The Herald of Wales. — 1888-07-07 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

COWARDLY MURDER.  INHUMAN CONDUCT OF A FATHER.  HE IS SENTENCED TO DEATH.  There is something very beautiful in the parmtal instinct which prompts so many of the brute creation to defend their offspring at the peril of their lived!, and one cannot help lamenting occasionally that the same instinot ehould be so conspicuously wanting in certain members of the human 'twice who are conventionally, but too flatteringly, compared to brutes. To this order evidently belongs the young agricultural labourer Thomas Wyre, who was convicted at the Woreester Aaaiea, on Saturday, of the mode; of his little boy:James,by throwing him doled a well at Wolverley. The boy, who was not quite tour years old, was Wyre's only child, and, according to the neighbours, one that any father might be proud and fond of; but Wyre appears to have reeerved all his affection for himself. He bad been some time out of work, and was, figuratively speaking, in low water, and finding the child under these circtuastanoes • burden rather than a blessing, he seems to have made up his mind to get rid of him. Such at least is the only theory which suggests itself to the prosecution, for the motive, manner, and circumstance of the murder are to a great extent matters of speculation, and Wyre's guilt is brought home to him solely by what is known as circumstantial evidence. He is known to have been very hard up about the time hi question, so much so that the neighbours had to help him with food and clothing for the child, but if he contemplated getting rid of it he kept his counsel to himself. He Mid the neighbours on the morning of the 3rd of March, the supposed date of iii, murder, that be was going to take the boy to his grandmother's at Kidderminster, and he started early in the morning, professedly with that object; but he was subsequently seen carrying the child across the fields an a direction which was not that of Kidderminster, and returned witheut him in much less time than he could possibly have accomplished the journey in. When supriae was expressed by • neighbour at hi, early return, he said he had run the greater part of the way back—a dietetic* of fire miles. This was on the 3rd arch. Nothing more was seen or heard of the child, but in reply to questions, Wyre invariably declared the boy was with his grandmother at Kidderminster, and was going unwell. It was not until the early part of last month that any reason appeared to doubt these statements. On the 3rd of this month some timber-cutters, at work near Highwood Cottage, Castle Hill, Wolver' ley, went to the well at the cottage to procure I some water to drink. The cottage had not been occupied for two years, and the well had been covered with heavy pieces of timber. The I men removed the timber, and looking down the well saw something floating on the water, which, on further examination, turned out to be the child. The features were unrecognisable, but some of the clothing was identified as belonging to Wyre's child, and the body corresponded in all essential respects to that of the missing boy. When it wet subsequently ascertained thet the ehild had not been placed with his grandmother as asserted by the father, and the letter could give no explanation of his whereabouts, suspicion was changed to certainty, and Wyre was taken into custody and:charged with the murder of his boy. At the trial, on Saturday, the evidence of identity being confined practically to the clothing, would probably not have sufficed to procure a oonviotion had there been any plausible alternative theory set up for the defence; but the prieoner'e counsel seems to have recognised the hopelessness of the cage from the outset, and confined himself to pointin r out that no adequate motive had been suggested for so unprovoked and horrible a crime, and that there was nothing in the prisoner's antecedents to show that he was capable of matt barbarity. The body which was found, it was suggested, might be that of some passing tramp; but no attempt was made to show either that another child was miming or that Wyre'm child had been seen alive af,er the 3rd of March, when his father carried him away with the professed intention of placing him with his grandmother. The jury could not resist the cumulative weight of the evidence, both of coramisdon and omission; and the judge, whose entire concurrence in the verdict was plainly manifested, had no alternative then but to pass sentence of death upon the wretched man who had so wantonly and cruelly sacrificed the life of his only child.