The Sun. — 1845-11-14 (London, England)

MANSLAUGHTER. (From the Liverpool Courier of Wednesday.) Yesterday afternoon an inquest was held before the borough Coroner, on view of the body of John Ratcliffe, of Unionplace, Howorth-street, Everton, who met his death under the following circumstances : Mary Charnock, a young and respectably attired woman, who sobbed bitterly during the whole time she was in Court, deposed that she was unmarried, and the daughter of William Cbarnock. She resides with her parents at Upholland, and was well acquainted with the deceased. She had had a child, of which he was the father. Seven weeks last Sunday, at about the hour of four in the afternoon, he came to her father's house very much in liquor. She was sitting by the fire, and her father was lying upon the bed in one of the upper rooms. She desired the deceased to leave, as she had reason to know that her father was very indignant with her seducer, and that if they happened to meet together some evil consequences might possibly ensue. The deceased. however, not only refused to do as he was desired, but said he would go up stairs and see the old man. At this moment the father came down stairs, and told the deceased several times to quit the house. The deceased still refused, declared positively that he was determined not to stir, and said the old man was unable to put him out. The father then took hold of the poker from the fireside, and the witness, fearing that fatal results might follow, stepped between them with the illegitimate child in her arms. They pushed her aside, however, and in her agitation she was unable to say which of them struck. She did not see her father strike with the poker, but they had a scuffle, the deceased fell, and the floor was sprinkled with blood. This was the substance of her evidence.  The deceased was subsequently conveyed to Liverpool in a whitechapel, and on the 22d ultimo he was admitted into the Northern Hospital. He then had a large abscess, occupying nearly the lower half of the right thigh, and two small abscesses below the knee; and after lingering in great agony until Sunday last, he died. Upon a post mortem examination by Mr. John Thomas Jackson, the house-surgeon, it was found that he had a fracture of the ninth rib on the left side, a large abscess on the plura, another abscess on the outside of the chest, and another on the lower third of the right thigh, communicating with the knee joint. Mr. Jackson was of opinion that the abscess on the chest must have been the result of external violence, and that that, and the abscess on the knee, produced the death. Mr. Superintendent Brown took the dying declaration of the deceased on Thursday last He then said that Charnock came down stairs on the Sunday in question, with a bar of iron, or poker, in his hand, that he first pushed him, and then struck him with the poker below the right knee, and that, when down, he kicked him three or four times on the right side and leg. He added that his reason for calling at the house was, to get a watch and 12s. which Mary Charnock had, belonging to him. The CORONER, in summing up the evidence, said the circumstanzo the case showed that the father had received great grisvBfation—first, in the fact that his daughter had been seduced, and secondly, by the deceased refusing to leave the house. But great as the provocation might have been, it did not warrant the use of personal violence; and the question for the jury was, whether there was evidence of malice prepense, thereby making the crime one of murder, or whether they thought it might be reduced to manslaughter or justifiable homicide. The jury, after a few minutes' delibration, returned a verdict of "Manslaughter;" and William Charnock, who is at present an inmate of Kirkdale gaol, will be tried on the charge at the approaching winter assizes.