Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1902-11-22 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

KETCHES.]  company with two other men,and about a quarter to nine they all turned into Wheeler's beershop, where at ten minutes past ten Harris left him! Assuming this witness's good faith, is it possible that he was mistaken as to the date? He declared that he was not. He was able possibly to fix it, because on the morning of that day he and his father had seen off a friend,who had been staying with them, and on this point his father confirmed him. Moreover, the prisoner was arrested in the °curse of the week following the murder, so that the witnesls had to cast his thoughts back but a  very short. way. A butler to one of the Eton masters, who saw the man in the High-street of Eton at eight o'clock, seventeen minutes after the train had left Slough, two miles distant; he, two men who went for the walk with him and Harris; several others who were in their company in the beerhouse ; a. baker, who saw him in another licensed house at a quarter past eleven—when he ought to have been about midway between Paddington and Windsor on the return journey—followed each other into the box, told their story in the most unhesitating fashion, and were not in the least shaken by cross-examination. Nor was this all. Evidence was presented which at. two points directly contradicted that for the prosecution. One contradiction related to the testimony of the constable, Clark. According to the elder Harris, Clark had told him that when he saw prisoner going' homewards on the Wednesday night it was not more than a quarter - past eleven whereas in court the officer had fixed ;he time at a quarter to twelve. The other contradiction had reference • to the story told by Giles as to the conversation in which "Denton" spoke of going a journey of forty miles to London. Two men who were at the "Jolly Millers" all the evening of the murder declared that neither the prisoner nor Giles was present. They were quite positive as to the date and as to the fact, and since Giles had not pretended to be certain whether it was the Wednesday or the Thursday, the I only fair inference, the witnesses being equal in point of credibility, is that the conversation took place on the Thursday, or at any rate on some other' evening than that of the murder. One other point was to be noted. Before the case for the prosecution had been closed, Sergeant 13-allantipe had shown that it was half-past seven when the two witnesses Blackman and Whitehouse saw the prisoner near the fiftharch bridge, if he caught the 7.45 train at Slough (which started to time) he must have walked, or, rather, run a mile and a-half in thirteen minutes, which would be at the rate of about seven miles an hour. When all the baker's dozen of witnosses for the defence had been called the prosecution must have felt a good deal less sanguine of getting their verdict, than they had, not unnaturally, felt at the conclusion of their ease. Mr Metcalfe, however, who led for the Crown, made a spirited reply, suggesting that the witnesses for the defence were biassed in the prisoner's favour and mistaken as to the date. But the judge, in summing up, though he did full justice to the ease for the prosecution, did not conceal his conviction that the witnesses for the prisoner were neither lying nor mistaken. As to the former hypothesis, he declared it to be simply incredible; there was not so much perjury in the world as that would imply. And he added that rogues would try to screen rogues, a number of persons would never conspire together to save a murderer from the penalty of his crime. The judge had no sooner finished than the jury, without waiting for the usual question from the Clerk of Arraigns, • announced a verdict of Not Guilty. And the judge very properly remarked that  it. was due to the prisoner to say that he was more than not guilty—he was innocent. To this day the Cannon-street murder remains on the list of unavenged crimes. Led away by a false scent, the police gave an innocent man the opportunity of demonstrating that the murder was no handiwork of his. That was the full extent of their. sueoess in solving the problem, and it is little likely that the mystery will ever yield up its dark secret.