The Sun. — 1857-08-22 (London, England)

CROWN COURT. (Before Mr. Baron Watson.) Bridget Cochrane was indicted for the murder of Margaret Cochrane, at Liverpool, on the 21st o: December last.  There was also a second indictment against the prisoner for the murder of Catherine Cochrane, bith of them children of the prisoner, aged 6 years and 4 years respectively. Mr. Aspinell and Mr. E. M. Fenwick conducted the prosecution ; Mr. Davison (assigned by the Court) defended the prisoner. The prisoner, who had recently given birth to a child in the gaol, earnest!y persisted iu taking her trial this assizes, in spite of the humane obk:ctions entertained by the learriel judge, who this morning cleAired that she might remain boated. The charge against the prisoner was that she had pes;.,--,--11---1.-- .1,12--- I-, -.1......:—:-L--:.,42, 1.- al--oxalic acid in buttermilk,  It appeared that she and her husband, who was a dock labourer, and the two children, lodged in a room iu St. Martin's-street, and that on Saturday, the 20th of December, she returned home after her usual avocation of selling fish, and proceeded to boil some potatoes for her children, at the same time sending the elder child, Margaret, to a neighbouring shop for a candle and half a pint of butternelk, and upon the child's return the prisoner divided the milk into two portions, which the children drank with the potatoes. These circumstances were deposed to by the landlady of the house, who left the children eating, but did not observe that the mother took any part of the milk herself. The landlady having gone out to market the prisoner and her two children were seen about hilt an hour afterwards going up the stairs to bed by a lodger, whose room was opposite to that of the prisoner. The children at that time walked upstairs and appeared perfectly well and healthy, and the prisoner was seen to leave her own room and go downstairs, taking the candle away with her. In about an hour's time the landlady returned and found the prisoner alone and seated by the fire in down exclaiming that the moms uptiehdegkeirtschraenn, and in about 20 minutes one of the steers were filled with smoke, upon which the prisoner at once exclaimed " Oh, my children are dead," and hurried upstairs and was afterwards met coming out of her room with her eldest child in her arms quite dead, and, banding it to one of the lodgers, she returned and brought out the second child, who died !very shortly afterwards. There were no marks of violence upon either of the bodies, nor were their chemises at all burnt. Assistance having been obtained the people in the house went into the prisoners bedrcom, and there they found a bed on which the parents generally slept, and which lay on the floor, completely burnt from the centre of it through the floor and ceiling of the room und a ernetatt while the bed on which the children slept, opposite corner of the room, remained untouched. The beds were composed of shaving 4, and coneequently easily ignited. An inquest was then held upon the bodies of the children, and the circumstance of the prisoner and her husband heying suddenly withdrawn afer the first day's inquiry, and the suddenness of the death of the children aroused various suspicions, which end€d in a post-mortem exatnination, the result of which was that 42 grains of oxalic acid were detected in the body of the elder child, and 20. grains in that of the younger child, a quantity, in the opinion of various medical witnesses, amply sufficient to account for death, assuming that a large portion of the dose had been absorbed into the sytem. After a very long and elaborate examination and cross-examination bf the medical witnesses, who were unable to speak with any certainty as to the time at which the poison was administered. The learned judge, who had previously entertained some doubt as to the sufficiency of the evidence, interfered, and inquired whether the counsel for the prosecution were prepared with any evidence that the woman had ever been proved to have had poison in her possession, and on being answered in the negative at once stopped the case, adding that uo doubt there were circumstances of grave suspicion against the prisoner ; and by his lordship's direction, a verdict of "Not guilty was taken upon both in ic rne cats. post mortem examination The prix iner, who laid left her house suddenly after a vaen seareh, ihmutreedeimatmeleyneaefdte, r wt ah se, ultimately taken into custody in Ireland in April last.