The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-02 00:00:00

THE MURDER AT BRAMALL.

The murder of James Henderson, farmer, at
Bramall, Cheshire, at an early hour on Wednesday
morning, when he was shot dead while asleep in
bed, has created the most intense interest through-
out the neighbourhood, and great numbers of
people have already visited the scene of the tragical
occurrence. In the accounts given in the Suit of
yesterday several mysterious circumstances, incon-
sistent with the story told by James Henderson,
the eldest son, of the house having been entered by
burglars were briefly glanced at. The arrest of
this son, who is 34 years of age, on his return from
Manchester, after the despatch of our report, on
Wednesday evening, by Mr. Andrews, chief
superintendent of the Cheshire county police, on
suspicion of having murdered his father, removes
the necessity of withholding these and other detaEs
attending the murder which it was then thought
desirable to keep back. It would be gathered '
from that report that on Tuesday night 11 persons
went to bed at Hardy's farm, including—the
deceased in one bedroom ; the prisoner in a bed-
room adjoining his father's, on the left hand as
approached from the staircase ; and Mrs. Hender-
son, deceased's wife, and a married daughter, Jessie,
in a bedroom on the same floor, to the right of the
deceased's. There are three bedrooms over the
ground floor apartments in front of the
house. Another daughter, Jane, slept in a small
room on the same fluor, but looking to the back
of the house. The doors of all these rooms open into
a short passage, and only a few yards in length at the
top of a staircase, of two flights of six steps each.
At the bottom of the upper six steps is a landing
where the stairs turn, lighted by a square window
glazed with small diamond shaped panes of glass
set in lead. In one of two attics, ascended from
the passage thus described by two other flights of
six steps, slept the other son, Thomas Henderson,
and a servant man and a servant boy. In this room
was also a sheep dog. The other attio was occupied
by a servant woman. Two Irish lads, outdoor farm
servants, slept in a granary entered from the farmyard
by a flight of stone steps. These members of the
household retired to their chambers at various hours
on the Tuesday evening. Thos. Henderson, who had
been sent to get his shoes mended, returned home
and went to bed about ten o'clock, when he found
that his father had already retired, his usual prac-
tice being to go to bed between 8 and 9 o'clock. The
servants, male and female, had also retired. His
mother, who had arrived late from Manchester,
where she had been with horse and cart, driven
by a man-servant, to fetch grains to feed cattle with,
went to bed soon afterwards with her daughter.
James, the eldest son, who had returned from his
employment as cashier of Messrs. Sanders, Son, and
Co., cornfactors, Manchester, ten miles distant,
about 7 o'clock, was the last to retire to bed, an-1 is
supposed to have been up until 12 o'clock. His
. stot y
is, that he was awoke at 2 o'clock by hearing the
discharge of a pistol in his father's bed-room. He
knew it was a pistol shot, because be could distin-
guish the sound of a pistol shot from that of a gun.
He got outof bed and laid hold of a double-barrelled
gun, and then opened his bedroom door, and, see-
iug somewhat indistinctly a tall man near the win-
dow at the bottom of the first flight of six steps of
the staircase, he fired at him. The charge was one
of smal around shot (aboutjNo. 6), and went partly
through the right-hand corner pane of glass at the
top of the window, and partly against the plaster
wall by the side of the window. He says the
man screamed and took to flight, and that then
a light he had seen in his father's room was ex-
tinguished, and that two or three men rushed from

that bedroom, and made their escape down stairs,
in front of his own bedroom door. A cry of
" robbers !" was then raised by others members of
the family, his brother joined him, and they went
down stairs ; but the burglars had escaped, and
they afterwards found that their father had been
shot dead, and that the door of a sitting-room down
stairs had been opened, a leathern writing-case torn
open, and 141. 10s. abstracted. The table drawer
in the father's bedroom containing 1001., a banker's
receipt for 931. 10s. and a wa'ch had not been dis-
turbed. The first thing in all these particulars,
when first related to the police, which excited re-
mark, was that out of so numerous a household
James Henderson alone should have seen anything
of the murderers. Several members of the family
speak of hearing a shuffling of feet on the staircase,
as if some persons had run down it, but the noise
was not as if they had shoes on, or if they had, as
if something was wrapped over the soles to deaden
the sound. The prisoner states that it was usual
to keep a loaded doable-barrelled gun in his room
after the annual cattle sales, when money might be
supposed to be in the house, and yet it would ap-
pear that one of the outer doors had been left un-
fastened—no appearance of a forcible entry being
anywhere perceptible—or that such carelessness
had been observed during the previous evening as
to enable some of the murder era to conceal them-
selves in the house. Another point which natur-
ally excited attention was, that the prisoner, at the
time he kept a loaded gun in his bedroom to guard
against robbers, should have left his leathern writ-
ing-case, from which he says the burglars have ab-
stracted 141. 10e. of his money upon the table of
the sitting-room, the door of which was left un-
fastened. Then it must be supposed that the dog
he trd no strange footsteps about the house, or he
would have given some alarm. These are all cir-
cumstances compatible with the prisoner's inno-
cence, but they have no doubt had some weight
with the police in putting him under restraint. But
there are other circumstances which are of far
greater importance, and which had naturally
much weight in deciding the course to be taken.
One of these is, that the small round shot
extracted from the head of deceased on a post
moitem examination are of about the same
size and description as those found iu the plaster of
the wall fired from the prisoner's gun. The papers
used as wadding in both discharges were also not
only found to correspond with each other, but with
paper found in the prison is dressing-table drawer.
For instance, in the dressing-table drawer have
been fi and f it rages of a 12rno. cheap publication
headed " The Cot age Girl, or the Marriage Day,"
forming a sixth part of a sheet of demy twelves.
The first of these pages are numbered 1,185 and
1,186, and the other two are pages 1,199 and
1,200. On examining the wadding paper found on
the bet of the murdered man one scrap is found
among it forming the corner of page 1,198 of the
same publication. The type is the same and there
is enough letter-press on the scrap to identify it as
part of the same tale which occupies page 1,199.
Then the wadding of the gun-charge which took
effect on the side of the window of the staircase,
and which is said to have been fired by the pri-
soner at the murders, is in the hands of the police,
and is easily identified as part of the same publica-
tion of the same tile. These facts were in pos-
session of the police on Wednesday evening, when
the prisoner, who had been to Manchester that
day (after the murder) returned home, and Mr.
Superintendent Andrews, after consulting Captain
Smith, chief constable of the county police force,
and Mr. Little, deputy-constable, at once decided
on taking him into custody. Mr. Andrews told
him, on doing so, that he was charged with the
murder of his father, and he replied • Indeed, on
what
raettvgh
erarotyuint would
strongTu'
Mbr'eAndrews told him that titers
groundsld of
necessary
suspitchiaotn
heag saihnosut
ld he
detained in custody until the facts were more fully
investigated. He made no attempt at resistance,
and was soon afterwards conveyed to the county ,
lockups at Stockport, where he is still confined.
Yesterday morning the prisoner was brought
privately before Colonel Davenport, a magistrate of
the county of Chester, at the lockups, and was re-
mended until Tuesday next. The inquest on the
body of the father was also opened yesterday
evening, but too late for a report to reach for thie
day's publication. It was understood, however, to
be the intention of Mr, Johnlon, the coroner, to