The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1877-01-12 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

THE EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE  AGAINST A PRI!. ST AND A SOLICITOR.  Some further proceedings were taken in the City Police-court, Manchester, on the 4 thanst., in the extraordinary ease of a charge of attempted murder of a Welsh girl by administering a drug to her. On Jan. Ist, the Rev. Father Jackson, of the Church of the Holy Name, Manchester, was charged with the offence, and the ease was dismissed, and on the -Ith, Mr. George Shippey. solicitor, who was unable to appear on that day, and was under arr. at in his bedroom, surrerdered at the court. The police had previously being withdrawn from his house, and on the case been called, the solicitor for the police offered no evidence. Mr. Shippey's counsel demanded that the case should begone into. but the magistrAtes permitted the police to withdraw from It.— Mr. Taylor, barrister, then applied for a warrant for perjury against the girl Morris, who alleged that she had had a pAsonous drug administered to her by Shippey at his office, and Father Jackson had afterwards dragged her through the sheet to a neighbouring house whilst she was unconscious. It was stated that in Januaty,lB73.. bill in CI:I./leery t, as filed by Messrs. Attwood, solicitors, Aberystwith, on behalf of the children of a woman named Morrie. one of the children living in the Home of the Good Shepherd, in Manchester. the authorities of that place applied to Mr. Shippey, on her behalf, and the further conduct of the case was entrusted to him. The girl Jos,phine Morrie, against whom the application for a summons far perjury was now made, wag taken to Mr. Shippey by the matron of the home to which she had been sent by the magistrates when brought before them on a charge of soliciting prostituthin in the public streets. On one occasion when she was at his office Father Jackson called, and Mr. Shippey, knowing that she was living a loose lie. requested the reverend gentleman to speak to her about bar conduct, and he did so. This was the only occa•ion en which Father .lackson saw her until he was arrested and taken to her bedside. On the day on which she alleged that the attempted murder took place she did .11 at Mr. Shippey's Olive to consult ' him about matters in which he was acting for her, and at her request the clerk was sent out of the room, and the interview was private. It was given in evidence that she was only in the office three tar:mites. That when she left nothing was the matter with her; and it was proved that she did not return to the Wee, which Mr. Shippey left shortly after her visit. lie drove to his fathcein-law's in a cab, and never again , left the house until after he was arrested. Ms. Shippey ' was put into the box, and he denied on his oath that he administered anything to the girl; and other evidence was given to show that the story told by her in her depositions taken when she was supposed to be I dying, and her testimony imthe police court, were false. The magistrates granted the warrant, the Stipendiary remarking that the great difficulty of the prosecution I would be in rc..,ard to the plea of hysteria, from which she was said to be sufferins when she told her story, and under the lidluence of which the comma for Father Jackson on the previous hearing, said that she had invented the whole story.