The Blandford and Wimbourne Telegram. — 1883-01-26 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

CAPITAL. ANNUALLY. s. d. Ltd. Grammer School: Cash 99 0 8 Rent of land & houseJ 61 4 0 5 0 0 87 10 0  Hill's Exhibition - Strangwayei' and Pitt's 1000 0 0 Floyer's .. :340 0 0  £1439 0 8 £153 14 0 These are now charged with a payment of £l2 a year to the Stinsford and 13ockhampton National School. Out of the Government Stlck it is provided that a Repairs and Improvement Fund, amounting to twothirds of £l,OOO, shall be formed, and until it is .U 0 a year shall be set aside for repairs.  having been shot in the neighbourhood of the heart. Under ordinary circumstances, gentlemen of the grand jury, if you find sufficient in the testimony of one or two witnesses who are brought before you to show there is a prim% face case against the party charged such as to make it right to put him upon his trial for the offence, you do not go furth,r, but I think this is a case in which I should ask you to hear the whole of the evidence. You will find that a labourer, on the farm for the purpose of shooting birds, had a gun load 4 d. A day or two before this unhappy transaction, be took that gun into the stable, took off the cap, and left it in the stable upon a beam or some such place iu the stable. About t-n minutes before this unhappy event the father passed through the stable, and saw this gun was there, not capped or cocked. He brought it into the house, and put it down in the corner of the room where the sisters were, or in some ro )rn adjoining—it is not very material which. This was only ten minutes before the gun was taken up by the lad, and the result of which was this unfortunate event. The boy's statement is to the effect there was no cap on the gun, that he snapped it; the father's testimony points in the same direction—that ten minutes before there was no cap on it. The policeman was called upon the spot almo it immediately afterwards. and found the gun recently discharged, but no remains of a cap upon it. How far it may be possible, by the previous explosion of a cap, that some portion of the detonating powder, forming the interior of the cap, may remain upon the nipple, and when the hammer goes down upon it produce an explosion, I cannot say; probably some of you gentlemen may have had experience in that ditection, but it appears to me to be the only way ia which, if there had been any cap, it could have exploded. Referring t o the law on the matter, the Judge went on to say : If a person points a gun at another mad draws the trigger, knowing it to be loaded, it is murder; if he points it, not knowing whether it is loaded or not, and not taking any pains to ascertain whether it is or not, the off,nce is manslaughter. Then there is a third view of the case, which some judges have considered sufficient to reduce the crime from manslaughter to what is really not a crime, accident from misadventure. If a person, discharging a gun, and when ho pulls the trigger, has reason to believe that the gun is not loaded, having taken the paios to ascertain as far as he can if the gun be loaded or not—if he has reasonable cause to believe it was not, then that would amount to misadventure only, not manslaughter. After these observations I must leave the case for your consideration, and I am sure you will give it all the consideration you can, and apply to it all the experience you possess. These are the only two cases to which your atteutiou will be drawn to-day, and I will ask you now to retire to your room.