The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-26 00:00:00

THE ALLEGED CHARGE OF FENIANIS3t.

Maurice Lyttleton, Florence Macarthy, and
Jarries Richardson, were placed in the dock, and
arraigned on a charge of traitorously endeavouring
to deprive her :Alaj.,:sty of the style, honour, and
name of the Imperial Crown of the United King-
dom ; and also with feloniously adminsterin2,:
treasonable oath to take up arias in the Fenian
cause to Thomas Boutelt.

The prisoners pleaded not guilty, and they were
then removed.

CHARGE OF ATTEMPTING TO MURDER.

James Clancy was indicted for shooting Police-
sergeant Chown and Constable Chamberlayne with
intent to murder.

Mr. GiffarJ, Q.C., appeared for the prosecution,
and Mr. Ribton defended the prisoner.

It will be recollected, from the full report of the
examination of the prisoner which appeared in The
Sun during the first examination of the prisoner at
Bow-street police court, before Sir Thomas II enry,
that Chown, having some suspicion of the prisoner,
he, in company with Chamberlayne, watched the
house in which the prisoner resided in Sidmouth-
street, Grays-inn-road, on the 18th of January,
and, on seeing him leave, both the officers followed
him to the corner of Bedford-square, and Chown
went up to him and spoke to Lim, when the priso-
ner drew a revolver, and, after deliberately taking
aim, discharged the piece at him, and then ran away.
Chamberlayne then followed him, when he again
fired the pistol at him. A coachman named Hurst
stopped the prisoner as he was running, but at the
moment he was not enabled to secure. him. A
struggle took place, when Chamberlayne came up,
and whilst he was endeavouring to take the pistol
from the prisoner the pistol was again discharged.
This time Chamberlayne had a narrow escape, as
his whiskers were singed by the fire from the pistol,
and some grains of gunpowder were afterwards dis.
covered in the constable's hair.
The above facts having been proved in evidence,
and also that he was a deserter from the 35th com-
Ipany of the Royal Engineers,
Mr. Ribton, in addressing the jury for the pri-
soner, said be presumed, after hearing the evidence
that had been adduced—the charge against the pri-
soner being that of shooting,with intent tomurder—
they would be of opinion that it had altogether
failed to prove the case, but if they were
of opinion that the prisoner fired the
pistol in resisting his lawful apprehension there
could be no doubt about that, and he could not
struggle against a conviction. He could not sit
down without making a few observations, and he
might, in the first instance, ask them whether they
reasonably believed that there was a settled convic-
tion
in the mind of the prisoner to murder Chown,
because if they were not of that opinion they could
not find him guilty of the first indictment. There
was also an entire absence of all motive for his
attempting to murder Chown ; anl with regard to
the prisoner carrying a revolver with him,
the prisoner was the only person who could
give a satisfactory account. The present were very
troublous times, and it might be that he carried it
for his own protection, and from the fact that he
saw the two constables in plain clothes watching
him, he might have thought that they were intent
upon doing him some personal injury, and therefore
he fired the pistol for the purpose of preventing him
following him any further. Had the prisoner hit
the constable, that, as the learned Judge would tell
them, was murder, but if they had not a settled
conviction that he had a decided intention of carry-
ing out a design which he had in his mind of
killing Chown when he discharged the pistol
they couli not find him guilty of murder.
The shot fired at Chamberlayne he (Mr. Rib-
ton) also urged upon them, was fired with
the same intention of deterring him from following
him any further. With regard to the third shot there
appeared to be much doubt. Hurst, one of the
witnesses, said it was fired at him ; whilst another
witness, Davis, said he was present at the time, and
he saw the pistol, and the barrel of the weapon was
then pointing in the air, so the fair inference was
that the pistolhad gone off by accident, and not by
design. Chamberlayne himself said he caught hold
of the revolver and then it went off, so taking that
with the account given by Davis it perfectly coin-
cided. He did not think it would be safe for the
jury to speculate as to the motive which induced
the prisoner to carry the revolver, but he hoped,
under the circumstances, they would take a merciful
view of the transaction and find the prisoner guilty
of the second indictment.

The learned Judge said the prisoner was now
before the jury charged with shooting at Chown
only, and that they were only now inquiring into
his case. The indictment against him was that he
intended to kill the constable, and also with resist-
ing his lawful apprehension, and it remained for
them to say of which of those charges he was guilty
and under the present law they could not find the
prisoner guilty of the attempt to murder without
they were sure that the intent to do so was present
in his mind when the pistol was discharged. It was
quite clear that the learned counsel could not
struggle against a conviction for the minor offence,
but that matter did not rest with the judge or the
counsel—it was entirely a question for the jury.
That was the law of the land. There was no
doubt that the prisoner was a deserter from
the Royal Engineers, and there was also
no doubt that the prisoner fired at the
officer after they had told him they were about to
take him into custody for being a deserter, and they
must judge what his purpose was when he commit-
ted the act.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty of shooting
at Chown, and with resisting his lawful apprehen-
sion.

Baron Bramwell said the jury having found the
prisoner guilty, it became his duty to pass upon
him the sentence of the law, and not of his. The
law said that a person committing such an offence
as that of which the prisoner had been found guilty
should be liable to penal servitude for life. The
jury had not found the prisoner guilty of shooting
with intent to murder, but the case was as bad a
one as could well be, and the Legislature had told
him (the learned Judge) what to do, and h e
therefore sentenced him to penal servitude for life.
The learned Judge directed a reward of £lO to
be paid to each of the two constables, Chown
and Chamberlain, and also to Hurst.