The Sun. — 1846-10-12 (London, England)

THE AFFRAY ON THE NEWCASTLE AND BERWICK RAILWAY. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, SATURDAY —The prisorers George Mathews and John Hughes, were brought up before the Magistrates, Mr E. J. Collingwood and Sir M. W. Ridley, Bart., at the Moot-hall, this day, when William Oliver, Mary Bryson, and Captain Potts were xsmined. William Hunter, police-officer at Walker, was then ,worn—He said, I received information of the murder on Monday afternoon, and traced the prisoner Hughes to Sunderland, where I apprehended him between one and two o'clock on Tuesday morning. On conveying him to Newcastle, when we reached the Pelaw station, the prisoner asked me if the man was dead? and on my telling him that he was, he said, " I told my companion he had done wrong in stabbing the man with the knife, ind that we were sure to be taken; but that I would take one way, and he another." John Bler.kinsopp said—l am a butcher in Newcastle, and was going towards Long Benton when I met Captain Potts, who told me a man had been stabbed, and .ave me a description of the person who had done it, Led the direction he had taken. I proceeded in the lireetion pointed out, and overtook the prisoner Nlathews near Byker, where I passed him and gave inf,rmation to the police, at the Ouseburn station, and when he came up one of the policemen toook him into :atstouly. John Potts, inspector of police, said—l came into the station soon after the prisoner Mathews was apprehended, and searched him, but did not find a knife upon him.  Turner, police-officer, said—l searched the road which the parties had taken after the man \vas stabbed, and found a penknife open, lying on the side of the footpath, about 180 paces from where the murder took place. It was rusty, but the ground was wet, and it had rained the night before. There was the appearance of blood on the knife. Thomas Commons, surgeon, said—l made a postmortem examination of the body of the deceased, and found a wound on the inside of the left thigh, nearly in ;he groin. It was two and a half inches long, one and a half inches in depth, and three-quarters of an inch wide. It appeared to hare been trisdc by a plunge and a rush upwards. The femoral artery was transfixed and lacerated upwards nearly an inch, and the vein had also been opened. Death was caused by the loss of blood consequent on that wound. The animal life would be extinct in a few seconds. A penknife is an instrument that would mike such a wound. The clerk to the magistrates stated that the next wit ness was expected to prove that Mathews and the deceased had had a battle on that day month, when the prisoner Hughes acted as the second of Mathews, but he found that he was not able to identify the parties. No other witness was called, and the prisoners on being charged—Mathews with the murder of the deceased, and Hughes with aiding and assisting—said they were not guilty. The prisoners were then formally committed for trial at the Northumberland assizes. Mr. REED, the coroner, was present during this examination, and at its close he said he had a complaint to make against the gaoler, for having disobeyed his warrant in not bringing the prisoner before him at the inquest which was held on Wednesday. The gaoler said he was ordered not to do so by the magistrates. The CORONER said that made no difference. lie ought to have obeyed the order. As it happened, it was of no consequence, for the prisoners were identified by Captain Potts, who had had an opportunity of seeing them.  The Clerk of the Peace said the prisoners were committed by the magistrates into the custody of the gaoler, to be produced before them on Thursday, and they had subsequently altered the time to Saturday. The gaoler was to keep the prisoners in this county, and if he had taken them to the inquest they would have had to pass through the borough of Newcastle, which would have been virtually putting them out of his custody altogether. The