The Express. — 1848-01-03 (London, England)

SOMERBETSIIIRE.  • DELIBERATE MURDER. The coroner for the eastern division of Somerset and a jury were engaged on Saturday in holding an inquest on the body of a cottager, named John Wall, wile) was murdered in his own house at mid-day The deceased, who was an industrious and well:9P."aucied man, occupied a piece of ground and a cottage "about a mile distant from the Naihea-road station of the Bristol and Exeter Railway, and the motive which i+ supposed to have actuated his murderers was plunder. Wall's wife was in the habit of attending the Bristol market with country produce, and the poor fellow had been engaged during the autumn in fattening. some pigs, which it was generally understood in the neighbourhood he intended killing about the middle of December, so as to provide for the payment of his rent on quarter-day. On the afternoon of the 18th of that month, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he was in a lower room, and his wife being from home, he was engaged in boiling some barley-meal for his pigs. As he was stooping down to lift the saucepan from the fire, he heard a pane of glass broken in, and on looking round saw the muzzle of a gun thrust through the hole and pointed at him within a yard of his person. He started up and immediately received in his right thigh the charge of the gun, which, hut for his sudden change of position, would have entered his head, at which doubtless it was aimed. On looking towards the window he saw a man in dark clothes and a cap, and having a curious mark over the right eye, looking in as if to ascertain whether the murderous intent had been completed. Wall made towards the door, upon which the fellow scampered off, and on looking from his garden, Wall saw him and some others running away across the field. Having no means of giving an alarm, or no one in the house to send for aid, and fearing that he might bleed to death, the poor fellow stopped the blood a+ far 89 he could, and determined to make for West-town, a distance of nearly a mile' for medical aid. With great exertion and pain he reached the surgery of Mr. Macey, and got his wound dressed. He was then sent home, and having given a very minute description of the person whom he saw at the window, suspicion immediately fell on a youth of sixteen or seventeen years old, named Charles hlanfield, who, although so young, is notorious for his lawless and flaring conduct. The constable, upon making inquiries, found that this youth, with a brother and a cousin named Robert Jakeways, bad been seen about the time of the offence in company, going first in a direction to and subsequently from Wall's dwelling, and he accordingly resolved upon apprehending them. Oa Monday Charles Manfield wan taken by a Naiiseaeonstable, who also found a gun in his ion. The assistance of a magistrate was procured, and he confronted with the dying man, who at once identified him, and nifuNi a deposition to that effect. Lock-jaw came on, and after lingering till the evening of Wednesday last Wall died. The prisoner admits that he was a participator in the crime, but mys it  was Jakeways who proposed to shoot the old fellow, snit who actually fired the gun. He looked through the window to see if Wall was killed, and afttrwards took the gun from Jakcways because he could not run so fast as he Gould with it. His .ounger brother Anthony (a nitre boy) he says was not vaunt, as they sent him into an orchard to pick some Christmas—telling him, in order to account for the firing of the gun, that they were going down into a drain, which runs near Wall's cottage, to shoot a wild-duck. Manfield has been sent to gaol, and the inquest was adjourned tor a few uayatolenable the surgeons to make a post mortens examination of the body, and to procure the attendance of trezzi.strate's clerk, who took the dying deposition of d