The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-03 00:00:00

MURDER AT LANCASTER.

Much excitement has prevaileirduring the past
week in the usually quiet town of Lancaster in con-
sequence of the discovery on Sunday morning, the
22d ult., of the body of a man named John ragg
in an unused stone quarry, abouthalf a mile from the
town. The deceased was.a warehouseman in the
employ of Messrs. Charnley and Co., ironmongers,
and was seen alive by different persons in severat
parts of the town shortly after the midnight of
Saturday, being at the time a little " the worse for
drink." He was traced in the direction of his own
home, in a hamlet about a mile east of the town,
called " Golgotha," and was seen in the company
of two men up to a certain distance in his home-
ward road. Cragg's body, when found accidentally
by an old man who lives at a small house in the
so-called "Scotch" quarry, was lying at the case
of an escarpment 68 feet high, protected above by
a six-feet wall of loose rubble stone. His pockets
had not been rifled, and the only suppositions
which remained to account for his unhappy
death were either suicide, the having mistaken his
path home, or foul play. A most mortem exami-
nation, undertaken by Mr. Hare, surgeon, disco-
vered that the liver was doubly ruptured ; the heart
ruptured at the apex of the right ventricle, and an
external wound on_ the left temple, corresponding
with an internal depression of the bone beneath.
The brain and abdominal viscera were perfectly
healthy, but a fracture of the skull, extending from
the wound on the temple across the base of the
temporal bone, nearly separa' ed it into two pars.
The indefatigable exertions of Mr. Wright, the
borough superintendent of police, led, in the course
of Sunday, to the apprehension of two men who had
been last seen with the daceased. Much evidence of
an inculpatory character was adduced before Mr.
R. Hind°, the Mayor, and a bench of btlrongh
magistrates at three examinations hold on Monday,
Tuesday, and Thursday. The character and extent of
the evidence may be gathered from a brief summary.
The two men were heard quarrelling with Cragg,
and one of them speaking to him in a threatening
manner on his way home. A prostitute deposed
that she overheard that night the other prisoner
vowing vengeance against some one whose name
she could not catch. The two prisoners were found
by a labourer in a barn on a firm called Highfield,
about half a mile from the quarry, early next morn-
ing, and one of them began a conversation about
Cragg, with whom he sa,d he had had a quarrel
the night before. Added to this, the other pri-
soner had been repeatedly known to express ani-
mosity towards the unfortunate man for the share
he had had in his apprehension and conviction for
burglary in 1852. The discovery of the poor man's
cap a few hundred yards front the place where
his body was found, marks thereof a heavysubstance
being dragged 'across the footpath, the deceased's
clothes being covered with mud, a breach in the pro-
tecting wall of the quarry larger and differing in the
position and character of the marks on it and of
the thrown off stones from aose which could have
been made by one man, sounds of contention heard
by three or four inmates of the workhouse hard by
about the time when Cragg was last seer, and when
he would be two-thirds of the distance towards his
own house, and a great amount of minor collateral
evidence, all seemed to fix grave suspicion on the
prisoners, while the locality of the quarry precluded
the probability of Cragg's having either committed
suicide or mistaken his way in the bewilderment of
intoxication. The prisoners were remanded till
next Thursday, but pending the inquiry before the
magistrates the jury at the coroner's inquest on
Friday night found a verdict of " Wilful Murder"
against the two men, Nelson and Leach. The for-
mer, as we have already stated, was sentenced five
years ago to transportation, and received a ticket of
leave a few months since. The latter is well known
to the local police as a poacher and man of dissolute
habits.