The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

BIGAMY.

William Spilsbury, 33, was indicted for intermarry-
ing Maria Hamer during the lifetime of his first wife.
Mr. Brandt appeared for the prosecution.—lt appeared
that on the 19th of September, 1831, the prisoner was
married at Stockport to Maria Fowden, and that on the
2nd of September, in the present year, he was married
to Maria Hamer, at Heaton Norris. The prisoner and
his wife separated about ten or eleven years ago, and
since then she had lived part of the time near the pri-
soner, and afterwards at Ashton- under-Lyne.—The pri-
soner in his defence said he did not know bis first wife
was living when he married the second time.—The learned
Judge summed up, and the jury found the prisoner guilty.
Sentence—Twelve months' imprisonment and hard labour.
—The court adjourned at ten minutes before four.

SATURDAY,
INFANTICIDE AT EDGE-HILL.

Mary Baxter, a rater well-looking young woman, was
indicted for having, at Liverpool, murdered her new-born
male illegitimate child.

The case for the prosecution was conducted by Mr.
Blair; and that for the defence by Mr. James.
It appeared that the prisoner was a single woman, lodg-
ing at No. 26, Sydney-place, Edge-hill, in this town, and
that, for about a month before the occurrence, which took
place on the 28th of October, she bad been residing in the
house of Sarah Bennett, of that place. When first she
took the lodging there was something in her appearance
which attracted the attention of the inmates, who ques-
tioned her as to whether she was pregnant. She denied
that she was, and there matters rested for the time. She
usually occupied a room in the upper part of the house,
where she shared a bed with Bennett, and in the same
room a Mrs. Mary Hines and her daughter also slept. On
the evening of the 28th of October the whole of the in-
mates were in the kitchen, when the prisoner suddenly
complained of being unwell, and retired to her room for
the night. When Bennett and Hynes went to bed a few
hours subsequently, they found her still awake, and upon
asking her if she was better, she replied that she was.
Bennett slept with her as usual, and nothing further oc-
curred until about daylight on the following morning. At
that time Mrs. Hynes was awakened by hearing some one
on the stairs, and, upon asking who was there, a voice,
which she recognised to be that of the prisoner, replied,
" It is I," and, in reply to a question as to where she had
been, she said she had only been as far as the yard. The
prisonar then turned into Bennett's bed a second time,
and, about seven o'clock the same morning, got up and
left the house, apparently for the purpose of fulfilling an
engagement, which she certainly was under, to wash some
clothes at the house of a Mrs. Duffy. In the course of
the day, when Bennett went up stairs to make the beds,
she discovered some blood on the floor; in a mug of water
which was lying in the yard she noticed a similar appear-
ance; and then she was induced to go to Mrs. Duffy's,
where she informed the prisoner that she either had been
confined or was on the eve of being confined, and requested
her to come home. The prisoner obeyed the request, and
made several statements, about the admissibility of which
there was some doubt, as the confession had, to some ex-
tent, been extorted. In consequence, however, of those
statements, a search was made, and in the privy the body
of a full grown male child was found, with a band, or
cord, apparently composed of a piece of a cotton dress,
fastened tightly round its neck. Mr. J. B. Nottedge,
surgeon, then examined the person of the prisoner, and
was of opinion that she had very shortly before been de.
livered of a child ; that the child was born alive ; and that
the death had been caused by the ligature round the neck.
In reply to his inquiries, the prisoner admitted that she
had been recently delivered, and that the child was born
in the privy. This witness was subjected to a rigorous
cross-examination as to whether all the symptoms he ob-
served on the body of the child might not have existed
before it was fully born into the world ? At the close of
his evidence,

His LORDSHIP informed the jury that the foundation
of the case altogether failed. The first thing to prove
was, that the child had been born alive, in other words,
that it had been entirely separated from the body of the
mother, because, until total separation from the mother
had taken place, the child was not born. There was no
doubt that a ligature had been found round the neck,
which ligature would cause the death if the child had
been born alive. But the question was, had it been born
alive. It appeared, from the evidence of the surgeon,
that the head might be born, and the chest also ; and, if
the head and chest were out, then the child could breathe
freely, although the remaining part of the body might be
detained for ten or fifteen minutes. Under those en curn-
stances, before they convicted the prisoner of murder,
they must ascertain that there had been a living subject,
that was, that the child was separated from the mother
before the ligature was fastened. The case, therefore,
failed in this reap c'L. There was, however, another view
of the question upon which the Jury might convict; for,
within the last few years, the Legislature had made a pro-
vision in cases where mothers concealed the birth of their
offspring ; and from the evidence there could be no doubt
that the prisoner had concealed the berth in the present
I instance.

The Jury, without hesitation, acquitted the prisoner of
the murder and found her guilty of concealing the birth.
She was sentenced to imprisonment and hard labour for
two years,

INCENDIARISM AT BOLTON.
Richard Leach, 28, was indicted for having, at Little
Bolton, set fiie to a building belonging to Thomas Gra-
ham.
Mr. FIULTON and Mr. POLLOCK conducted the case
for the prosecution, and Mr. MONK defended the pri-
soner.
It appeared that the prosecutor was a joiner and builder
in the town of Bolton ; that his premises were situated at
the back of Bridge-street ; and that Bark-street ran on
one side of his timber-yard. The timber-yard was at the
back of his dwelling-house, and was separated from bark-
street by a wooden paling. On the evening of the 11th of
October, the workmen left the premises at eight o'clock,
and in about two hours after the prosecutor went round
and found all safe. There were at that time in the yard a
great quantity of shavings and dry wood, and close to what
was called " the erection" on the premises there was a
" steer" of wood, or a pile of timber. About eleven
o'clock the same night the servant of Dr. Pendlebury,
who lived next door, was going to bed, and, upon looking
through her window, she observed a bright light in Mr.
Graham's yard, and two men, wearing caps, in the act of
getting over the fence which divided the timber-yard from
Bark-street. In doing so they knocked down a pile of
timber. The noise roused the prosecutor from his sleep,
and, on going out, he saw the steer of wood on fire, and
found in the shavings, contiguous to where the fire origi-
nated, two stone bottles, containing a quantity of turpen-
tine. At a quarter after nine on the night of the occur-
rence the prisoner had been to a druggist, of the name of
Scowcroft, in Bolton, and produced two stone bottles,
which, in the opinion of Mr. Scowcroft's apprentice, cor-
responded exactly with the bottles found on the prosecu-
tor s premises. The prisoner had them filled by the ap-
prentice with spirit of turpentine. About four o'clock
the next morning he was arrested by the watchman, and
at that time he was wearing a cap. The motive which the
prisoner had for committing so daring an act was at-
tempted to be accounted for in the following manner :
A short time before the occurrence the prosecutor had oc-
occasion to turn off some of his workmen ani to take two
others, natives of Ireland, who belonged not to the saw-
yer's union. After. that period the prisoner and another
sawyer, named Davies, were repeatedly seen about the
premises, and upon one of those occasions the prosecu-
tor's wife requested the former to leave. He refused, an
altercation took place, a policeman was called, and the
prisoner, who was taken before a magistrae and bound
over to keep the peace, then uttered a threat that, before
six weeks after, Graham should be sold up. The jury re-
turned a verdict of Guilty. The prisoner was sentenced
to transportation for fifteen years.