The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-04-02 00:00:00

CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER.

Elizabeth Busby, 25, stood indicted with having feloni-
ously attempted to discharge a loaded pistol at one William
Busby, the younger, with intent to murder him, to maim
and disable him, or to do him some grievous bodily harm.
The prisoner, being ill, was allowed to sit.
William Busby, sworn.—l am a coach-proprietor. My
brother married the prisoner. He is in my employ. On the
I6th of February she came to my stables. She asked if her
husband was there. She asked if he was -at the corner of
Fox-street, where I have another stable. I said I did not
.know. She said, "On your soul do you not know ?" I
said I should not say so, but I did not know. The wind
blew her cloak aside, and I saw what I took to be a hammer.
I stepped back half a yard to avoid a blow. She pointed it
at me—it was a pistol—and I heard a click. I saw the flash.
It missed fire. One of our men took it from her. It was
given to Rissock.

Cross-examined by Mr. MURPHY.—I saw the pistol three
days after. I was looking at the prisoner when the pistol
was presented, and it was not pointed to the ground, but at
my breast. My brother and prisoner had been separated.
Re-examined.—l saw powder shaken out of the touch-hole
into the pan.

By the COURT.—She did not appear to be greatly excited.
William Masker, a servant to the prosecutor, corroborated
the conversation between the latter and the prisoner. She
also said, " I have got his (her husband's) trowsers and
waistcoat, and want to return them. She said, "On your
soul do you know where he is ?" He said, " I will not put
my soul to it." Sbe snapped the pistol. I 'taw fire, but
can't tell whether from the powder in the pan or the flint.
I took the pistol from her.
Cross-examined.—l heard of some unpleasantness between
prisoner and her husband, and that they were to be separa-
ted, and he was that morning to allow her so much a-week.
William Busby re-called.—l think the flash was from the
powder.

--- Herbert, a police-officer.—Prisoner, when I appre-
hended her, said, that she had bought the pistol to shoot her
husband, and was not intended for Mr. William. 'She also
said she had taken 14d. worth of laudanum, and had left the
bottle in a glass in the garden, where they were found.
Kissock, a bridewell keeper, received the pistol from the
former witness, and examined it. There was a heavy charge
in it, but I did not draw it. I put it in a drawer, which was
locked, and I kept the key. On the Saturday night I saw
Mr. Whitty take some powder out of the pistol. Superin-
tendant
the key in my trouser's pocket, when I went to bed on Sun-
day morning.

Cross-examined.—l found afterwards, on going to the
drawer, that the pistol was gone. M. Cooper, a surgeon,
was called to her assistance, and he applied the stomach
pump, and said the prisoner's life was in imminent danger.
Jane Kissock, wife of Thomas Kissock.—l saw my hus-
bar d lock up the pistol, and put the key in his pocket. I
gave thekey. to Balfour when he called for it._

Archibald Balfour.--I was sent by Superintenclant
M`Donald for the pistol to Kissock's. Mrs. K. gave it to
me, and I took it to M`Donald's lodgings. I saw some shot
taken out, but only a little powder, but not so much as would
make a shot.

Superintendant M`Donald called.—l saw the charge drawn.
A large quantity of shot and very little powder.
Cross-examined.—There was only one wadding. The shot
and what little powder was in the pistol were mixed up to-
gether. . .

- Mr. MURPHY here submitted that there was no case to go
to the jury, inasmuch as one witness did not know whether
the flash were from the powder in the pan, or from the flint.
Besides one of the witnesses said that there was a very small
quantity of powder found in the pistol, and another that the
powder and shot van so mixed up together that it could not
have done, any harm.

His LORDSIP said, there was certainly a case to go to the
jury. The shot might have got mixed with the powder, by
uo wadding being placed between them.
Mr. MURPHY therefore proceeded to address the jury in
behalf of the prisoner in a very eloquent and ingenious man-
ner, dwelling upon all the circumstances that seemed by
possibility to make in her behalf,—contending first, that the
pistol was not a deadly weapon from its imperfect loading,
and no proof of priming; and secondly, that at the time of
the act, the prisoner was labouring under such mental excite-
ment, from the peculiar circumstances of her situation, with
respect to her husband, and the operation of the maddening
and poisonous drug of which she had drank so largely as to
endanger her life, that she could not be considered a respon-
sible moral agent.

No witnesses were called fbr the defence.
One of the jury requested his lordship to ask the prosecutor
whether he perceived any smell of powder in the pistol? Mr.
Bushby said " No, my lord, I did not."
His LORDSHIP then summed up the.evidence. There were
two questions involved. One of them required little remark.
If the pistol properly charged was fired so near a person, and
had gone off and killed the prosecutor, the intent to murder
would be clear. The other and principal one was, whether
the pistol was loaded in the manner required by the statute
to make out the offence charged, and he pointed out what
such loading was. It appeared, that the pistol was not loaded
in the ordinary way, whether from her ignorance, or extreme
excitement. It was possible that a shot might have got into
the touch-hole, and prevented the pistol from going off. The
priming might have fallen out when the pistol was snapped,
by being held obliquely. With respect to the question of
the prisoner's insanity at the time, there was no positive
proof, as was required of such insanity ; and it would be no
justification in law for any one to commit such an s4t under
temporary derangement of mind, caused by the taking of any
sort of intoxicating drink. -If the jury thought it possible
that the pistol failed to go off by the intervention of a shot
in the touch-hole, (which was. very large), they would state
their opinion to the eourt; and his.lordship, who hql already
consulted his learned brother, on the law as affecting the
case on this point, on which they had not made up their mind,
would put back the prisoner, and reconsider it. The great
point for consideration was, whether the pistol was so charged