The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-08-30 00:00:00

MURDER OF MR. SNEYD.

At the Dublin Commission on Tuesday last, Johii Mason was
placed at the bar and arraigned for the murder of Mr. Sneyd.
The prisoner having pleaded "guilty," his counsel put in a
plea of insanity on his behalf, and a jury was then sworn, to try
" whether the prisoner, John Mason, who stands indicted for
the murder of Nathaniel Sneyd, Esq., is or is not insane at this
time of his arraignment."
A considerable body of evidence was brought forward in sup-
port of this plea, from which we select that of the following
witnesses.
Dr. Eustace.—l am proprietor of a lunatic asylum; I have
had eighteen years' experience in lunacy; I was called to
attend the prisoner ten years ago; he was then in a state of in-
sanity, so bad as to require his being confined in a lunatic
asylum; in this country it is necessary to have a medical certifi-
cate to put a man in a lunatic asylum; epilepsy leads to lunacy;
lunacy originating in epilepsy, after puberty, is incurable ; I
never knew a case of recovery.
The Rev. Thomas Mason.—ls brother to the prisoner at the
bar; his father is dead about seven years; his brother did not
reside with his father after 1820; before this period considered
him a person of weak intellect ; observed him generally reserved
and sullen, when contradicted in any notion he took up ' • he was
peculiar regarding his diet; had always a fanciful rule fur pre-
paring his diet; he would change his mode of living about every
three weeks ; had known him reduce himself almost to consump-
tion by abstinence; had known him to confine himself to a small
quantity of flour, about the quantity that would fit in an egg, for
breakfast; he was always either excessive in the quantity of
food he ate, sometimes taking a great deal, and sometimes very
little; had known him to take wine glasses of castor oil at his
dinner; had known him to take burning coals out of the fire,
and place them on the carpet and floor ; at one time his room
was on fire ; he was inside; the door was rocked; it was with
difficulty witness got into his room upon this occasion ; his bed
was partly consumed; had known him, in order to relieve him-
self from a pain in the head, to go to his bed-room, shut the
windows, light a wax taper, and, lying on his bed remained there
for a quarter of an hour, with his eyes fixed on the light; he
would then return down stairs, and declare he was quite well ;
had known him to remain unshaved for three weeks together,
and when remonstrated with against the practice, he would de-
clare, that God had given his beard as an +ornament, and it
would be as absurd for him to cut his beard, as to pull out his
teeth; sometimes he went to bed at six in the evening, and at
other periods he would be punctilious to go to bed precisely at
eleven o'clock ; at this time he was harmless and quiet; some-
times he took it into his head that his sister and other members of
the family secreted some of his preperty, and reproached them for
it ;- had known him to be confined in Dr. Duncan's Asylum, near
ringlass. It was in 1826 or 1827 that he was first confined ; his
fatherdied in 1826, therefore, it was before that period his father
placed him under Dr. Duncan; whenever any of his family
visited him, he left the lodgings where the visit was paid imme-
diately after; met him walking in Westmorland-street about
five or six weeks before the melancholy event, the subject of
this trial; saw a small four-barrelled pistol in his waistcoat
pocket; asked him for what purpose he had such a weapon;
he showed some hesitation in answering, as if he wished to
elude the question; asked him if any one had offended him;
his answer was.—“Noimatter—if I meet him, I'll mark him;"
witness told him he would be amenable to the laws for his con-
duct; he appeared dogged and sullen; I observed to him, it
would he better to challenge any one that had offended him;
his answer was, "He's not worthy of it;" could not say whe-
ther it was any particular individual his anger was excited
against; at one time he said, " They had treated him like a
dog ; " witness, in consequence, waited on his brother's trustee,
Mr. Hewson, and detailed what took place; in consequence,
lie and Mr. Hewson went to College-street Police-office, to see
and have his brother arrested; Sir Garret Neville was the
sitting Magistrate; he did not consider himself warranted to
take any means of confining him; his exact words were, " I
cannot interfere with the liberty of a subject;" had taken
means to ascertain if he had any subject of quarrel; was quite
unable to find any clue to lead him to discover if he had cause
of enmity to any one in particular; had visited him yesterday
and to-day; yesterday he thought him decidedly insane; to-
day he did not observe such decided symptoms; asked him
why he had pleaded guilty; he said he thought it would be over
quicker; he did not like to be stared at.
Doctor Harty.—l am a medical officer attending the gaol of
Newgate ; I have repeatedly seen the prisoner in gaol; I, in
company with Mr. Bournes, the deputy gaoler, saw the pri-
soner on the 4th of August; Mr. Bouines told me he had re-
-ceived a second committal, and asked me would he show it to
the prisoner; I advised him to show it; Mr. Bournes told
Mason he had received a second committal in consequence of
Mr. Sneyd's death; he read it; Mason asked him to read it a
second time • then a long conversation ensued upon a variety
of topics, which I took notes of immediately after; (here Dr. li.
took from his pocket his notes, and referred to them.) He
said he must have been mad when he did the act; I asked him
if he were then mad ; he said not, and added that he regretted
the deed ; I asked him if he had engaged an attorney to conduct
his defence; he answered "Mr. Jones;" I asked him if he
were aware, when he committed the act, of its illegality, and of
the punishment which would follow; he said he was; he said he
knew the Ten Commandments, and that one of them was
written " Thou shalt not kill." He said he hoped to be saved
by the merits of Christ; I alluded to his brother being a Protes-
tant clergyman, and his being attended by the Catholic chap-
lain; he told me he had been a Roman Catholic about
three years, that he had attended Marlborough-street chapel
once a month, but had never received the sacrament,
according to the Roman Catholic faith; he said his
reason for being a Roman Catholic was, that all who
left the old "Mother Church" fell into great offences.
He said again he must have been mad when he committed the
deed, that his brothers should have had him confined when they
discovered that he carried a pistol ; he said if not sentenced to
die, after being tried, he would be imprisoned for life; when I
was writing this conversation down, the prisoner sent for me;
and when I went to him, he said he hoped the conversation he
had with me would not be turned to his disadvantage, for Mr.
Jones had advised him not to communicate with any one, nor
to speak to any one about this business ; I think the prisoner
was then, and has been since, as capable as ever he was of
giving instructions for his defence, if there were any grounds
for a defence; in a few days after the first conversation' I asked
the prisoner if he knew what he did was against God's law ; he
replied, he knew it before the deed, and immediately after • on
the 17th of August, the prisoner told witness that he knew
he would be sentenced to be hung, and that the sentence would
be carried into execution against him ; he declared he did not
wish his friends to go to any trouble regarding his defence, as
his case was hopeless•, he was then more lively than be-
fore, and said he had not seen the Catholic clergyman
for some days, as his visits depressed him; yesterday I
saw him in the yard, and he requested to speak to me; he
took me under the arm, and walked up and down the yard.
He asked me if I had any objection to take some blood from
him before his execution, as it would make his death more cagy

•
to him ; he said his body must be given for dissection, and not
to his friends; he said he had made over his property to his
sister in hope of lessening their persecution against him, and
that it had succeeded for a time; he said he was not sorry for
Mr. Sneyd's death, not particularly so, but that he was sorry
for his own punishment hereafter; he said his case was so
hopeless, that it was useless to give instruction to his attorney ;
I asked him if he had heard of Bellingham shooting Mr. Per-
eival, and the attempt of friends to prove him insane, in order
to save him from execution ; he said he had never heard of the
case, and seemed much interested in it; he said he thought
there was no one worse off than himself, but that in the next
world he would be delighted to see any one worse off than
h imself—(laughter.)
Mr. Holmes cross-examined this witness.
Judge Burton charged the Jury, who, without a moment's
hesitation, foultd that the prisoner was insane at the time he
pleaded.
The Court ordered the prisoner to be detained in custody,
until a written order would be made regarding, his future desti-
nation. The prisoner appeared slightly anxious just as the
verdict was being pronounced; but it passed away, and he was
removed from the dock in apparently the same dogged disposi-
tion which he had observed throughout the entire trial.

A SENSIBLE PRlNCE.—Prince Frederick of Salm Kirhourg,
has recently espoused the widow of a shoemaker fof the name o'
Schuhnester, who bad bequeathed to her a fortufle of £40,000,