The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1853-03-29 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY.  In his charge to the Grand Jury, his Lordship said : Three months have scarcely elapsed since I had the honour of presiding in this court, and then a calendar was laid before me containing the names of 120 prisoners. I find you now have 118 prisoners to be tried at this assize, a melancholy instance of the prevalence of crime in this part of the country, and this, too, at a period when, it is said, South Lancashire is more prosperous than usual— when labour is abundant and wages unusually high. I find in this calendar crimes of a darker die than usual— murder ; manslaughter, under circumstances approaching to murder; highway robbery, With great violence, appear; and other violent outrages against her Majesty's subjects. To what are we to ascribe this ? Certainly not to any want of provision for physical want : and, therefore, it is confirmatory of the opinion which I believe is very generally entertained now, that the only hope we can entertain of improving the habits and morals of the people is by giving the rising generation a moral and religious education. There is a case of manslaughter against a person of the name of Cull, which I mention for the purpose of noticing, in that and several other cases, that the depositions which have been laid before me are very unsatisfactory. I believe a very large allowance is made for writing the depositions, and in several instances they are very illegible—in some, barely legible ; and some of them in a state which is by no means creditable to those employed in taking down the evidence. His lordship drew especial notice to No. 73, a charge of violence and outrage committed on a young woman, and it is imputed to some man who, I believe, was a quack doctor, and he appears to have obtained possession of her person by pretending he could cure her of fits. I draw your attention to it specially, because the details in the depositions are more than ordinarily offensive, and it does not appear, according to them, there is any of the resistance which is necessary to constitute the crime imputed. If the party were so ignorant as not to be at all aware of what he was about to do, and, therefore, he got possession of her, but under a felonious pretence, and she not at all knowing what he was about to do, this evidence of non-resistance may be accounted for, and it has been held by the judges that it would still amount to a felonious outrage. If you think she did know what he was about to do, however gross the party's conduct may have been, you cannot say he committed the crime for which he is at present before you. There is also a charge against three persons of conspiracy to defraud the customs here ; but the depositions are so taken that I cannot read one-half of them. I mention this publicly that notice may be taken of it, and that there may be no further complaint. There is a charge against Edward Lawson for a felonious outrage on a female. On reading the depositions, and the evidence of the medical man, it seems to me there must he some mistake about it, and that she herself, who, no doubt, intended to be a witness of truth, was mistaken in supposing the whole crime was committed.