The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-12-17 00:00:00

CORONER'S INQUESTS.

A FEIIALE CHILD FOUND IN THE RlVER.—Yesterdav, an
inquisition was taken before James Crosbie, Esq., one of the
borough coroners, on view of the body of a female child which
was picked up in the Mersey, under the following circumstan-
ces :—John Williams, a boatman, stated that, on Sunday after-
noon last, he was out in a boatat.
, with three other men,
Wallasey-hole, when they observed something floating on the
surface of the water; they immediately pulled off towards it,
and found it to be the body of a female child, apparently about
the age-of four years. They brought the body on shore, and
delivered it to a policeman. From appearances,' witness would
Judge that the body had been in the Water about two days. It
was dressed in a green frock, blue cheek pinafore, .and nankeen
bonnet. The policeman stated. that he put the body in the
Dead-house, to await the present inquest. The body is sup-
posed to have been washed from the wreck of the Lord Blayney
steamer. A link of blue glass beads was on the child's neck,
which, at present, are in the hands of Mr. Ty3on, the beadle:
Verdict, " found drowned." .

Another inquest was held yesterday, on the body of Richard
Ashley Lowe, an infant of the age of three years, the son of
John Lowe, an engineer? in Bevingtou•street, who was burnt
to death by its clothes igniting at the tire, and a verdict of
accidentatdeath" returned.

TITHES.

(An Official Circular.)

"Downing-street, Dec. 9.
" Gentlemen,—l shall feel much obliged to you if you will
fill up the enelbsed return, and send it back to me as soon as
you conveniently can.
" It will not be necessary that the return should be precisely
accurate ; all I should wish is, that you would make your
answers as correct as your present information will enable
you to do. A duplicate sheet is enclosed, which you
are requested to place in the hands of the reverend incumbent,
the impropriator, his manager, or agent, or such other person
as you may deem most competent to assist you in procuring
the required information.
"I have the honour to be, gentlemen,
"Your obedient humble servant,
"To the Churchwardens." " ALTHORP."

The tables annexed to this circular require the number of
acres of arable, meadow, or permanent pasture land, woodland,
or coppice, hop plantations, and gardens—the average rent per
acre—and the amount of money payments for tithes. or ►tip

Mr. Adolphus opened the case, and called a considerable
number of witnesses whose evidence was all of a circumstantial
character. This part of the case occupied the whole of Friday.
On Saturday morning, the trial of the prisoner was resuined;
and, when called upon for his defence, he said, " I am perfectly
innocent, and my defence is embodied in this paper," handing
in his defence, which was read by the officer of the court.
The defence commenced by protesting his innocence, and
declaring that the crime imputed to him was one from which
his heart recoiled with horror and detestation. Of the circum-
stances embodied against him, some were the result of mere
accident; others had been fabricated in pursuance of a delibe-
rate design to mix up truth with falsehood, so as to make him
the victim of an unjust accusation, and, by sacrificing the inno-
cent, to screen the really guilty from judicial investigation. The
defence, after acquitting the executors of the deceased of any
vindictive feeling towards him in the institution of this prose-
cutioe, stated that he would not dispute the fact, although
he was in utter ignorance of it, that the deceased died from tue
effects of poison ; that the poison was arsenic; and that it was
administered in the coffee taken for breakfast. After combat-
ing the inferences drawn from his conduct by the servant of' his
grandfather with respect to his filling the teakettle, the defence
proceeded to notice the second cause of suspicion under which he
laboured, viz., his absconding three days :titer the morning on
which he was supposed to have committed the crime. Instead of
flying from justice he said that he went to Loudon on a visit to his
sister, in pursuance of a long standing engagement,—that no
secrecy was observed as to where he was going,—that, but for a
letter from his sister, changing the day on which ehe wished to
see him, he would have been in London when the event took
place,—and that, when it was thought necessary to apprehend
him he was at that sister's house, where he was taken into cus-
tody, and without any advice, professional or otherwise, brought
before the coroner, as a criminal who had fled from justice. If,
gentlemen, I have explained the circumstances of that sups,
posed flight in a manner that defies contradiction, and brings
home conviction to your minds, will you not, in common fair-
ness, admit that my absence was one of those strange coinci-
dence's which occur in this case, and which are so powerfully
calculated to give to innocence the worst appearances of guilt ?
Do you not see in this one of these facts, which, unexplained,
have placed me where I now am? Another unfortunate coin-
cidence in this unhappy case is the discovery of arsenic in mrbox.
I propose next to consider, and I entreat your serious anti indi-
vidual attention to what I have to offer in explanation of that fact,
fol. the records of our criminal courts abundantly prove that what
is called circumstantial evidence may lead to the most erro-
neous results. Seine years ago it was my misfortune to be subject
to an attack of the itch, which was brought home to the family by
my father, who then cohabited with a woman of the name of
Warren. While thus suffering Laccidentally heard that the best
way to eradicate it was, by applying poison to the parts most af-
fected. For this purpose, from that time, I had been in the habit
of using hellebore and arsenic, and from the disgraceful nature
of the disease, the jury will readily believe that I did not wish
it to be more known than I could -help. When before the co-
roner, I remembered upon several occasions having sent a man,
who worked for me when I was in London, to purchase these
poisons for me. I then stated that the name of that man was
Brett, but that he was dead. I, however, expressed my belief
that his wife knew the fact as well as himself. Crentleinen, that
woman has now,been traced out, and she will be called before
you, and will prove the truth of my assertion"
After commenting at considerable length upon this part of
thnevidence, and upon the evidence of Mary Higgins and his
father before the coroner's jury--he said (in his defence) "MY
father and Mary Higgins were examined separately before the
coroner. They had nu opportunity of knowing what each other
said, and therefore you will find that although they agree, even
to the letter, in two expressions, and two only—those expres-
sions which they attribute to me—they contradict each other in
every fact, and in every circumstance attendant urn that sup-
posed conversation. When you reflect upon the falsehood, the
contradiction, the evasion of these two witnesses, and the im-
probable nature of the conversation itself, I should be insulting
your judgment if I thought vou could believe one syllable of
recollecttheir story. You will that say own father is the first
to accuse me of this dreadful crime. He it is that goes to the
magistrate and puts this charge in motion against me. He
it is who, after an interview with Mary Higgins at five
o'clock in the morning, produces her as a witness to insure
my condemnation, by swearing to a conversation that never
occurred, and, in the relation of which, they falter and equivo
cate in the manner you have heard. But; gentlemen, I have
no doubt that you and every person possessing common feeling
will here be desirous of asking what can possitily be the motive
that has induced a father thus to conduct himself tows rds his
child ? Even if he really knew me to be guilty, -W.:aid not a
father, under ordinary circumstances, abstain from being the
first to prefer an aecusatiote ralculated to bring his own son to a
speedy and ignominious death? Gentlemen, my father has
no; I-gnore to say. it, set a fit or worthy example to his family.
He has been imprisoned for malicious injury, and guilty ofpro-
-R.;gacy of all kinds. Still,.he has not been entirely devoid of
some regard for his.offspring. What, then, could have induced
him to thrust himself forward, uncalled for, to take away my
life through the medium of this prosecution ? I would fain have
avoided this topic, but a sense of duty and eat preservation
compel rue to enter upon it. Can any adequate reason be sue-
gested excepting the desire to avert from himself the horrible
consequences of this horrible offence. Gentlemen. you sell
have observed in every stage of this proceedinss eee ordi
nary desire, on the part of my father, to show his oe..i eiencence
of this crime, and my guilt. Before suspicion attached to any
body you find him the first to ask who filled the kettle that
morning.?. A fact which he already knew, and which could
only be inquired of in order to direct the thoughts of others
towards me. You find him proclaiming the fact of his not hav-
ing been at my grandfather's house that morning ? And yoti
find him lying in bed that morning much later than usual,, as
if on purpose -to be ready to show where he then was. But how
is it shown that he was not at my grandfather's the day before,
when arsenic might so easily have been put into the coffee-jar,
and the more easily, because Sophia Taylor was out the whole
of that day? The coffee was kept in a cupboard, the lock of
which did not catch. My father had completely the run of the
house; he knew every part of it. He had it clearly, therefore,
in his power to open that cupboard, and to do what lie pleased
with the coffee. That lie must have gone to that coffee-jar, for,
if I am permitted, I shall distinctly prove to you that he was
aware of its contents. His statement is, that he went to the
deceased's house on Saturday evening, about six o'clock; that
he then found the family ill; that he had no idea of their having
then taken poison ; and that it was the first time he learned
that they were in any way unwell. What will be said, gentle-
men, when I show you that, as early as ten o'clock on that
fatal morning, he had a conversation with two persons named
Jacobs, to whom he stated that his father's family were poi-
soned with something they had taken for breakfast, and that it
was not the.coffee,,for the coffee used that morning was the last
that remained in the jar. This was said many hours before he
had been to the house; many hours before, as he says, lie knew
any one was even ill, and in direct contradiction of his own
representations, repeatedly and deliberately made. I have
before told you that the cot e° used on that morning was found
to be the last which the jar contained ; and how could he know,
at ten o'clock in the morning, that the family were sick and
vomiting, when he has sworn that his first knowledge of their
being even ill was obtained by his visit at six o'clock in the
evening ?"
These are the principal and most striking mints in the de-
fence; and as they were distinctly proved by the prisoner's
witnesses, the jury returned a verdict of Not
_guilty.

UsiattELLAs.—The first person who used an umbrella in the
streets of London was the benevolent Jonas Hanwav, who
died in 1786. The first sold in Glamorganshire was at Reath :
a respectable shopkeeper of that town sent to London for one,
for Sir Herbert :Nlackworth, about seventy years ago.
BHANDy.—The celebrated Bishop of Berkeley used to call
the few who drank spirituous liquors with impunity for a series
of years, the Devil's decoys.
WHALING EXPEDITION.—A paragraph, entitled "Extraor-
dinary Preservation," has found its way. into the columns of
some of our south-country contemporaries, in which are de•
tailed the marvellous adventures of two seamen belonging to
the Middleton, of this place, who are said to have cruised about
for ten or eleven days in the northern ocean on the back of
whale ! The story, unfortunately, is not true, but the real fac...tv
of the case are worthy of publication. On the 2lst July, Capt.'
Kerr, of the Middleton, had a boat and crew employed in
watching two fish, which it was found impracticable to get along-
side of the vessel, in consequence of their being at some 6.p,
tance in the ice. The fish were distant from each other andet
a mile and a half, and two men were on the ice near one of the
fish when it came on to blow a gale of wind, which drifted the
boat and the other fish out of their sight. They remained about
fifty hours after all the provisions were exhausted, excepting
what they obtained from the dead body of the whale, and at
this time another dead fish floated up alongside of the one which
they had in charge. On the 26th July the men were picked
up by the Lord Gambier, of Newcastle. Captain Kerr, under-
standing by a signal made from the Lord Gambier that his two
men were on board of that vessel, immediately sent a boat for
them, and this boat's crew discovering. that the Lord Gambier's
boats were endeavouring to get at their two fish, the harpooner
and another man jumped upon-the ice, and got to the whales
just whew they were outside of the ice. These two men did
actually embark, each on board of one of the whales, and were
a considerable distance from the ice and in the open sea when
Captain Kerr picked them up. They we