Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-03-03
ENGLAEDs GREATEST BURG
LAR.
Hanging Of Charles Peace at Leeds The
Remarkable Career Of a Smart
Fool Who Fought Society
From His Youth.


LONDON, February %. = Charles
Peace, the notorious burglar and MUIR
derer~ recently convicted of the murder
of Arthur Dyson, civil engineer, at
Banner Cross, on the 10Th Of Novem-
Der, 1876, was executed at Leeds
yesterday. Some days before his ex-
ecution he confessed that he was the
murderer of a Manchester policeman
at Whalley Range in 1876, for which
crime a man named Habron was SEN
fenced to death. That sentence, how
ever, wa committed on account Of
Habron's youth, and is now undergo
ing Imprisonment for life. Peace said
that he was surprised by the officers
while attempting a burglary, and fired
upon them in self-defense. He was in
court when Habron was sentenced TO
death. Manchester newspapers find
discrepancies between the statement
of Peace and the circumstances of the
Whalley Range murder. 1t is believed
that Peace sought to prolong his life
pending the investigation of his state
ment concerning the murder of the
policeman. The Home Office has be-
gun inquiring into the case of HabrOn.
A PECULIAR CRIMINAL.
The Times says:
Charles Peace claimed a remarkable
place among the great criminals of
modern days. There have been MUIR
derers in whose character and career
more romantic elements were to be
but there has seldom been n
so strictly typical of that criminal
class which tends more and more to
organize its war against societv and to
elevate lawbreaking to the rank of a
profession. A cold and cynical dc.
pravity and an undisguised subser-
yience to the coarse and vulgar forms
of pleasure were conioined in this
man with extraordinary courage,
with self-reliance and self-possession,
with cummings daring with reticence,
and, above all, with iron and resist
less forceot will. The murder for which
he was hanged was only an episode in
a long career Of guilt, for most part
successful and unpublished. Indeed,
it is highly probably that if Peace had
been careful to avoid getting into the
meshes Of the law he would never have
been brought to justice for the MUIR
der Of his victim. But long before the
murder he had been living the life of
a professional burglar, and when he had
thrown the police off his scent he re-
turned Immediately to that pursuit.
During the early part Of the autumn a
number Of burglariers, which for a
while bafled inquiry, were committed
in the neighborhood Of Blackhoath.
The criminal was at last captured
in the act, after attempting the life
of the policeman who arrested
him. He was tried under the name of
Ward at the Old Bailey, and sentenced
to penal servitude for life. But the
police got a clew to the fact that Ward
was really Peace, who had fed from
Sheffield in 1876, and was suspected Of
the murder of Mr.. Dyson. The facts
of the latter case were then recalled.
Mr.. Dyson and his wife had become
acquainted with Peace, at that time
ostensibly carrying on the business Of
a picture frame maker at Darnall,
near Sheffield, some three or four
years ago, and it is admitted that an
intimacy grew up between Peace and
Mrs. Dyson, of which Mr.. Dyson dis
approved. Whether Peace roughly
forced his attentions on Mrs. Dyson as
she has sworn, or whether she gave
him some encouragement, does not
seem material. At any rate, when the
.DysOns! moved to Banner Cross, Peace
followed aud prosecuted them, using
menacing and insulting language, to
which dlsinterested witnesses deposod.
On the night of the murder, as Mrs.
Dyson ayers, he entered their garden,
and, being confronted by her husband,
a tall and muscular man, who attemp-
ted to seize him, he drew his revolver
and fired two shots, one of them in
iicting a fatal wound. He then dis
appeared, and the police were com
pletely bafled in their attempts to
follow up his track, until he was ar
rested at Blackheath. The main out
lines Of this story we're known
to the authorities when the
identity of the convicted burglar
with the Banner Cross murderer
began to be suspected. But Mrs.
Dyson, the only witness of the actual
encounter between Peace and his vic
tim, had gone otto the United States,
where she originally met her Inflated
husband, aud it was necessary to find
her and bring her back. Her evil
dence was not shaken upon any mate
rial point during the trial, and it was
borne out by other witnesses upon
collateral issues. The defense was
forced to set up q theory 10 account
for the murder, of which, in the ma.
nataFe Of things, thore could be nc
direct proof, ard which was infinitely
less probable than the account giver
on oath by Mrs. Dyson. The pre-.
sumption ola struggle in which Peace.
pistol went off, as was suggested, BY
accident, had nothing whatever t
support it. Indeed, if Peace was no.
the murderer. the charge would only
haze been shifted to Mrs. Dyson
whose feeble organizations .whcl
laborigg to explain away her intimac!
with the prisoner are in strong con
trast with his we'll known auaacity
The JqFg, remembering that Peac,
had W~ell-nigh taken Ra0ther nan
liRe at Blaokhaath, saw no reason 70
rejecting the direct evidence Of Mrs
Dyson that the fatal shot was fire,
from the revolver with which til,
prisoner was always armed.
AN EXTRAORDINARY CAREER.
BIT the evidence upon which Peac
was convicted % the Old Bailey an,
at the Leeds AseiZes pecessarilg en-