The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-28 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

ALLEGED MANSLAUGHTER.-At the Norwich Assizes,
Susan Roof, an attendant at the Norwich Lunatic Asylum,
.has been charged with feloniously killing Susan Calvin.
The deceased, who was an inmate of the asylum, applied
to the prisoner for a black draught, and, with Roof's
permission, she went to a cupboard to get it. She,
however, took a bottle containing carbolic acid by mis-
take, and died about two hours afterwards from swallow-
ing a portion of the contents. The bottle containing
the carbolic acid was labelled " poison," but the deceased
could not read. The bottles containing the carbolic acid
and the black draught were very similar in appearance.
The charge against the prisoner was based on her alleged
negligence in allowing the deceased to help herself to
medicine, instead of administering it to her herself, as
prescribed by the rules :f the asylum. The jury, however
acquitted the prisoner.
DBERAUDING AN INSURANCE COMPANT.-At the Liver-
pool Assizes, Julia Regan was charged with feloniously
causing a false entry of the death of Catherine Regan to
be inserted in the register of deaths for the district of St.
Martin, Liverpool, and also with uttering a certified
copy of the same. The prisoner was charged
under the 3Gth section of 24th and 25th Victoria,
cap. 93, and it appeared from the evidence of
several officers of the Liver Friendly Burial Society that
Catherine Regan was entered as a member of that
society, and any person producing a certificate of her
death would become entitled to £3. The prisoner pro-
duced to the cashier of the society a certificate of death,
which had been obtained by telling the doctor that a girl
named Regan, whom he had attended for bronchitis, had
since died, whereupon he granted his certificate without
actually seeing the body (a course which the learned judge
condemned as very unsafe), and thereby obtained the sum
in question. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Sen-
tence deferred.

ALLEGED WIFE MIIRDER.—At the same assizes, Mr.
Justice Mellor had before him Richard Phythian, who was
charged with the wilful murder of his wife Mary Phythian,
at Eccleston, on the 2nd of January last. It appeared
that the prisoner and his wife, together with his brother
and wife and several friends, were drinking together on
New Year's night, at a public-house. They left at mid-
night and went to the brother's house, where the deceased
became sick and ill from drink, and was taken home
by a woman named Seddon. As soon as Mrs. Seddon
returned the prisoner started off home, very drunk
indeed, and nothing more was seen of either until
the prisoner called them tip at his brother's house at six
o'clock in the morning, and told them that his wife was
(lead. On going to the house they found the deceased
sitting in her chair, dressed with the exception of her cap,
quite dead, and.the floor of the room covered with pools
of blood. There was no blood in any other part of the
house, but there were slight traces on the prisoners' boots
and on the bed-clothes. The prisoner said he did not know
what had happened, but when he came down in the morn-
kg be found his wife in the chair dead, and the house covered
with blood. The deceased, who was in the family-way, died
from hemorrhage, which must have been instant and exces-
sive, and which was produced by a lacerated contused wound,
which it was said must have been the result of violence.
The evidence of the doctor was that a kick would be very
probable violence to produce it, while there was nothing
in the room which in his opinion could have caused it, and
it was put for the prosecution that the prisoner must in his
drunkenness have so caused it. No one besides the pri-
soner and the deceased were in the house during the night,
and voices were heard by the next-door neighbour in the
middle of it, but nothing in the way of screams. Instead
of being a violent man, the prisoner was shown to have
always been most kind to his wife, and to have lived happily
with her during the eight years they had been married,
The defence was that there was no direct evidence what-
ever that the injury was produced by a kick, or by the
prisoner at all, and that the doctor might be wrong in his
impression that the room contained nothing which could
have produced it. For instance, if the sofa had been at
one time tilted on one side, so as to have a projecting leg,
against which the deceased had fallen, it might have been
so produced. His lordship said to the jury that this case
was at the most manslaughter, and the jury, without
hesitation, acquitted the prisoner altogether.

THE DROYLSDEN MURDERER.

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Timothy Faherty, who will be executed on this day week
for the murder of Mary Hanmer, seems to be fully con-
scious that there is no hope of mercy being extended to
him. We have already stated that Faherty passed twelve
years as a private soldier in the 40th Regiment ; and we
are now enabled to give the following additional particu-
lars :—The convict, who is 30 years of age, is a native of
the town of Galway, where his mother, who is a widow,
is at present residing. He joined the army at an early
age, and never revisited Galway after his enlistment. At
the expiration of the term for which he had enlisted,
Faherty claimed and was allowed his discharge; and shortly
before Christmas 1866 he came to Manchester, where he
has several relatives residing. He obtained work at
Droylsden, and there formed that int:macy with Mary
Hanmer which has had such a deplorable result. The con-
vict regularly corresponded with his mother, and in his
letters just before Christmas he seems to have frequently
referred to his return home as a thing that might be ex-
pected any day. In conversation with acquaintances at
Drolysden, also, Faherty stated his determination to
re-visit his home in a short time ; and on the 23rd De-
cember he informed his mother that that would be the last
letter she would receive from him—meaning, doubtless,
that he would speedily follow it in person. It will also
be remembered that in the last conversation he had with
his victim and Mrs. Broderick, previous to the murder,
Faherty said he was going home, and asked them if they
had any messages to send. He says now that at that
time he had not the slightest intention of murdering the
deceased. The ferocious barbarity with which the deed
was committed has, however, deprived him of the plea
which might otherwise have been made for him on the
ground of the apparent absence of premeditation. His
unhappy mother heard of his arrest on a charge of murder
on the day when she had expected that he would
have been with her in Galway. The meeting between
them, after thirteen years of separation, took place in the
prison cell before the trial, and it was of an extremely
affecting character. An effort has been made to obtain
the intervention of the convict's former commanding
officer in his favour, but the reply was, of course, that
nothing of the kind could be dune. The convict's friends
have seen hi►n once since his condemnation.—Manchester
Guardian.

At a congregation, held at Cambridge on Thurs-
day, the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on Cap-
tain M. F. Maury, the well•known investigator of ocean
currents.

MR. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN.—This gentleman
continues to occupy quarters in the Four Courts' Marshal-
sea, Dublin. He is daily visited by a large circle of friends
and sympathisers, many of whom present him with some
delicacies of the season, books, periodicals, and other
acceptable gifts. He engages himself during the entire
day in reading the different papers with which he is
supplied so elaborately, corresponding with the American
and Irish papers, and in looking over lectures and other
manuscripts. He expects his release very shortly, after
which he proposes addressing audiences in Dublin on the
subject of the bankruptcy laws in Ireland and their per-
nicious effects. He will then proceed to lecture in the
principal towns in the south and west of Ireland ; thence
to England and Scotland, previous to taking his fare-
well departure to the American continent. Subsequent to his
landing in the New World, Mr. Train anticipates a recep-
tion of unparalleled popularity. As regards the kindness
of the officials of the Marshalsea, and the facilities extended
to him in every shape and form, Mr. Train expresses him•
self in the strongest terms of admiration. He occasionally
lectures to his associates confined within the precincts of
of the Marshalsea, and his observations have invariably
been listened to with unusual attention by his hearers.--
irish Times.

CONFESSION OF THE SELBY MURDERER.
Frederick Parker, who has been sentenced to death
for the murder of Daniel Driscoll, at Selby, near York,
on the morning of the Ist inst., has made a confession
of his crime. The document is a long one, and is dated
the 21st instant. In it he says that himself and his
victim lay down together by a large stack ; that shortly
before six o'clock in the morning, hearing a cock, he
said it was time to be going before the farmer got up. He
then proceeds with his confession as follows : " So we
started off again, and went on the road towards Robin-
son's Plantation, and against some thorns we stayed while
it got a bit lighter, and while we were standing there he
felt something falling upon his boot, and he thought it
was some money, and he felt on the ground and found it
was sixpence. Then he felt in his pocket to see if he had
lost any more ; he said if he had lost his coin he might
go back to London as soon as he liked, but lie had it
rol, and he counted it, and put it into a little purse, and
put it into his pocket, and then he knelt down to pull
off his boot and see if there was any money in it, but
there was not ; lie put it on again, and was fastening it,
when I struck him with a hedge-stake on the head,
when he fell, and I struck him two or three times more,
and took the watch and chain and the money from him,
and he rolled into the ditch, where I left him, but I bad
thought of doing the deed before we left Beverley, but
I did not do it until about a quarter to six on Sunday
morning, the Ist March." From this point Parker gives
a history of his proceedings up to the time of his appre-
hension.