The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-12-28 00:00:00

MYSTERIOUS CHARGE OF MURDER.

On Saturday last, Samuel Lennox, of Low Hesket, in this
county, innkeeper, was committed to our gaol on the charge
of having been concerned in the murder of Thomas Hunter,
a carrier, whom our readers will remember was cruelly mur-
dered in November, 1837, near Orton, in Westmorland. The
charge against the prisoner Lennox was beard before Major
Wilde on Tuesday last, when it appeared that the sole accu-
sation against him at present was confined to his voluntary
confession of the crime, which, it is alleged, be made several
weeks ago to one David Little, of Low Hesket, and with
whom it would appear that the prisoner was not upon very
good terms.
David Little, in his examination said—l live at Low Hes-
ket. I have known the prisoner, Samuel Lennox, since a
little before Whitsuntide last—he took a house from.me at
Low Hesket and lives there still. He told me he had lived
before at Wasdale Head, in the parish of Shap—he said
he had been three or four years hind to Mr. Matthew
Atkindson, of Temple Sowerby. After he came to Hesket
he went to the middle Falkirk fair, in September last. I
went into his public house a day or two after he returned
home, about ten o'clock in the morning. He said his wife
had been telling me something—l said nonsense, and put by
what she had told me. He said he thought we were too kind
when she told me such tales. I had not told him anything
his wife had told me, but be said his wife had told him what
she had told me. I said it would be all nonsense what she
had told me, and be said it was all true. He said he thought
if that was the way he might make me a present of his wife.
He said he had shot the Kendal carrier—he said John Wills
and Edward Sisson were present at the time, and were as bad
as him. Nobody was present when he told me this. I said
it was a bad job, he being a learned man, to do such a thing.
I meant a good sholar. He said Sisson had been near the
place were the man was shot about a month before, and his
heart had failed him, and they cast lots which of the three
should shoot him. I asked him how they came together—he
said Wills and Sisson came over to Wasdale Head. He did
not mention the day--he set them a bit, and it was agreed
that be should go over on Saturday to Tebay, on the day the
Kendal carrier was shot. He said he did go over, and they
had no shot at the shop at Tebay, and they cut pieces of lead
and put it upon the powder. It fell to his lot toshoot the man.
They all went together. It was Sisson's gun. He did not
say who carried it. He said he was two yards off the man
when he shot him in the head. The carrier was on the road
near home. I asked him what money the carrier had got—
he said he had Ea) and three shillings—they divided it
equally amongst them. He told me Sisson had been at Low
Hesket not long since, and was in very bad heart—they had
sat up talking the main of the night, and they were not
much in bed—only a little. He said Sisson got up before
daylight and went off—he was not much seen. He said they
corresponded with letters, and offered to show me one, but I
refused to see it. He said he set the gun in Sisson's porch
the day after the murder. Ile told me they were afraid of
Wills disclosing the secret, and he was pining since he came
out of gaol after last March assizes at Appleby. The pri-
soner confessed the murder again to the on the 28th of last
November. I had given him notice to quit my house before
Martinmas. I never mentioned what he told me before last
Saturday.
_ _ _

After the above examination had been taken the prisoner
was removed to Appleby gaol. 'Wills and Sisson are both in
custodv.—Carlisle Patriot.

Tux CEDARS OF LERANON.—Fifteen of the sixteen cele-
brated cedars of Lebanon are still alive, but all are more or
less in a state of decay; and one of them is remarkable for
three immense trunks, proceeding from the same stump, at
a short distance above the soil. Another, one of the health-
iest of the old trees, though perhaps the smallest, measured
33 feet French (35 feel 9 inches English) in circumference.
All the trees are much rurrowed by lightning, which seems
to strike them more or less every year. In the middle of
these old trees are about forty other cedars. comparatively
young, though the trunk of the smallest of them is from ten
to twelve feet in circumference. At the base of eight or nine
of the old cedars are altars, constructed with large rough
stones, which were formerly used by the inhabitants of the
Maronite villages, who, headed by their pastor, went to El-
Herze on the day of the transfiguration. At this festival all
the priests said mass at the same time, each priest officiating
at the foot of the cedar belonging, to his own village. Dis-
putes having, however, arisen from this practice, the patri-
arch of the Maronites has made a new arrangement; and
now, though the Maronites still continue, on the festival of
the transfiguration, to repair to El-Herze, only one mass is
celebrated, which is performed on the altar of a different
cedar every year, in order that the trees of all the villages
in turn may enjoy the same privilege. There is not one
young cedar in all the wood of El-Herze.—Loudon's Arbore-
tum et Fruticetum Britannicum.
DOMESTIC CONCORD.—It is certain that our dispositions
and characters are scarcely ever formed in public, but receive
their bent for good or evil in the privacy of domestic life. In
presiding over the morality of the parental board, a man finds
opportunity to manifest 'his good feelings; at other times to
cultivate his mind; and above all, to apply himself to the
searching after that wisdom which benefits his soul: he carries
the fruits which he reaps in retirement into the open day. If
he be accustomed to indulge in a resentful, peevish temper at
home, the habit of anger and fretfulness will not assuredly
leave him in his intercourse with the world, On the con-
trary, if he lives in an interchange of forhearence, meekness,
and benevolence with his kindred and friends, he will insen-
sibly establish mild and amiable affections in the heart, and
will be upright and honourable, generous and frank, in his
transactions with mankind. Where gloomy sullenness, or
furious resentment, be suffered for any trifling offence, and
upon every futile occasion, to "steal away our brains," the
gifts of Providence are plentiously bestowed to little purpose.
In vain are our tables covered with plenty, our habitations
adorned with elegance and taste, and our persons attired with
surpassing splendour, if our feasts be unattended by cheer-
fulness, our dwellings unfurnished with concord, and the out-
ward array of our bodies not set off with simplicity of mind.
How frequently do we see individuals who seem to command
within their own mansions every accommodation that can
minister to comfri. t,every gratification that can soot he anxiety,
and every luxury that might pamper a Sybarite's desires,
roving abroad in search of that content they will not permit
themselves to enjoy at home—and never find elsewhere.—
The Voice of the Pulpit. - •