The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1875-07-24 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

RECOMMENDED TO MERCY.  At the Derby Assizes, Bose Brown has been charged with the murder of her husband, William Brown. Mr. Buzzard and Mr. Brogden prosecuted ; Mr. Weightman (at the request of the learned Judge) defended the prisoner. it appeared from the evidence and the cross-examination of the witnesses that the prisoner and her husband lived in Bag-lane, Derby. The prisoner is about 60 years of age' and her husband was about 99. He was well known from standing in the market at Derby, and gained his living by selling boot-laces. He was a cripple, and was in the habit of walking with a short stick. On Saturday evening, the 12th of June, about nine o'clock, as a neighbour, Frederick Read, was walking past the prisoner's i cottage he heard a noise n the house, and heard the prisoner say "I will kill you ! " He returned in about a minute, and found the door of the cottage open, and saw the prisoner "laying on the old man's head with apiece of iron." He saw two or three blows struck. The old man was sitting in his chair with his head bent down, and she was standing over him. He then went and *old their landlady what was going on and Bent for the police. Mrs. Lindley, their landlady, said, when she was called in, she found the old man sitting fronting the door. His faoe was covered with blood; the prisoner was in the act of striking him on the side of his face with her hand. The prisoner was threatening to kill him. She had something in her hand, which she waved about the landlady's head, and called her an offensive name, and "beat the weapon on the table like a drum." The landlady kept her away from her husband. He said, "She has done for me now." Mrs. Lindley then took the old man into her house and dressed his wounds. She stated, on cross-examination, that he was quite a dottbled-up cripple and could not protest himself at all ; that they lived on very unhappy terms, and she had frequently to go to them for quarrelling • and that she had taken him out a few weeks before, alter Mrs. Brown had beaten him, and dressed his wounds When the old man was taken to the hospital, it was 'mind that he was suffering from ten scalp wounds. Mr. Highton, the house surgeon at the hospital, stated that not very much force would have been required to have produced the wounds, and that they were not very dangerous. Five days after his admission into the hospital erysipelas set in, and he died on the 20th of June. When the prisoner was apprehended oethe 12th of June for wounding her husband with intent to do grievous bodily harm, she sai,d she was innocent of cutting; what she did was with% poker. His Lordship, in summing up the case, said it was perfectly clear that the plisoner inflicted the blows, and that her husband died from them. He could not see any reason in point of law why she should be found guilty of a less crime than murder. No langueage that the man could have used would have justified her conduct. It was clear that the prisoner had struck her husband ten repeated blows, and he was unable to think what amount of provocation in point of law would justify the prisoner's conduct. Her language showed that she was bent on mischief, and there was no evidence that pointed the other way. If the jury believed the evidence, they could only find a verdict of murder. He had carefully watched the evidence to see if he could seize on the slightest facts that he could lay before them to reduce the charge to one of mancdaughter ; but he had failed to find any. He hoped that if any of the jury saw any reason for mitigating the offence they would act on it, and he prayed them to do so. The jury found the prisoner Guilty of wilful murder, but recommended her to mercy on account of her age, The prisoner then stated that she did not mean to kill her husband.  His lordship, in passing sentence of death, said that the prisoner had been fou.nd guilty of the murder of her husband, who was a quiet, inoffensive, and very old man, and that she ought to have treated him with every kindness, instead of in the way she had done. It was no part of his duty to make any other remarks In the case, but that if the jury had found any other verdict it would have been against the evidence.