The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1838-11-27 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

CHARGE OF MURDER.—Yesterday, at the Police-office, an Irishman, named James Lackey, and his wife, with au infant in her arms, were placed at the bar, charged with having been concerned in a brutal murder at Preston. Mr. Dowling said the prisoners had been taken into custody on a charge of being concerned in a murder at Preston, from the description given of them in the Hue ond Cry. They did not deny that they were the parties. Constable Lloyd said, that on Sunday he went to the house of a person named O'Neil, where he heard the prisoners were. He asked for the prisoner Lackey by name, and told him that there was a charge of murder against hint, committed on the Monday night before, in Preston, on a man called Dounaghue. The prisoner said he was the man who kept the house where the murder was committed, but he was as innocent of the murder as the child in his wife's arms. He admitted that his name was James Lackey. Mr. Dowling said the facts of the murder were,--Donnaghue, the man murdered, was a sort of overlooker on the railway, and had money iu his possession each week, to pay the men with. On his passing the prisoner's house, the prisoner and several others dragged Dunnaghue into the prisoner's house, where they beat out his brains in a most brutal manner, rubbed him of his money, and decamped. Mr. Hall ordered him to be detained in custody till sent for. Nista Bs.:Gcatts.—Yesterday, at the Police-office, one of the wretched set of Irish, who continually immigrate into Liverpool, to subsist on charity, and who dry up the sources of charity to our own poor by their profligacy and lying deceit, named Ellen Oan, was charged with begging in the streets on Sunday. The prisoner had an exceedingly fine looking infant in her arms, and two other wretched squalid looking children along with her. She was charged by a policeman with begging_ in the streets, for which she had been taken into custody. The prisoner then commenced a tale of woe and destitution, which had almost imposed upon the judgment of the magistrate, and excited his compassion, stating that she was a widow, and had no home, and no means of getting bread for herself and family but by begging, and, in short, proved herself an adept in that peculiar characteristic of her countrymen,—blarney;—when the thread of her recited miseries was cut short by policeman Maguire, who wished to say something respecting the case. On the Sunday before, he saw her leave her children in a public thotoughfare to beg, and the poor children were nearly frozen by the cold. He was determined to watch her; and in about an hour she returned, and took from the children what money their wretched appearance had extracted from the charity of the passers by, and then went straight to a dram-shop and spent it. He then took both her and the children into custody. The prisoner at that time was drunk; bat, in consideration of the children, he let her go that time. The prisoner immediately began asserting her innocence, and calling God to witness the truth of what she said, and that the policeman was stating what was false. Mr. Hall said she was a most worthless woman. He should send her for three weeks to the Borough House of Correction, and take care of the children meanwhile.