The Potteries Examiner : — 1876-05-13 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

GENERAL NEWS.  THE GLASGOW MURDER.  On Wednesday Thomas Barr was placed at the bar of the Glasgow Circuit Court of Justiciary on the charge of murdering his wife and motherin.law on the lot of March. The circumstances attending the commission of the crime were of an appalling nature. Barr, who was a travelling bookseller, married as his second wife a young woman belonging to a Glasgow, named Margaret Sloan. The marriage turned out unhappy. lie alleged that his wife had been unfaithful, and the jealousy thus aroused burned so furiously that he wrote letters to her brother condemning the conduet of Mrs. Barr. She frequently left him and stayed with her mother in the Gallon:11e. She was there on the let of March, and on the afternoon of that day the prisoner went to the house, and as soon as Mrs. Sloan, his mother-in-law, opened the door he attacked her with an open knife, inflicting on her no fewer than 10 wounds, three of which were so severe that death was almost in. stantaneous. He also attacked his wife, and inflicted about 12 wounds on 11.1% lie then ran off, leaving her also for dead. Mrs. Barr, however, lived till the 9th of April, when she died, the cause of death being an infu. sion of blood into the chest, which had been pierced, displacing the heart, stopping the action of the left lung, and so impairing the right long that inflamma- I tion ensued, nod death resulted. After Barr committed the crime he left the city, the police losing trace of him for some days. He at last turned up in Aberdeenshire, where he wandered for several days, and was at last tracked and apprehended by an innkeeper at Elton. He was brought to Glasgow.—At the trial, on Wednesday, au attempt was made to show that the man was insane when he committed the crime, bat the attempt failed. Various letters were read to show the hatred he had towards his wife, as also letters from her to her mother complaining of his conduct to her. 'There was no doubt as to the murder. When the issue was placed before the jury they returned a verdict of guilty, and the Lord Justice Clerk, who presided, sentenced Barr to be executed at Glasgow on Wednesday, the 31st of May. The prisoner afterwards asked whether he might lie allowed to say a word, and, the Judge having nodded assent, he said : "I wish to speak not for the benefit of myself—l know it is all over with me now, so far as I understand it—but for the benefit of those who may be u fortunately placed as I mu now. The jury are wrong in thdr decision. lam not responBible. I take my oath before God, before whom lam to appear on the 31st of this month. I think you said that when I entered the house I had no more intention • of murdering or of violence or anything tending thereto than goer honour. I ask the judgment of God upon me here where I stand if that is not the case. lam right. I know there is a God lam not in as good a condition for speaking just now as I have been. lam surprised at myself,lbut I think the jury should almost have given me a recommendation to mercy. 1 understand the like of that cannot be done. Now, you know, for the sake of others, I soy they are wrong with Thomas Barr'— When the prisoner was first placed at theistic he looked pale and nervous, and at various points in the course of the inquiry he exhiliited a considerable amount of anxiety but at the close, when the jury retired, he appeared perfectly firm, and as unconcerned as anyone in court. The announcement of the fatal verdict appeared to produce not the slightest impression upon him. He rose to receive sentence and leant forward in the dock as if anxious to hear every word ad•lressed to him by the Judge. After concluding his short speech he thanked the court, and, waving his adieus to the jury, passed out of the dock.