The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-08-19 00:00:00

CHESHIRE ASSIZES.

THE ALLEGED MURDERS AT MOTTRAM.—At Chester
Assizes, on Saturday, Jonathan Barcroft was acquitted of
the alleged murder of his infant child by administering
Poison to her. The prisoner was employed at some calico
works in Glossop, and received £2 103. from a burial
society on the child's death. The evidence was purely
circumstantial, and though arsenic was discovered in the
child's body, the jury were not satisfied with the proofs
adduced that it was given by the prisoner. The prisoner
was then arraigned for the murder of another girl, named
Ellen Mills, but the evidence being the same, the case
was not proceeded with, and the prisoner was discharged.
The defendant asked a man named Marsden, employed
at the works, to give him sugar of lead and arsenic for a
man to put round some tree, and the counsel for the pri-
soner urged that this poison had been left carelessly about
and that the children finding it sweet had partaken of it.
BIRKENHEAD POCKS. MICORBIICK V. PARRY AND

MELANCHOLY SUICH)E AT LLANELLY.

A young woman. named Mira Turner, occupying the
position of upper housemaid at Llanelly House, the re-
sidence of William Chambers, Esq., destroyed herself
last week by taking a quantity of laudanum. An inquest
was held at the Castle Inn, Llanelly, when it appeared
that some time since a complaint was made by Mrs.
Howells, the wife of Charles Howells, late butler in the
family, that her husband had paid too great attentions to
the deceased. Mr. Chambers in consequence taxed Howells
with the offence, but he then denied it. Having under-
stood that he had made an admission to his wife contrary
to his first assertion, Mr. Chambers sent for him a second
time, when he admitted that some familiarities had taken
place. It was the general impression that the deceased
was perfectly innocent.

C. Howells, the butler, was examined, and positively
swore that his wife's suspicions as to anything criminal
were perfectly groundless, but he admitted that he had
been guilty of some romping, and some familiarities not
proper for a married man.

Mrs. Howells saw the deceased on Sunday evening,
when she (witness) visited Llanelly-house. Deceased
came to the room where witness was, and said, " How do
you do ?" Witness said ' How can you ask me such a
thing, when you have made me so uncomfortable and low
in my mind." Deceased said that it could not have been
owing to her. Witness said, " I have seen sufficient
myself to make me unhappy" ; and told her to consider
her three children, that her husband was a married man,
and that she could not expect worse conduct from an
abandoned woman. Witness so spoke to her in conse-
quence of having seen, through the railing, deceased and
her husband in the pantry with their arms round each
other and kissing. Her suspicions were likewise excited
in consequence of seeing some corre.pondence between
her husband and the deceased.
In a letter written to Mrs. Chambers, the deceased
indignantly denied her guilt, saying, " I am not the guilty
wretch Mrs. Howells said I was. I am not guilty. I
am not an abandoned wretch. I never did any harm—
believe me or believe me not. Ask any body who knows
me." In the remainder of the letter the deceased entered
into an explanation in reference to some alleged levities
respecting which Mrs. Chambers appeared to have spoken
to her some time before.

In a letter to her aunt, the deceased wrote, " Dearest
aunt,—Your child must die, though innocent of the
charge laid to her. Forget me—only remember the child
you used to love so dearly. lam innocent now as I was
then of the crime they accused me of. I was told this
morning that I was an abandoned, guilty, heartless
wretch. Oh aunt ! lam not. I have not long to live,
aunt. You will believe me, won't you aunt ? There is
not a single soul I can speak to, to take my part. I feel
alone and mad. My heart must burst. I am in agony.
lam not guilty—l am not guilty. . . . Bury me by
my brother, &c., &c."
The jury returned a verdict. "That the deceased, Mira
Turner, died from the effects of poison, taken while in a
state of temporary insanity."

FOREIGN.

GERMANY

Don Carlos of Spain has been living of late with his
family in the environs of Vienna.

VIENNA.—The last despatches received by Prince
Schwarzenberg, from Paris, refer exclusively to the affairs
of Rome and the question of the French garrison in that
city. The Vienna cabinet wishes that the papal army
shall be speedily and thoroughly re-organised, and the
garrisoning of the city be confided to it exclusively.