Weekly News. — 1892-04-07 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

THE SOUTHERN DRUG, CONY.  LIMITED. ES TA BLISHED 1874  THE JURY DISAGREE.  At the Hants Assizes, on Thursday, before Mr. Justice Day, Ellen Lewis, aged 32, a married woman, lately residing at Stewart Villas, Malmesbury Park, Bournemouth, was charged with the murder of her infant son, William Alexander, aged seven months, by drowning it at Ringwood on Monday, the 14th December. The circumstances connected with the finding of the dead body of the child at Ringwood, and the subsequent arrest of the prisoner, were given in detail at the time of the occurrence.  Mr. T. Giles and the Hon. C. S. Booth prosecuted, instructed by the solicitor from the Treasury ; Mr. Fray ling and Mr. C. Matthews defended.  From the evidence given on Thursday it appeared that the prisoner left the Christchurch Workhouse with her two children on the 14th, and took lodgings in Bournemouth. In the eveiling she took the deceased to Ringwood, stating that she had an appointment to meet a person there who was going to nurse it. She returned home at night without the bud, and next morning it was found drowned in a ballast-pit. In the prisoner's box was found the child's clothing. When arrested she said she had met a Mrs. Corner near the railway station, and handed the child to her, but no such person could be traced. Mr. Matthews hoped that the jury would be able conscientiously to deliver the charge not proved. There must be incontestible proof of the offence before conviction. The prisoner was clearly proved to have always been kind to her children. She never had a brown mackintosh at any time, such as the woman seen by witness wore when carrying the bundle. She could not, then, have been the woman. Six witnesses saw this woman, whoever she was, and they could not identify her as the prisoner at all, and yet the jury were asked to say she was the prisoner at the bar. If, as asserted by prisoner that the woman Comer had the child, was it possible or probable she would offer herself as a witness for the prisoner on that inquiry. As to , prisoner's intentions to put the child out to nurse, I whilst she went to work, there was no doubt she lied , never varied in her statement, that she gave the child to Cromer, telling her it was not healthy. Might not this have been a temptation to such a person as Cromer to take it. Had prisoner any intention of ill to the child would she have told Mrs. Parsley what she was going to do with the child ? There was the woman spoken to by eight witnesses with a brown mackintosh, and the bundle or baby, which could not have been the prisoner, for she had no such brown mackintosh. The prisoner had never prevaricated, nor been secret about her intentions to put the baby out to nurse. Mr. Mathews closed a very eloquent and able defence by asserting that the case was not proved, and the facts were consistent with the woman innocence. The jury, if they had no reasonable doubt of the woman's guilt, must convict. If there was a doubt, she was entitled to its benefit.  The jury retired, and after an absence of two hours, returned at eight, when, being unable to agree, they were discharged, and the case remitted to next assizes.