The Sun. — 1834-04-05 (London, England)

ALDERSON.) This morning before taking any other business his Lordship passed the awful sentence of death upon three prisoners who had been previously convicted—namely, upon Thomas• Morrows, for a rape ; Charles Cock, for highway robbery, connected with brutal violence to a poor fishman named James Richardson ; and William Hall, for stackburning. No hope of mercy was held out to them, and they were solemnly implored by his Lordship, to use well the time allotted to them in this world and prepare for the worst. John Parker was next put to the bar, charged with the wilful murder of Jane Ayrton, of Wiglesworth, in the West Riding. It appeared that the prisoner and the deceased were seen together on the 21st of December last, after which day she was missing, and shortly after she was found in a shallow stream of water, with a handkerchief tied tight round her neck, and with marks of violence about her person. The prisoner was suspected, taken up, and committed for trial, but there was not sufficient evidence to bring the charge home to bins, and an acquittal was directed. Joseph Ratcliffe was put to the bar, charged with the manslaughter of a boy named Samuel Tomlinson, at Leeds, in the West Riding. " Some of the boys employed in the factory deposed that on one occasion the deceased was sent up a ladder to a loft to get some heckles down, and that in descending his smock caught some other heckles and drew them from the loft, by falling from which the points were broken against the floor. The prisoner took the ladder and struck the deceased over the back of the neck ;he fell to the ground. One witness said he staggered but did not fall. On another occasion, some short time after the former, it was the duty of the deceased to screw a press together, which he performed as well as his strength would admit, but the boards being loose the% prisoner took an instrument called the lay-brush and beat him violently over the back of the neck. On the last occasion a number of the boys were playing with some mats, before six o'clock in the morning, when the prisoner caught them. He took hold of the deceased, whispered something to him, and let him go. He then beat all the rest with a rope, and having finished with them, called the deceased back, put the rope round his neck, and, lifting him with one arm from the ground, threw the other end of the rope over the steam-pipe which went along the factory, about eight feet from the floor, and drew the boy up so that his feet were completely off the ground, and he was suspended by the neck, in which position the prisoner kept him, he kicking and struggling all the while, for two or three minutes, till he was black in the face. He was then let down on the ground and beaten as he lay with the rope. After some time he went to his work, but the next day complained that his neck was stiff. He was not able to work after that, and, growing worse, was taken to the Leeds Infirmary in March 1833, where he grew worse. After remaining about eight weeks he was removed to another building attached to the infirmary, where he still continued to get worse, and was reported as incurable. He lingered for between eight and nine months from the time when the injury .was received, and then died. The prisoner put in a written defence, denying the charge, and stating that he was obnoxious to the Trades' Union, who were determined to be his ruin, because he refused to join them, and commented at considerable length upon the variances in the evidence, and the improbability that the deceased would not have complained to his mother, which he did not. After hearing the evidence recapitulated, the jury, after retiring for a considerable time,"returned with a verdict of Guilty. He was sentenced to be imprisoned for twelve calendar months.  ' river, and it was quite impossible to see or to suspect that it lay out at such a distance. The