The Sun. — 1845-03-31 (London, England)

PUBLIC JOURNALS. 1.3.031 TUE EVENING PAPERS OF SATURDAY. GLOBE.—John Tawell, the wretched murderer of the confiding woman whom he had seduced, and who was the mother of two children by him—has suffered the appropriate and well-merited punishment which the law assigns to the crime of deliberate murder. Previously to Tam.ll's leaving the cell to which he had been confinal since his conviction, he delivered to the Rev. Me. Cux, the chaelaia of the prison, a sealed paper, which contained an admission, full and explicit, of his glib,. Ile poisoned his victim by the means charged in the indictment; and had previously sought h-r life by administering to her a different poisonous preparation, as suggested on his trial, in September last. The turpitude of this atrocious criminal's offence was greatly heightened by the base hypocrisy of his obtrusive pretensions to piety, by which he sought to procure a reputation fur sanun indulging his of m ea's, while he was secretly his vicious inclinations, and revolving the means of murdering the poor creature he had previously betrayed. So successful were Tawell's pereonations of goodrisse that—in the face of proofs of guilt that were, perhaps, as strong and conclusive as were ever adduced against any criminal on his trial—there were not wanting persons who could not think that such a man ceuld b the perpetrator of such a crime. These— doubtless amiable, but certainly weak minded, persons, are now relieved from all doubts. ifewever difficult it may be to soire the psychological paradox which the character of Taweli'e mind and contradictions of conduct disp!ayel, the fact of his guilt, in the fulness of its depravity, is now placed beyond question. To every one capable ofeeason, this was placed beyond controversy by the evidence of the different witnesses against him on his trial. The Lne of argument adopted by his counsel— if that can be digyetiel by the appellation of argument which was a mere string together of improbeble and contradictory hypotheses—removed lla expectation of his acquittal, for it had '‘,not shaken the direct awl conclusive testimony against him. This mode of meeting the case, by such an advocate as Mr. Kelly, showed to what an extremity this justly-eminent lawyer felt himself reduced, when he could oppose nothing but extravagant, far-fetched, and almost puerile suppositions to such a case. The prisoner had admitted that the woman he was accused of having murdered, died in consequence of something she had poured into the porter of e hich she drank. Yet, notwithstanding this admission, Mr. Kelly actually argued that she did not die of poison, but by suffocation from the water which was attempted to be forced into her mouth by her neighbour, who en'er,!.d the room when she lay in eitremis, if not actually dead. The Learned Gentleman also suggested, awl argued the probability of the hypoth-sis red lersd nugatory his former reason • ing, and with a gravity which would imply his own belief of what every one else saw was not merely delusive but ahsurd—that the woman died from the effects of prussic acid, generated in the stomach by the process of digesion, from the pips of an apple found partially ;fig: seed aineng the c nit tints of the stomach, which were subjected to medical examination and chemical an ilysis—no apple-pips, however, being found therein I The acute mind of the Learned Judge (Parke) who presided od the trill, in a few words swept away this miserable ref 4ge. We have dwelt strongly on this branch of the evidence a ldaced on the trial, because there ie too much reason to believe that the monstrous verdict returned in a case of an individual who was tried at the Central Criminal Court a shirt tune before Tawell made the first attempt on Sarah Hart's life in September last, sugeestel both the mole of the perpetration, and the hope of escap-, if detected, from the diffieulty of este Wishing commission to the saei,faction of a jury. The conviction of Te well w:11, we true, tend to correct mistaken nations which are frequently entertained by some persons, both in and out of the jury- hoe. Any extravagant suggestion, however opplsed to reason and science, with such persons is sufficient t) destroy the effect of the most direct testi:Teny. If ingenuity stewed in raising a momentary doub', it is pounced upon, as sufficient to destroy the strong-et proo!'s eeferce.l by reason, derived from the evidence of unquestioeable witnesses, supported by the testimony of science, and therefore claiming from t eaeoa stile men the calmest investigation, and the obedi 'nee of seas )n to the conclusions to which they lead.