The Express. — 1866-11-23 (London, England)

MEETING OF MIDDLESEX MAODITRATES. A general meeting of the magistrates of the county of Middlesex was held yesterday, at the Sessions House, Clerkenwell-green, Mr. H. Fownall in the chair. There was a full attendance of magistrates. The report of the Committee of General Purposes was presented, which recommended that the new chaplain to the House of Detention should commence with a salary of 2501. per annum. Mr. F. H. N. Glossop moved, pursuant to notice :—" That the court do make a contract with the managers of Mount St. Bernard's Reformatory, near Whitwick, in Leicestershire, for the reception and maintenance therein of such Roman catholic boys as may from time to time be transferred thereto from the Middlesex Industrial School at Feltham, in consideration of the payment of the sum of 2s. lid. per week for each such boy, being the same amount which is now paid by the county for Roman catholic boy. sent direct to the said reformatory." He said that by a recent act of parliament they were empowered to send Roman catholic juvenile offenders to a Roman catholic institution. The morionwasput and agreed to. Mr. Gloasopthen moved: " That the Committee of Visitors of the Middlesex Industrial School, at Feltham, be authorised to apply to the Secretary of State for a certificate for the whole or a portion, not exceeding a moiety, of the said school, under the Act 29 and 30 Viet., cap. 118, known as ' The Industrial School Act, 1866.' " After some discussion, the motion was agreed to. THE SHOCKING MURDER BY A BOY IN SHEFFiELD.—Yestarday afternoon an inquest was held on the body of the unfortunate boy, Arthur Allen, whose death occurred under the melancholy circumstances reported yesterday. The prisoner was brought into the inquest room by a police-constable, and was placed at a table in the centre of the room, next to the chair reserved for the witnesses. The attention of all present was immediately concentrated upon him, but he maintained surprising firmness and composure for some time. He is very youthful in appearance, with no trace of malignant passion in his countenance. His eyes were swollen with crying. After the examination of the witnesses bad proceeded for a short space the prisoner's firmness gave way and fuent bursts of weeping showed that he • the preqtion in which he was placed. His distress was greatest when the officer produced the hammer and the knife with which the murder bad been committed. It seems that the prisoner has a stepmother, and he asserts that before he left home she used him very cruelly, beat him frequently. when no offence had been given, and was fond of indulging in the malignant prediction that he " would come to the gallows. That such would be his fate seems to have been accepted by the unfortunate lad as a fact from which there was no escape. He says he " always felt that he should murder somebody, but be did not know who it was to be." He was a fatalist ; and having accepted as something inevitable the belief that be should come to the ignominious death of a murderer he made no attempt to resist the temptation that constantly beset him to bring about its ,realisation. He had contemplated the murder for a week, and on the fatal night the weapons he used were secreted beneath the pillow on which he allowed his victim to repose in unsuspecting confidence. He sat up during the whole night in the bed watching the poor lad. His stepmother's prediction seemed to ring in his ears, and he resolved, just as the day dawned, to commit the deed. He says he " repeated the Lord's prayer, and then struck the blow." That blow took effect on the left side of the neck, just beneath the ear, and the injury caused by the hammer was increased by .a severe stab with the carving knife. The blow was so violent that the blade snapped in half. Two other wounds were inflicted with the hammer, each of them fracturing the skull ; but the first was the immediate cause of death. The verdict was " Wilful murder," the jury regretting they could come to no other.