Star.
London, England, 1821-03-20 00:00:00

VORZ ASSIZES.

—...7,.
•
• MURDER. I ' •
,
William Thompson was indicted for maliciously
killing his wile. The 1011 owing witnesses gave evi.
deuce in si:npert of the pri ovation:. •
I,

Eiiza Dobson ; live.! et , about 400 yards
from die prisoner's house. Oa the rorrning of the
118th el February, witite.s and her busbaril heard a
mournful noise when they were in bed. At .nice
o'clock that morning. the prisoner came to their house
and s-tid —" a bad misfortune happened... our Betty's
'dead." Witness and her husband accompanied the
prisoner home ; as they were crwsitu; the right, tile
prisoner said, that Pretty had been cleaning • a delf
rack down, the day before, where was a razor,'.WhiClt .
she hid secreted, and with which she cut her thiv4t.
When they arrived at the house, witness went up stairs,
and timid the deceased laid acioss the bed, t without
her clothes, having nothing but a iiigh:-cap and a piece
of flannel on; her throat was cut; the prisoner never
spoke; the deceased was of a remarkably cheerful
disposition.
Sarah Hall was fetched to the prisoner's house on
the 18th of February. She went up stairs, and Found
the deceased laid as described.by the. last witness;
• the bed was very bloody ; f,und a shift tur: in two
or three places, and the left sleeve was turned e rang
side out. The shift was covered with blood ; there
• was also a clean shift amongst the blankets, also
bloody ; also a clean shirt, a pair of clean sheets. and
a pair of pillow-cases; five of the prisonei's jackets
were en the bed, and a short fustian coat, ail bloody; •
found a razor on the pillow, open and bloody. There
was ,a man's dirty shirt on the bed, the left sleeve
completely covered.with blood ; the right arm sleeve
had some blood en it; in an adjoining room, there
was a pair of breeches laid in a corner, with streaks
of blood in the inside. Witness asked the pri:oner if
his wife had slept well that night? He said, " No,
not very."

G. Dobson went on the morning of the murder to
the prisoner's house, and saw the prisoner. He had
no shirt on, and seemed pensive. Witness told him
he was without a shirt. lle said, " Yes, lam ;" but
gave no reason for being so. Had known him several
years, and always appeared to possess his reason.—
Mrs. Thompson was a cheerful woman.
P. Thorpe, a labourer at Appleton, about three
o'clock on Monday morning, was summoned to G.
Dobson's, where he found the prisoner on his knees
on the bed, praying for GOD to have mercy on him,
as he was a great sinner. Witness was left alone with
him about two hours; during the whole of the time
he kept praying for mercy. He asked the witness if
he recollected a passage of the Scripture, which said
there was no mercy for a murderer? witness replied,
no. About five o'clock the prisoner fell asleep; at
eight, he fell out of the bed on the floor; he would
not go to bed again, but walked backward and for-
ward in his shirt ; he soon after left him with G.
Dobson. Next night, at nine o'clock he was sent for
to T. Field's house; continued all the night with
him, and the prisoner called him from the other two,
to go up to him. He said, " I murdered my wife
with a razor." Witness not wishing to hear more,.
left him, and sent one of the other men to him.—
The prisoner again called the witness. He repeated
his assertions, and witness said, some people• thought
he had done it when she was asleep, and some
thought when she was awake—he immediately re-
plied, she was awake ; that there was a .little dif-
ference between them about a lost parcel. She said
she had something to communicate to him, which he
would not be surprised at—that was, that she was
far gone with child. He turned upon her, and s ILI it
was not by him ; she declared it was. At that time
she was cleaning the house, and had occasion to clean
down a deli' rack, on which was an old razor; she
took it in her hand. It then struck his mind to take
his new razor, which he did from a drawer, and hid
it in his breeches pocket. He took it to bed with him.
When they had got to bed, the difference kept up be-
tween them. He used her roughly with both hands ;
she said, " Oh ! William, how am I to get this night
over with you—if I get this over, how shall I get
another? I have been with you all this time to bear
every burden, and will bear this if you will cast it
upon me." He then took hold of her and pulled her
to him. She came into his arms, as loving as ever
she did in her life, and threw her head back upon
his shoulder. Having a fair opportunity, he took the
razor which he had bid, and pressed it into her throat.
Ile said it was true ; it was a pity he had not more
government over himself.
R. Harrison, a Surgeon, examined the body of the
deceased, and found a wound in the Throat, 2; inches
long, and 1 } deep; the windpipe was severed through;
the edges of the wound were cleatly cut, and diffe-
rent from all cases of suicide he had ever heard of.
In cases of suicide, the wound is generally either
nearer one ear or the other; in this case, it was cut
clear from one ear to the other ear. After receiving
this wound, he should think she could not move her-
self a yard. _ _ _

The prisoner, in his defence, said it was quite a
mystery to him; he was not his own man; he could
give no account of it.
After a minute's consultation, the Jury pronounced
the verdict of—Guilty.
His Lordship, in the most impressive manner, im-
mediately sentenced him to be executed on Monday
(yesterday) and his body to be delivered to the surgeons
for dissection.

A horrid murder was perpetrated on Thursday, at
a place called Fair Mile Bottom, about nine miles
from Chichester, on the Pulborough road. A female,
who had just left the service of Mr: Itudwick, •of
Madehurst, was accompanied by the shepherd towards
the house of her parents, who, having occasion to
fold his sheep, left her, with a promise of overtaking
her; while so doing, he met a man in a sailor's dress,
with two bundles, which the shepherd recognised as
the property of the young woman. On demanding
'the reason of their being in the sailor's possession, he
was abruptly answeied, and an altercation arising,
the sailor struck at the shepherd, who succeeded by
a blow of a crook in feTng him to the ground.—
Tkis bring seen by Mr. ltudwick from the brow of
a bill, he instantly gallopped his horse to the spur,
when the man was secured, and is now lodged in
jiorshain jail. The body of the female was
in a hollow, with two gashes in the throat, quite
dead.

I

I

TIM EVENING STAR..

LONDON.

TUESDAt, MARCH 2O 1821.

The 'French Mailt which were detained on the
other side by contrary-winds, arrived this morning,
and have brought us the Paris Papers of Friday and
Saturday. The first thing that deserves particular
notice is, that the Bulletin sent to this country as
having been issued by the French Government, re-
specting the insurrection in the North of Italy, does
not appear in these Papers. The general facts are,
however, sufficiently confirmed to serve as an expla,
nation of the official character given to the intelli-
gence. We now take the sense of the writer to have
been simply this:—that the French Government, un-
able entirely to conceal, even by the censorship of the
Press, the nature of the events that were passing in
the North of Italy, had suffered the intelligence re-
ceived by telegraph to transpire; but the whole was
run together in such a manner as to make the intro.
ductory words of the writer be considered as in the
light of a regular Bulletin.
We shall subjoin the accounts that have reached
us, and which we shall here sum up in a few words.
It is admitted at Vienna, that the resistance opposed
to the advance of the Austrian army is "greater
than was expected," and that, in consequence, the
commanders have found it necessary "to wait for
farther orders." The event which we predicted with
confidence, when the KING of NAPLES obeyed the
summons of the Holy Allies [Holy Allies! r 3, is
verified. This wise Monarch, no doubt under the
wholesome direction of the wise men at Troppau, has
issued a Proclamation to his subjects [those who once
were so], aocompanied with another Proclamation
from the Austrian General TRIM DNT, calling outhem
to receive the Austrians not as enemies, but as friends!
This kind admonition will not have the effect in-
tended. The Neapolitans are quite aware of the rea-
son why the Austrians have halted : in fact, the legi-
timates calculated on their paper fulminations fight-
ing more than a half of their battle by the terror they
were meant to inspire; but the Neapolitans look not
at the number of words employed as auxiliaries of
the Holy Allies, but at the number of troop ; and it
now appears that the Austrians, having miscalculated
the resistance of the invaded, are inferior in point of
numbers: The whole effective force of Austria
brought into operation, notwithstanding all their
previous vaunting, is only 4,000, with a reserve of
L 5,000; while that of the Neapolitans is 80,000,
aud increasing daily.
The insurrection of Piedmont is confirmed in these
Papers, but, as yet, not the fact of the march on Mi-
lan: though the trooprarebreathirg vengence against
the Austrians. In the meantime,the King of SARDINIA
has been administering a little of the Troppau cordial
to his subjects, in a Proclamation, in which he
threatens, if his troops persist in their revolt, to have
his territcries occupied by foreign troops !! So much
for the tender mercies of this legitimate. But where
are foreign troops to be found to occupy every dis-
contented quarter in Italy I—in Europe ! I
The following are extracts from the Journals re-
ceived :