The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-21 00:00:00

trb 12 bition

SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clock.

THE MURDER AT BRIGHTON.

LEWES ASSIZES, March 20.
(From the Brighton Gazette.)
John Lawrence was placed at the bar, charged, " for
that he, on the 13th March, at Brighton, upon Henry
Solomon, feloniously, wilfully, and of malice afore-
thought, did make an assault, and with a certain poker
in his right hand, did feloniously, wilfully, and mali-
ciously strike and produce a mortal fracture, rupture,
and wound on the said Henry Solomon, of which mortal
fracture, rupture, and wound the said Henry Solomon
died." The prisoner was also similarly indicted on the
Coroner's inquest.
The prisoner at this time betrayed considerable emotion.
Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Cobbett conducted the prosecu-
tion ; Mr. Chadwick Jones appeared for the defence.
Mr. Clarkson then rose and spoke as follows :—lt is im-
possible to conceal from oneself the importance of the me-
lancholy case to which your attention and that of the
public by whom we are surrounded has been directed.
I am instructed by the Commissioners of the town of
Brighton, with the assistance of my Learned Friend,
Mr. Cobbett, to lay the short and melancholy facts be-
fore you. It appears tkat no longer ago than last Wed-
nesday, a week only from the present time, the deceased,
Henry Solomons, in the discharge of his public duties,was
found in the office which belonged to him in the Town
Hall of the town of Brighton. Between seven and
eight o'clock on that evening, the young man at the
bar had been apprehended for the commission of some
felony-shop-lifting, I believe—at no great distance from
the spot. An officer of the name of Barnden had taken
him into custody, and had brought him -to the police-
office, as it is called, of the Town Hall of Brighton,
where the chief constable Solomon was sitting in a
chair ; and whilst he was there waiting for the arrival of
the witness by whose information the charge was to be
given, Solomon, the officer, put a few questions to him,
one of which was how long he had been in Brighton. I
think he gave a reply which, from information given to
Solomon, he believed was untrue—namely, the prisoner
said he had been there two days, whereas there is
reason to believe he had been there many months ;
and upon Solomon saying, " That is not true;
we know you have been here a fortnight or more,"
the prisoner drew the stock from his neck, threw it
down before him, and said, "I'm tired of my life ;
give me a knife that I may make away with myself,"
and appeared in a state of considerable excitement. So-
lomon offering him no affront, making no suggestion
of the smallest provocation, on the contrary endea-
vouring to soothe him, besought him to compose
himself, told him he was not to be tried there, but
that he IN as merely waiting the arrival of a witness
to enable the charge to be made. He then turned
from the spot where the prisoner stood ; he im-
mediately placed himself in a large chair, which was
nearly opposite, on one side of the fire-place—l don't
know which. There were some other gentlemen in
the room, whom I shall call before you ; and Solomon
was engaged in conversation for a few minutes with those
gentlemen. I believe I have detailed to you everything
that had passed up to this time. In the course of this
conversation the son of Mr. Slight, known to all of you
as the highly-respectable clerk to the Commissioners
of the town of Brighton, who happened to be in the
room, was leaning on the hatch door by which you enter.
He was on one side—his back somewhat turned to the
door. The prisoner rose from the chair, seized the
poker that lay in the fireplace behind him, raised his
hand with the poker in it, and struck a blow on the
uncovered head of Solomon that felled him to the
ground. The poor fellow fell on his hands and knees;
he was utterly incapable of helping himself; and he
had at that moment received his death-blow.
But he was raised by the gentlemen, supported in a
chair, and he became insensible. The man at the bar
made this observation—" I know I have done it; I hope
I have killed him; I hope I shall be hung," or, " I hope
I shall be hanged." I should have told you before, that
which you would expect should immediately follow
such an act, namely, the act of the use of the poker
on the unfortunate Solomon; he was seized by the
young man Slight at the moment. Mr. Slight did not
see the blow struck, for it was struck from behind
him ; but he did see the poker descend on the head of
Solomon, and he did at the moment turn round and seize

the party who must have struck it, and saw the upraised
poker, bent as you will find it was by the force of
the blow, in the hands of the man, and the moment
it was taken from his hand he used the expres-
sions I have named. In these short observa-
tions are contained the whole transactions as
respects the prisoner at the bar. Desirous not to say
anything to aggravate the facts, I shall simply lay the
melancholy case before you ; and you will discharge,
under the direction of his Lordship who presides, a duty
serviceable alike to yourselve and the public.
The witnesses examined before the magistrates and
coroner were then called, and they repeated their former
evidence, which fully corroborated the statement of facts
made by the learned counsel for the prosecution.
Mr. CHADWICK JONES then addressed the jury for
the defence, and contended that the expressions used
by the prisoner in Solomon's office, together with the
entire absence of any conceivable malice or motive,
showed that the prisoner was acting under a sudden
impulse or frenzy, which deprived him temporarily of
reason, and made him an irresponsible agent.
Lord DENMAN then proceeded to sum up, and con-
cluded his observations as follow :—" You will weigh
the whole matter in your minds ; and unless it is clearly
made out to you that the prisoner was actually deprived
of reason at the time he struck the blow, he is clearly
guilty of murder. If you think he was deprived of
reason, he will not be guilty of murder, and you will
acquit him of murder on the ground of insanity. But I
need not say you must be fully convinced of that, before
you say he is not guilty of the murder."
Clerk of the Court—Consider your verdict.
The jury turned round in their box for about 12 mi-
nutes, when they resumed their seats. There was a
breathless silence in the Court, as the Clerk of the
Arraigns inquired, do you find the prisoner, John Law-
rence, guilty of the murder of Henry Solomon, or not
guilty?
Foreman—Guilty.
Clerk of Arraigns.—Prisoner at the bar, you have
been convicted of the crime of wilful murder ; what have
you to say why sentence of death should not be passed
upon you.
The prisoner, who had been greatly agitated during
the time the judge was summing up, was now supported
by the turnkeys ; and
Lord DENMAN at once proceeded to pass sentence.
He warned the prisoner to make use of the few days
which remained to him in this world, in seeking
that repentance which should prepare him for the
next ; and told him that there was not the slight-
est chance that the extreme penalty of the law
would not be inflicted. The sentence of the Court is
—" That you be taken from hence to the gaol for this
county, at Horsham, and thence to the place of exe-
tion, and that there you be hanged by the neck till you
are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul ; and
that your body be afterwards buried is the precincts of
the prison."
The prisoner was then assisted out of the dock in a
highly agitated state; and as he descended the stairs he
gave an earnest gaze on the crowd, as if looking for some
one, but he made no sign of recognition. The trial lasted
three hours.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS •F THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—The Anti-Corn-law League held another
of its " monster meetings" last night in Covent-garden
Theatre. It was marked by as much enthusiasm in the
assemblage, which filled every part of the immense
building, as has been exhibited at any previous meeting.
The unity of the object sought to be attained by the
confederation ; the frequency of the opportunities af-
forded to the public for becoming acquainted with the
question ; and the necessary repetition of the same facts
and arguments by the speakers, many of whom appear
frequently in the same place, to re-state the same facts
and iterate the same arguments, would, ere this, have
paled upon the satiated car of the mere cravers
after novelty. The unabated interest manifested by the
public in the struggle now going on between the advo-
cates of free trade and the supporters of monopoly,
both in the metropoiis and in every part of the king-
dom, demonstrates the firm hold which the question,
now fairly placed in issue, has taken of the national
mind and feeling. The trading and manufacturing parts
of the community regard their means of supporting
themselves and families as bound up with the decision
of this controversy. Their sympathies are, consequently,
with the League ; and while thousands congregate
within the buildings in which the meetings are periodi-
callyor occasionally held, tens of thousands devour the
reports of the proceedings, and thus become increasingly
enlightend by the arguments, and are more deeply im-
pressed by the facts of which the speeches were com-
posed. The meeting of last evening was marked by two
circumstances of some interest. Lord Radnor presided ;
and two tenant-farmers —members of the class for
whose special advantage, if the advocates of the corn-
laws are to be believed, the restriction upon importation
is maintained—denounced the existing system as un-
sound in principle, and as fraught with mischiefs to
the agriculturists ; while it subdues the energies of
commerce and restricts the operations of manufacturing
industry. lii the course of his elaborate opening speech,
Lord Radnor stated a fact—for the correctness of which
he referred to the classification affixed to the population
returns, taken under the Census Act—that " there bas
been for a considerable number of years a gradually
diminishing proportion of the population employed in
the pursuits of agriculture." A collateral fact was also
stated, and proved from the same unquestionable source,
viz., that " contemporaneously with the diminished num-
ber of the people, employed in agriculture, the number
of persons employed in manufactures has increased."
The Noble Lord then proceeded to demonstrate, from
facts, the pitiable failure of the various experiments
which had been tried to protect the farmers from
variable and ruinously-depressed markets, by means of
what has been falsely called " a protective system ;" and
argued that the best security to the farmers and farm la-
bourers would be found in an abolition of the protective
duties. The speech of Mr. Lattimore—who announced
himself "a tenant-farmer, who would satisfy any one
who doubted that he was one "—was replete with facts
and statements strongly confirmatory of the impolicy of
the existing corn-laws, which be described as having
wrought ruin to many farmers within the sphere of his
own immediate knowledge. Mr. Lattimore proceeded to
describe the farming labourers' condition under the
" protective system." Like slavery, it is neither good
for the masters nor for the men:—" But, forsooth, it
was said the corn-laws were necessary to be con-
tinued for the sake of the labourers. If they could
reduce that wretched
_class to a lower state than