The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1871-07-28 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

BRUTAL MURDER AT WEST BROMWICH.  At the Stafford assizes, on Tuesday, before Mr.' Justice Lush, John Higginson 52, labourer, was I arraigned for the wilful murder of Joseph Marshal on the 25th June last, at the parish of West Bromwich. About half-past five o'clock on Sunday morning (June 25), at the Hall End Pits, belonging to Mr. Alford, Church lane, West Bromwich, an engine driver, named Isaac Blocksidge, found in one of the pit hovels the body of an old man lying I on the ground, the whole of his right side being! covered with hot coals, which had apparently been taken from the fire and heaped upon him. Thu engineer states that when he first saw the man he was burning—" seething." Blocksidge says that his clothes were burnt through by the embers from the fire, that his right side was burnt, his legs and arms were burnt brown and blistered, and that the head alone, so cruelly battered, had escaped the fire, which had partially consumed the other portions of the body. The leathern belt that was round his waist was scorched into two pieces. Blocksidge recognised at once that the person who lay maimed and scorched before him was a poor fellow named Joseph Marshall, better known by the title of "Lame Joe," a labourer, with no home, but who seems to have lived and slept, as he died, in spit hovel. Blocksidge, on seeing this ghastly sight, put himself in speedy communication with police, and the the body was taken to an outhouse adjoining the Na g' , Head, in Church-lane. On inspecting the hovel, a hammer and two rakes were discovered, the latter bearing traces of having been used in producing the wounds on the deceased's head. It was also ob.' served that the fender of the hovel fire had been removed and placed on a bench, and there were signs which seemed to indicate that the red-hot embers from the fire had been raked from the grate to the body of Marshall. The conclusion was, therefore, that the man had been savagely beaten in thel head till he was de id, and afterwards the murderer added a ghastly finishing stroke to his work by burning the lifeless body of his victim. The evidencel against the prisoner was that he was drinking withl the deceased at the Hall End Tavern on Saturday night, and they left together at a quarter to eleven o'clock. Upon the road violent threats were exchanged, after which the deceased struck at the, prisoner, and the prisoner at him. They seemed to have parted, the deceased going to his usual , quarters, where he was afterwards found dead, and the prisoner to his lodgings, at Mrs. M'Evoy's.' No one saw him leave his lodgings again, but at about half-past two that morning he wasl seen going towards his lodgings from the direction of the hovel, and was heard swearing. The theoryl is that at that time he had committed the murder. I became known at half-past five on Sunday morning at the prisoner's lodgings that poor old Joe was burnt to death. In the morning prisoner's fellow lodger, who saw him get into bed at half-past three with his clothes and boots on, asked him to go with him "to seeabout it." Prisoner, however, responded, "No, I shan't like to see him." The prisoner was arrested later in the day, and blood was found upon one of his boots which had been washed. A witness deposed to having seen him go towards the brook before his second return to his lodgiffgs.— The Judge, in summing up, dwelt upon the enormity of the crime; and the jury, after a brief deliberation, found the prisoner guilty of manslaughter, and he was sentenced to penal servitude for life.  The work of restoration was so far advanced in the nave of Bath Abbey as to render that portion of the building available for public service on Sunday last.  The Morning Post states that the vote office of the House of Commons had to be closed on Monday for the purpose of being fumigated, two of the clerks employed in it having been seized by smallpox.  A