The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-06 00:00:00

ing anything which might be prejudicial to him, the prisoner
made the following statement :—" For the last three or four
months has been working in England, part at Knotty Ash,
Prescot, near Liverpool, and latterly with Mr. Sayce, Knuts-
ford ; that, on Thursday night, the 24th August, he slept
in Knutsford, which place he left on the following morn-
ing, the 25th instant ; walked to Liverpool that day ;
sailed to Dublin the same night by steamboat ; arrived in
Dublin on Wednesday, the 26th instant, about 12 o'clock at
noon ; slept that night at Mr. Lamb's, in Stony Batter ;
came down to near Cavan on Mr. Bowles' car on Thursday,
the 27th. BARTHOLOMEW MURRAY (his mark)."—ln the
jail Battersby said to the prisoner that he wondered at him
going to England without being properly recommended. He
said that he had had written characters with him, from Mr.
Plunkett, Mr. M`Nauncy, and Mr. M`Goverling. On de-
siring to look at them, he said that they had worn to ribbons
in his pocket, and he had either lost them or thrown them
away.
Cross-examined by Mr. TEMPLE.—Dr. Alpin went into
the gaol with me. The doctor had some conversation with
him before the last statements were made ; the former state-
ment the prisoner persisted in making.
William Robinson.—He was tenant to the late Mr Cook ;
paid him eleven sovereigns on the 13th August last ; he put
it in a drawer in a desk in the house.
Elizabeth Steel was also a tenant to the late Mr Cook : to
the amount of £B. Bs. Paid him £4. 4s. the half-year's rent
on the day he was murdered.
Mr Harper said it had been tried by the witness Highland,
that a person could run from Cook's house to Terence's
lodging-house in 25 minutes.
Richard Timothy Deane, surgeon, of Knutsford, on being
called in on the morning when the bodies were discovered,
stated that the body of Mr. Cook was lying opposite the front
door. In the course of the day he made an examination of
the injuries, and found several severe blows on the right side
of the head, and the skull was much fractured. An instru-
ment like the axe produced would produce these injuries ;
indeed, he removed it from the table, it was then so recently
wet with blood.
Foreman.—My Lord, we have not heard of the injuries
which Mr. Cook has received.
Mr. COTTINGH Am.—That belongs to the other indictment.
His Lordship here recalled the surgeon, who stated that
some fractures were apparent upon the left side of Mrs.
Cook ; and that those wounds were undoubtedly the cause
of death.
Mr. TEMPLE then commenced a luminous speech on be-
half of the prisoner, sifting the whole evidence, but more
particularly dwelling upon the extraordinary testimony and
the more extraordinary conduct of Harding at the time of
the murder, and throughout contending that the whole of
the prisoner's conduct was consistent with that of an inno-
cent man, while the evidence against him was inconclusive
and unsatisfactory. _ _

The Learned 'JUDGE then summed up at considerable
length, and with great perspicuity ; and
The Jury having retired to consider their verdidt, they, at
near ten o'clock, pronounced the prisoner Guilty.
His LORDSHIP then pronounced, in a solemn manner, the
awful sentence of DEATH upon the prisoner.
The prisoner denied his guilt : and retired with a firm and
unbending gait.