The Sun.
London, England, 1818-09-03 00:00:00

CHARLES HUSSEY.

As there is a . disposition in human nature to
rely upon the asseverations of those who, in their
dying moments, assert their innocence of imputed
crimes, and as such is. the effect of What has
been deemed. the confession of this Culprit;
the Public are highly indebted to the Gentleman,
who, in the following Letter, which appears
in The Times of this day, has examined all the
circumstances of the horrid transaction with great
sagacity, and. has supported his inferences• with
such powerful -argunients as can leaVe no doubt
upon any rational mind that Hussey, and'Hussey
'alone,„watr_the Murderer :
The Prn*. priidncid aEainst this tr izibrairr*rtiati;
upon his !rial for the murder of Mr. Bird and his
hon.ekeeper, were so conclusive, that no person
Who Wtts present could doubt the justice of the
verdict. The Jutiae, the Jury, the specotors, !he
Counsel for the prisoner and aeninst him, all kit
the Court impressed with one common feeling of
his guilt.

The public mind has snbsequently been dis-
quieted by tx hat has falsely been called the Con-
fession of Charles Hussey ; and by the doubts of
those who, not forming their judgment upon the
evidence collectively, have s!.ized upon detached
parts, and drawn their conclusions, as if the
proofs rested upon single ciicumstances, and not
upon the general tendency of the whole.
With a 0)01..110) conviction upon my own mind
that Charles Hussey was the very murderer of
Mr. Birth and not a mere accomplice, let me re-
(pest your readers to weigh attentively the fact
established upon the trial, compressed into as nar-
row a compass as possible ; and, having formed
their judgment upon the testimony of (he wit-
nesses, let them determine how far the declara-
tion of the convict weakens or corroborates that
judgment.

I►► vases like the present, direct evidence of the
hand that struck cannot he looked for. It is nei-
ther. in the broad face of day, nor in the presence
of lookers on, that the murderer, in common,
perpetrates his crime. But a chain of circum-
stances will often fix the guilt with equal cer-
tainty upon the criminal, and the very artifices he
uses for concealment will sometimes betray him.
Mr Rini's house, upon the murder being di,.
covered, was "most accurately examined, not by
one person only, but by many ; and it appeared
impossible that the murderer could have entered
the house in any other way than by the street•
door,- andands itasps equally evident that- admission
had not been obtained by violence, for the back
door was bolted en the inside, the shutters ail
fastened on the inside, and no mark of breakiite,
or of iiny instrument having been used Vo force
en entrance, was discoverable. The side gate was
also chained and padlocked
It was proved by Hannah Cooper, 'that on Sa-
turday evening, the 7th February, at 20 minutes
or halt an hour after eight o'clock", 'he house-
epet was seen standing inside Mt. Bird's house
talking with a person at the dour, and that Mr.
Bird was lertnng forward from ti►e parlour. The
time is distinctly marked, for the clock struck 8
as Hannah Cooper lett her house on the. Wool-
wich-road, and, it being a very foggy night, she
walked slowly, and can speak with precision to
he time.

In the hail, where the body of Mary Simmons
was found, was a candlestick with a whole candle
in it, which seemed to hive been-lighted but for
a short time, and to have gone out again. A
quantity of blood had flowed from her wounds,
round the head, in the spot where it then lay :
and near the door was another pool of blood, as
it the body had been removed from .the place
where it fist fell, and which, had it continued to
he there, would have prevented any person, in-
tending to go out at the hall door, from opening
that door, without at t-be same time moving :be
body. The maid had vomited very much in the
hall.

Although the bureau where Mr. Bird kept his
cash and papers had been ransacked, a private
drawer, containing bank-notes, had been over-
looked.

It was proved upon the trial, that a consider-
able quantity of property belonging to Mr. Bird,
and which had been seen in the house a very
sln,rt time before the murders, was in the pri-
soner's possession, and in the same box where a
',Art of this stolen property was found, were
clothes of the prisoner's stained with blood.
One pair of gaiters, identified as the prisoner's,
were not only stained with spots of blood, but
very much marked with splashes of vomiting. The
prisoner absconded. Upon his apprehension be
fabricated a long story, to iniince a belief that he
found the property, bitt this story was coutrat!ieted
in every part by accurate witnesses. lie attempted
to account for himself from the morning of the
Saturday when the murder was perpetrated till the
afternoon of Sunday ; but all the witnesses he
relied on to prove his being at the Tiger's Head
at the time the murder was committed, affirmed,
that the earliest time they could fix hint there was
at a quarter past nine.

It was proved that Charles Hussey was engaged
to dine with his brother, Thomas Hussey, at Peck-
ham, at one o'clock on the Sunday when the mur-
der was discovered ; he did not go there till the
evening, but kept loitering about Greenwich ;
and when his brother asked him ‘i by he did not
come to dinner, his reply was, that there had been
a horrible murder committed in Greenwich, vt hich
had made the town like a fair, and that had pre-
vented him; whereas, to dine with his brother tit

[PRICE SEVENPENCE.

Peckham at one o'clock, he must have set nit at
least an hoar berme she murder was d►scovered.
It %%as therefore evident that he must have had a
;ni►!y knowledge of the murder, and that the rea-
son he gave could not have been the cause of his
not going to dine with hip brother.

• The man_at whose house Hussey kept his clothes
had, about a fortnight before the murder, lost a
cooper's hammer, and with But h a hammer, in the
judgment of several surgeons, were both the Mur-
ders perpetrated. This very instrument was found
in a pond close to the place wbere Hussey's box
was kept, close to the lane where he said he found
the bundle, and close to the coath-house of his
former master, and from which he halt been in the
habit of getting water for cleaning his master's

Had another person been the murderer, he must
first have stolen the hammer from L •I ton's, and
atterwatds, by chance, deposited it, re it would
rorm one link of trelsaiwoVerrcum,titheeS too con-.
fleeted to be all the etft.c, accident.

These were some u.f the principahlreticitstanees
of the evidence upon which the verdict of wilful
tnureer wa, giver, againsi ChArles Hussey. Many
minor circumstances gave additional strength to
the more prominent feat• res ut the case, which it
is the less necessity to dwell upon now, because
a confirmation of the leading facts.are to be round
in flus,ey's declaration ; fur he allows that 'his
very hammer was used in the perpetration of the
minders, that he threw it into the pond w, here
it was found, that he was cognizant of the mur-,
tiers, and that his gaiters became morked,)Fith.
tdood and vomit, in the bail where the body. of
Mary Simmons was found murdered.

Ti'e defence which he set up upon his trial had
been anticipated on the part of the prosectrion,.
and shown by witnesses to be false in all its
parts.
Thus when he stated the time he went 'to the
Tiger's Head Club, as being 7 or 8 o'cloCki, he '
was contradicted by the evidence of those who
were present.

When he stated that on the Sunday he went
from his washerwoman's directly to Letton's,
after dinner, and that it was then four o'clock,
the washerwoman herself stated that it vas only
t WO.

When be said that he saw the person get over ,
the wall at fonr,,and that he afterwards went and
hid the bundle, whet, must hive taken some time,
he was contridkted by Lettou, ivho stated that it
was not more than half-past three, or twenty mi-
nutes to tour, when Hussey was conversing with

When he asserted that he did not see the pieces
of buckle belonging to Mr. ilirdn, 'which were
tound in his posse.sion, till 'he Sa. orally
ibti-flitirder, Thomas Hulsey proved it to'have
fallen front his pocket on the Monday preceding..
When he would haie shown that the stains of
blood on his clothes were from a wound received
by Hazleton in getting over the wall, it tui IRA out
that he had not on the same clothes when Hazle-
ton got his wound. ,

The extravagance of Charles Hussev's declara-
tion is manifest in every sentence. Considering
the character of the man, and his conduct upon
this horrible assassination, it is not, I trust, a de-
ficiency of common charity in me to feel, that his
,Tatement, as exculpating him from the actual
murder, is totally unteorthy of credit.
I-le admits, " that he planned the robbery, and
proposed it to two other persons ; on the
very day of its being agreed neon they met, hut
did nothing that evening ; that a eek afterwards
they met again, and Hassey (by his own account
the chief actor in the getting op of this tragedy)
advised its being proceeded with that eveaing, he
having provided a haininer for the purpose of
breaking open the door ; that they went all three
at half-past eleven, but finding no answer was re-
turned to the knocking, and a great many people
passing and repassing, they became disheartened,
and that upon Hussey recollecting tv'oat his
washerwoman had said about Mr. Bird's early
hours, they gave up the undertaking fur that
night." Unless Hussey and his companions went
with the determination of rousing Mr. Bird, and
inducing hint to give an alarm. the hammer rro-
vided by Htissey must have been the worst-in-
strument possible for the purpose he intended it,
Inquiry has been made of Hnssey's w4sherwo.
man, who denies positively that she had ever any
conversation with hint rel,.tive to 31r. Bird, nor
did she know there was such a person as Mr,
Bird residing in Greenwich.
His declaration proceeds to state, " that the
three agreed to meet in the Park at a certain spot,
and go from thence to Mr. Bird's house, which
they accordingly did between eight and nine on
the evening of the marder. The plan was, A was to
knock at the front door, and 13 to get over or breyk
open the side door, and so proceed round to the
back window. While this was doing, A was to
engage the servant in conversation until such
time as he found B had got in ; that B had great
difficulty in doing this, but at last did."
To those who have seen the premises, the false-
hood of this part of the account must be palpa-
ble ; and if Hussey had recollected more arcnriitely
the front of Mr. Bird's house, his story probably
would have been differently framed.
The side-door, which B was to get over, is
without any opening at the top, and the wall it
shuts into is as high as the second floor of Mr.
Bird's house; getting over it, therefore, could
never have been a part of the plan; and as, when
the murder was discovered, this door was chained
and padlocked on the inside, and had not been
broken at all, it is quite clear that B did not get
it) at the back, while A was keeping the house-
keeper in conversation at theifrotit door. Be.
sides, the absurdity of this plan is self-evident :--
A was to keep the housekeeper in conversatioa