The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-28
a TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.
a Case Where Truth is, Indeed Stran-
ger Than Fiction.
ronl the London Nen

somewhat matter-of-fact question.
asked in the House of Commons on Wednes-
day, received quite matter-of-fact reply
Mr.. Milvain asked the home secretary
whether inquiry had been made into the
confession of man who alleged that he
and another committed burglary at Ed
bingham Vicarage, Northumberland, in 1879.
for which offense two other men were con.
victed, and had been ever since suffering a
sentence Of penal servitude The home
secretary told Mr.. Milvain, in a quite I'M
imprisoned official way, that such inquiry
had been made, and that, as the result of
it, the two men, who had been nine years in
penal servitude, had been let out con
license, and that the two other men named
in the confession were to be brought before
a criminal court. No more was said. The
house Immediately became interested in
the question of the governorship of Queens
land, and there was nothing in its demeanor
to show that it had given one of the most
terrible tragedies of modern criminal an
mails more than passing thought. For,
without wishing to prejudice case which
Is still under investigation it may be said
with confidence that, whoever may be
guilty, the two men who have been for nine
years in the penal cell are absolutely inno-
cent of the crime laid to their charge.
Justice has simply made a mistake in
their case-one of those mistakes which are
so dreadful in their consequences that one
feels only less pity for those who make them
than for those at whose expense thew are
made. The two poor fellows who have Just
come out to look once more upon free mems
faces and on the green world, are named
Peter Murphy and Michael Brannagan.
They were convicted at the Northumber-
land winter assizes of 1879, of Burglary and
attempted murder in lonely vicarage, in
which, curiously enough, the judge, Sir H.
Manisty, before whom they were tried,
first saw the light. 1t was an ideal burg
harry of the tragic sort, lacking hardly a
single element of terror, and not without
its element of pity. In the dead of the
night of Friday, Feb. Z, 1879, the Rev.
Mr.. Buckle, of Edlingham Vlcarage, was
awakened by his daughter, who had been
alarmed by noise downstairs. Men were
in the house-that was certain-and only
the locked door of drawingroom stood be-
tween them and the all but helpless inmates.
whom they were determined to reach Miss
Buckle had challenged them from the stair
case, and instead of running away, they
had quietly resumed their attempt to force
the door. There was touching scene be-
tween father and daughter as the vicar,
arming himself with an old sword, went
down to encounter the burglars. He i'm
plored his daughter to go to her room, but
they reached the ground floor they saw
two men in the dim light, one of them hold
ing what appeared to be gun. The can
die which the vicar carried was soon extin-
guished. but the brave old man made for
the intruders with his ancient weapon and
lunged at them in the dark, passing the
sword, as he thought, several times into
human flesh. Then there was a fash and
report, and he felt that he had been hit
with quantity of small shot, as if from
poacher's gun. He did not know at the
time that his heroic daughter had been hit
as well, and far more dangerously than
himself, for the simple reason that she said
no word of it until the neighborhood had
been called in to attend to her fathers
hurt. In the confusion the two burglars
made their escape.
The police were soon able to effect Sim
portant arrests" Ellington is near Aim
wick, and in Alinwick lived Murphy and
Brannagan, with not the best characters in
the world They were poor and they
were partial to "rabbiting," a sport
which is apt to take persons of
their class abroad at an early hour wnen
honest men should be in their beds There
were footmarks about the house, the police
took casts of them and they were found to
correspond exactly with the boots found at
the lodgings of the suspected men. A chisel
left behind by the thieves was identified as
his property by an old man with whom one
of them lived.
The police had shown considerable in
genuity" in inducing the old man to admit
his ownership of the tool. They had thrown
him off the scent by saying nothing of their
suspicious of his lodger, and by making him
believe that his evidence was required for
the detection of another and far less seri-
GUS offense. Soon they were in pos session of a
piece of newspaper, picked up at the vic
arage, and exactly match g another piece of
newspaper, found in the pocket of Murphy's
coat The last discovery was due to doc
tor through whose hands the coat had
passed in the course of the investigation.
Finally, they found piece OF cloth, torn
apparently from the trousers OF one Of the
men in their hasty fight, and this piece of
cloth fitted place in Brannagan's trousers
where piece was missing. The evidence as
to personal Identification was not very Clear
but Miss Buckle thought that Brannagan
resembled one of tine men she had seen in
the dim light. Such was the case for the
prosecution. The case for the defense was
nothing to speak Of. Wit iesses said that
the chisel had never belonged to the old
man who identified it, and that, if it had,
his feebleness of mind and almost total
blindness put Identification out of the ques-
tion. Counsel dwelt on the fact that the
garment of Murphy in which the piece of
newspaper was found had been thoroughly
searched by the police without effect before
it passed into the doctors hands. He also
pointed out that neither Of the accused bore
the slightest trace Of the passage of Mr..
Buckles sword. In conclusion, he warned
the jnrv of the risks attending verdict
founded on circumstantial evidence. All
this, of course, he was in duty bound to do.
The jury, no doubt, with as keen sense of
duty on their side, brought in verdict OF
guilty, after long elaboration, and the
judge, after reminding the prisoners how
narrowly they had escaped the gallows,
sentenced them to penal servitude for life.
Brannagan and Murphy went forth to
their awful doom, and they lay IN the
prison as forgotten, as they might have lain
In the grave, for full six years Then Mr..
Charles Percy, solicitor OF Alnwlck, OBJ
tanned some information which led him to
believe that there had been a miscarriage
of justice He followed up his clew, and
finally, as the reward of infinite patience,
he found one man and then another man
who were ready to declare, with full con-
seriousness of the dreadful consequences OF
the confession, that they were the authors.
These men had been brought to their
avowal step by step. At first they would
say no more than that the accused were
innocent, and this in confidence. Then
they offered to admit their own guilt on con-
dition of pardon. At last, W EN- they learned
that no such proposal could be entertained,
their awakened conscience brought them
forward to take the place of the men un-