The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-14 00:00:00

STABBING, WITH INTENT TO MURDER

John Whalley, 29, was indicted for having, at Liverpool,
feloniously cut, stabbed, and wounded Joseph Watkins, with
intent to murder him. Other counts of the indictment
charged the prisoner with cutting and stabbing Watkins, with
intent to maim or disfigure him, or to do him some grievous
bodily harm. Mr. Arnold conducted the prosecution; Mr.
Wilkins defended the prisoner.
Mr. ARNOLD stated the facts of the case. The prosecutor
was a labourer, residing in Greetham-street, in this town.
The house occupied by him was a lodging-house, and which
the prisoner had, up to a few days before the transaction in
question, been the tenant. He transferred the house to
Whalley, and went out of town in search of employment,
leaving his wife and a granddaughter of hers behind him. This
was a little girl, named Mary Lowe, of the age of twelve
years. Besides them there were in the house Martha Rod-
gers and her two children, who were lodgers, and one room
was occupied by a man named Shaw and his wife. The pro-
secutor slept in the top room, in which there were two beds.
He and Mary Rowe slept in one bed; in the other there
slept Mrs. Rodgers and her two children, and the prisoner's
wife. On the night of the 26th of January, about ten
o'clock, Watkins secured the house and went to bed, leav-
ing Mrs. Rodgers and Mrs. Whalley up. About one o'clock
the prisoner unexpectedly returned to the house, opened the
door by means of a knife, and crept up stairs. He first en-
tered the room of Shaw, and on being asked who he was, he
replied, " Hush, hush, it is me." On being asked how he
got in, he said, " Never mind, I am going to do you no
harm." Mrs. Shaw gave him a light, and he went up stairs
with it. According to the statement of the prosecutor, lie
was wakened by the prisoner, who had grasped him by the
hair of the bead, and began to hack at his throat with a
knife. He said, at the same time, usi"; an oath, "This
night you shall die." Some wounds, not of a very serious
nature, were inflicted on the back of the prosecutor's neck.
A struggle ensued, considerable tumult took place, and Mrs.
and Mr. Shaw came up stairs. The prosecutor endeavoured
to escape ; the prisoner followed him and stabbed at him
with a knife. A second struggle took place between them,
during the continuance of which Watkins received a cut in
his cheek and lip, inflicted by one stroke of the knife. It
appeared that the prisoner had been actuated by jealousy.
Mrs. Whalley, however, was a woman not likely to give rise
to the feelings of jealousy, she being about fifty years
of age; and the jury would be told that when Mrs.
Rogers was roused by the cries of the prosecutor, Mrs.
Whalley was standing on her bed, in her night clothes.
That, however, would be explained by the fact of her having
on the previous night been taking medicine, and she had been
down stairs. The prisoner's own statement was, that he
found his wife in the bed of the prosecutor. Even if that
Ferri; chi' ittai NI& iisnstrisEcAfewrAaaffelvadfigt
stood charged, except so far as related to the first count of
the indictment, charging the prisoner with stabbing with
intent to murder. The law was, that if a man found his wife
in the act of adultery, and, in the act of his passion, killed
the adulterer, that was not murder, but manslaughter. If
the jury, after hearing the facts of the case, should be of
opinion that the parties were caught in adultery, and that the
wounds were inflicted in the heat of passion arising from that
discovery, then the prisoner would not be guilty of murder,
even though the prosecutor had died ; but he would be guilty
of some of the minor charges in the other counts of the in-
dictment.

Joseph Watkins was called, and deposed to the facts as
opened. On his cross-examination by Mr. WILKINS, he
said that he was not a married man, nor never had been.
He stated, that after the departure of the prisoner from the
house, he bought the whole of the furniture, for £2. 10s.,
from Mrs. Whalley. There were four rooms in the house,
and they were all furnished. Since the transaction in ques-
tion, he had removed to Frederick-street, and Mrs. Whalley
had been lodging with him there. He denied that she had
been living in adultery with him. Mr. Wilkins asked him,
" Was Mrs. Whalley sitting with you on the bed that night?"
His reply was, " I was asleep before John 'Whalley wakened
me." The learned counsel repeated the question about eight
or ten times, and received the same answer. He at last
swore that he did not know that Mrs. Whalley was sitting
on his bed that night, and he distinctly and promptly swore
that she was not in it. He said that his wounds got better
in the space of about three weeks, and without having re-
course to a surgeon. All he did was to rub the wound on his
lip with some oil which he found in the house.
Mrs. Rogers said that Mrs. Whalley had been taking pur-
gative medicines for a syphilitic complaint. Shaw stated
that lie believed the prosecutor and prisoner's wife had be-
foretimes been living together.
After the whole of the evidence had been heard, his Lord-
ship said that the case, on the first count of the indictment,
could not be supported.
Mr. WILKINS addressed the jury, and contended that
there was enough of doubt, and mystery, and falsehood about
the case to justify them in coming to an acquittal altogether.
He denounced the prosecutor as a brazen-fronted miscreant,
who had robbed the poor man at the bar of the affections of
his wife, and of the whole of his property, small though it
might be, and who had turned him out of his own house. He
ridiculed the idea of the prisoner having attempted to do any
serious arm with the knife produced, (an ordinary pocket-
knife, the larger blade of which was not of greater size than
that frequently put into penknives,) and contended that the
scratch on the prosecutor's lip, which was all that was seen
by the police, must have been caused in the struggle caused
by the prisoner having found his wife in the bed of Watkins.
Several witnesses, police-officers, and others were called by
Mr. Wilkins, and they all gave the prisoner the character of
a peaceable, respectable, and industrious man.
His LORDSHIP, in summing up, said that there was little
doubt of the position in which the prosecutor and Mrs.
Whalley had been found. The prisoner, if fouud guilty at
all, must be convicted on the fourth and fifth counts of the
indictment ; but in order to find him guilty, the jury must
be convinced that a cut or wound was inflicted at all.

The prisoner was found guilty of an assault, and expressed
an opinion that he had received great provocation. The
sentence was, four weeks' imprisonment and hard labour.
which will entitle the prisoner to be discharged at the end of
another week.