged the justice of his
sentence, but expressed himself in penitence and
hope of a belief that he would receive pardon for his
crime. The procession having arrived at the drop,
the fatal knot was quickly adjusted, and while most
earnestly joining in the Burial Service, as read by
the chaplain, the bolt was withdrawn, and after a
momentary struggle the wretched youth ceased to
exist.

2HE ITALIAN REVOLUIIOY.

If it be true that " history is philosophy teaching
by example," it may not be useless to compare the
events now passing in Italy with the circumstances.
of other great revolutions. Let us turn over the
chronicles of the first French Revolution. Let us
pause for a moment at the memorable time when.
the destruction of the old Monarchy had been con-
summated in France. We may pass on a few more
months, and we find that the King had been put to
death and his office had been abolished, the nobility
were in exile, and the Church had been swept away.
The ground had been cleared, but nothing had been
built up in the place of what had been destroyed.
There was a weak Government and a distracted
people. Many close observers have thought that if
France could at this moment have called to her
service a few courageous men and had met with
some forbearance froth her neighbours she might
h_a:o:leee.u-splimareedtoacllonthsoaltidsahtee
aanftderrwebads endured.urild,aud
she
was not allowed quiet for the task. W hahtaht followeda(lpasd
was the fury of wrong long endured ;w
Was the ferocity of fear. Even Robespierre con-
sented only through terror to the murder of Marie
I Antoinette; even Barrere, the chief murderer, saw
in "waves of blood" only the necessary means of
his own safety. Even earlier still, Robespierre is
said to have decided his hesitating companions, de-
liberating upon the fate of the King, by asking,
"If the King is innocent, then what are you?" The
Reign of Terror, with all its horrors, was a frenzy
of cowardice, The priesthood would not wait and
let the storm pass over, but would excite anti-
revolutionary action in every parish. The emigrant
noblesse would not wait for the moment of return
to calm sentiments. Europe would not wait, but
poured her invading armies upon the frontiers.
There was insurrection at Toulon and at Lyons,
there were conspiracies in Paris, there was disaster
on the frontiers, there was retribution imminent,
and there was a weak and a poor Government.
Then it was that the French Revolution became
horribly formidable in its desperation. It made
itself temporarily safe by the wholesale massacre of
every one it feared, temporarily rich by the whole-
sale confiscation of the property of its enemies, and
triumphant in war by creating armies even out of
the miseries itself had created. This fact, that it
was terror which created terror, has not, we think,
been sufficiently dwelt upon by the historians of
those times ; but it should not be lost sight of now,
when we have again to deal with successful revolu-
tion, and when it becomes again the interest of the
world so to fashion its policy as to prevent the
reiteration of such deeds of bloodshed and of horror.
Southern Italy is at this moment very much in
the condition in which France was in those earlier
and happier stages of her revolution, when, previous
to the erection of the guillotine, liberty was no-
stained with blood ; when despotism was dethroned,
but religion had not been altogether proscribed ;
and when, although resistance had been successful,
Robespierre could obtain sympathy by denonne.
iag " the law which commanded judicial mur-
ders." There are, however, some other points
of resemblance which are more disquieting.
Like France in the early days of 1792 Southern

Italy has become the very focus of ecclesiastical
intrigue. Emissaries from Rome are exciting
unavailing but irritating insurrections in every
town and every village. Money is squandered to
get up reactionary demonstrations at every fete to
which the populace resort. The telegraph is used to
enable a small number of conspirators, spread over
a large space, the opportunity of making an appear-
ance of strength by simultaneous action. The clergy
are always found working the details of these move-
ments, and are always able to foretell them. At
Naples, during the Easter week, all the prisons
were to have been opened, and religion and order
were to be restored by the aid of the bandits and
assassins who were then to be let hose. The gaolers
had been gained over to the good cause, and the city
owes its preservation from pillage to the vigilance
of the National Guard, aided by a happy accident.
When the discovery had grace, when the
prisons had been surrounded and the threatened

THE SUSPECTED MURDER AND

SUICIDE AT CARLISLE.

CARLISLE, A= 22.

The inquest on the bodies of William Horsley,
aged 23, and his mother-in-law, Jane Davidson,
aged 49, who died at Carlisle on Friday, the 12th
inst., under the extraordinary circumstances already
reported, was resumed to-day before Mr. Carrick,
the county coroner, and a respectable jury.
The first witness examined was Margaret Robin-
son, a married daughter of the deceased woman,
who had been an inmate of the house on the night
of the suspected murder. Mrs. Davidson, she said,
had kept the King of Prussia Inn at Penrith before
she came to Carlisle at Candlemas last, and William
Horsley boarded there with his wife, till she died,
as was said, of bronchitis. Horsley subsequently
came to a draper's shop in Carlisle, and went over
to Penrith occasionally to visit his mother-in-law,
who came to Carlisle to the Pack-horse Inn at
Candlemas. After that Horsley visited the house
almost nightly. Witness denied that she knew of
any improper intimacy existing between Horsley
and his mother-in-law, but said that she thought a
great deal more of him than of any of her own
children. Horsley went to the Pack-horse on
Thursday night, the 11th inst. He was quite sober,
and Mrs. Davidson was quite sober when the other
inmates retired to rest, leaving them together in
the kitchen. Next morning Horsley was found
dead in the kitchen; her mother, Mrs. Davidson,
Horsley's, mother-in-law, was seized with great
sickness, and did not express any surprise at
being so ill. There was no cup or drinking ves-
sel in her bedroom or in the bar which could
have contained poison. During the night witness
I had heard her mother come upstairs into the room
in which she (witness) slept with her husband and
rummage in the drawers. She asked her what she
wanted, and her mother replied, that she was look-
ing for a paper. Whether she returned downstairs
or went to her room after she had searched the
drawers, one of which she unlocked, witness could
not say. On Friday afternoon while the jury were
viewing the body of Horsley his mother-in-law
died.
Wm. Whitehead, an upholsterer, who had at one
time lodged at the house of Mrs. Davidson, when
she kept the King of Prussia Inn, but who after-
wards left, gave the following extraordinary evi-
dence:—l never went near Mrs. Davidson after that
till she was going to leave. She sent for me, and
when I went she said unto me, "Whitehead,
we have got a great deal of rats here." I said,
" Have you?" She said, " Yes ; we are nearly wor-
ried with rats," and she said she would give any-
thing to " cure" them. She said, " Can you tell me
what colour strychnine is ?" I said, "No." ' She
said, " Do you think I could easily get to know ?"
1 said,'," Yes ; that will easily be done." I asked a
young man if he knew what colour it was. He
said, " Yes, it is white; it is just like flour." Next
day I went for some tobacco and told her. When
I had, told her some one came into the shop and I
went to my work. She sent for me next day, and
when I went she started talking about strychnine.
She gave me is. I had been off work for some time,
and she thought I could not have much. She talked
on a little bit, and said, "Do you think you could get
me ls. worth of strychnine ?" I said, " What
for ?" She said, " I want these rats cured." I
said, "You can cure them without strychnine." She
said, " Well, you like revenge yourself, don't you ?"
" Yes," I said, " but there are many ways of having
revenge." She said, " That is mine." I said,
" What is it ?" She did not exactly say at first, and
I said, " If you want revenge you should get it as I
get it ; you should lay wait till you get it without
anything of that kind." She said,
" Will you swear
you will not mention it to any one ?" I said I would
not repeat it. She said, " Well, I must tell you the
truth ; it is for Horsley." That was before he came
to Carlisle. I said to her, " Why do you want it
for him ?" She said he had behaved very badly to
her. I said, " In what way r She very she had
bought him all his furniture that ever he had when
he,went to housekeeping, and she could get nothing
back. He had taken it home; and she said she
had done many things for him besides which she
did not wish to mention at that time, but she would
tell me some time. I asked her, and said she might
as well tell me then. I said, " If it is for him, Mrs.
Davidson, I would advise you to have nothing to
do with it. You will get yourself into a hobble'
over it." And then she said, "Never mind ; if you
will only get it for me you need never mind." She
said she would do as much for me some time when
she had the power. (Much laughter.) She did
not mean anything of that kind ; she meant she
would give me some money.
A Juror—Perhaps she would do it to keep you
from telling it again.
Witness continued—l said, " Well, I will see."
My blood. ran cold, and I did not know what
to say to her. I shut the door and went across
home. There was a 3 oung man who lodged at the
same place, and I told him. I said she had given
me (4 §billing. said, 11 Come: Ist us spud tho

localities occupied in force, when the peril was past
and there was leisure to investigate the circum-
stances of the conspiracy, it became plain that the
plotters were amongst the highest in rank of the
nobility and the clergy. Thousands of stands of
arms, magazines of ammunition, had been bought
and laid up by these noble and reverend conspira-
tors, as the instruments in the bloody struggle they
were about to evoke. These were to furnish forth
that army of the faith which was to be recruited
among the thieves and murderers of the Neapolitan
prisons. A parish priest was ringing the alarm bell
when the National Guard surrounded him. Three
bishops of the Church are compromised by written
proofs of their part in this nefarious attempt, and
many nobles of the Court of Francis 11. are dis-
tinctly shown to have been parties to the projected
alliance between counter-revolution and crime. This
frustrated conspiracy does not appear to have been
an isolated case. It is but part of a system. The
same party are accused of instigating assassinations
in the streets and of omitting no means to create
confusion and destroy society. The lower classes,
who in Naples are always hungry and who desire
ever to be idle, are tempted to rise and plunder in
the name of the King •, acts of violence are con-
stantly being committed against the officials of the
present Government by those who avow themselves
partisans of Francis II.; and all these people are
acting, combining, and conspiring under the eye of
the Revolutionary Government by which they are
protected. Nothing is wanted but that Austria
should issue from her fortresses, and the parallel
between France just before the Reign of Terror and
Naples at the present moment would be almost
complete.
For the sake of all classes and all parties in that
beautiful land we would ask a hearing for a word of
warning. This state of things cannot endure. Society
cannot exist under it. If the reactionist nobility
and clergy elect to reside in Naples under the pre-
sent Government they do SD under the tacit condi-
tion of engaging in no act of hostility to that Go-
vernment. If they make themselves the accomplices
of the criminal population of the city they will
terrify the inhabitants for their safety and their pro-
perty. Irritation and fear will work out their com-
mon results. The weak Government of Victor Em-
manuel—for hitherto the Government of Victor
Emmanuel is weak in the southern extremities of
his new kingdom—will not be able to restrain the
frenzy of a population trembling for its own safety
and having in its power the enemies of whose in-
cessant machinations it is the victim. It there is
anything to be learnt from history there is danger
lest the Italian Revolution pass into a bloody phase.
Is this the desire of Francis 11. ? Perhaps it may
bpeiu;kifuogr tuhperheis
might
tn
the confusion. But that
it the desire of Napoleon 111., who protectsall these evils
be some small. chance
Bofuthiiss
workshop of conspiracies whence
Christendom," who at least is
t.
responsibility of these tenta Ives to massacre
the
emanate ? Again, is it the d.essiorefarf thhuerd"eFueadthweritohf
d.
people of Italy will be still courageous an
'l
-doers
that lie has the power to prevent them ? We hope
he
longsuffering—not weak against these evil-doers,
,
but still steadfast against panic impulses to shed
blood in terror. But surely the friends of order
have some duty in this crisis ? Surely it is not to
be allowed to them to aid in tempting a people be-
fond the power of endurance, and then to exclaim
in indignation if violence should follow P—Tinies.

Copious showers of rain fell yesterday at South-
ampton, *and hopes were entertained that the long drought
and easterly winds were over. Towards the latter part of
the day, however, the wind shifted round to its old quarter.
WARNING TO SMOKERs.--On Friday afternoon,
John Ham, a butcher, aged 61, in the employ of his brother,
at Dedham, was sent to Higham, Suffolk, with two joints of
meat in his basket. Whilst walking home across the fields.
from Stratford to Dedham, between five and six, he dis-
covered the skirts of his coat to be in a blaze, having been
ignited by a lighted tobacco pipe which he put in his pocket
after smoking. He immediately endeavoured to, strip
off his clothes, when he felt suffocated and remained insen-
sible,o.
until two men, subsequently hearing his cfri.lib, body
sistance, came and found everything burnt
„.:20wed a shirt
except his boots.
lin2bs, they
Having, we understand, b°,-- -6
at Stratford Hall, to cover the poor all°
c:ustion, and he
removed him home in a state of greatt one o'cloak. in the
gradually sank until five minutes pmt was quite sensible
morning, when he,expired. ititunsalcia:
and sober at the time he was although 'somewhat
~ lowa at Dedham, as a rather
fond of drink. He was vi,Mcutal. He has bit a, wife AO
eccentric but harmleffe int."'" 17 7,7
filtWilY 91 OA% 9414114;91'..
§,140 &from,