Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1864-09-30 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MULLER.  Franz Muller, charged with the murder of Mr Briggs, was on Monday morning brought up at Bow Street Police Court, before Mr Flowers. The most important witness examined was Daniel :Mi.:time, of 11, Royal Exchange, who said—l am a fiat manufacturer. I knew the late Mr T. Briggs as a ,totner fr 35 years. I used to make his hats ace,rding to order. On the 24th of September. 1863, I t.mk .an order from him. which I find entered im my books. The hat was sent home a few days afterwards. The hat produced is the one I made. There is no (LO)t about it. This is a bell-crowned hat,'and it was a hi,ll.crowneil hat I supplied to Mr Briggs in 11163 I have compared the measurement of this hat with the measurement in my order, and it corresnmuls. The hat being at first a trifle too large for Mr Briggs he came into the shop. and I pasted a small piece of tissue et the back underneath the leather inside. The paper has been removed, but fragments remain, showing the paper has been in the hat in the same position as I ,asted it at some tune or other. The hat is much the crown than the one supplied to Mr Briggs n in the same emehtion as when it left my Iwent: it has been cut down alamt an inch and That has not been done as a hatter would do it. would refasten the brim with composition.  lower in  It is no cstahlishi a half. '  hitt*,  This is stitched; it is done very neatly, but by an inexperienced hand. When a hat is made to order I usually pot the name of the customer inside the hat, just: at the band. That place is gone with the part that is cut off. Mr F. NV. Thorne is the person who actually made the hat for me. Frederick William Thorne was the next witness examined. He said: I live at 46, Hatfield-street, Stamford street, Blaekfriars-road. lam a hat manufacturer. I made the hat produced. It contains my private mark I finished that hat for Mr Digance. It is not in the same condition now as when I finished it. The hat has been cut down. The work is not done as a hattur would do it. This has been sewn to4ether. A hatter sould stick it together with a hot iron and gum, and that would necessitate the use of a block. Besides, the silk around the band has been taken down for the purpose of eating it, and paste has been used to restick it, which a hatter would not use for the purpose. Samuel Tidinarsh, watchmaker, spoke to having cleaned the w itch produced for Mr Brig.t.s. Inside of it there were figures made by him last year. At the close of the eximination, Mr Flowers asked the prisoner, as a matter of form, if he had anything to say in nn=wo.• to the clinr2P.  Prisoner: I have nothing to say now. The witnesses were then bound ever, and the prisoner was ful:y committed for trial. The coroner's inquest was concluded on Monday. The coroner summed up, and the jury. afar an absence of twenty miuutes, returned the following verdict : " That tho deceased 'died from the effects of ful violence administered in a railway carriage on the 9th of .Toly and we find that Franz Muller was the man by whom the violence was rommitted." The jury appended to their verdict the following:— "The jury, whilst passing their verdict. would take this opportunity of .expressing their dissatisfaction with the nresent state of railway accommodation, as affording faeiliiies for the perpetration of various crimes and offiree+ and earnestly desire to call the attention of the Home Government to the subjeet, and to the necessity of forcine the adoption by railway companies of some more efficient system of' protection to life, character, and property "  \4\l\,, N