The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1871-07-29 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

LANCASTER SUMMER ASSIZES.  The assizes were opened on Friday, at the Castle, Lancaster—. Chief Baron Kelly sitting in the Crown Court, and Mr. Baron Martin in the Nisi Prius Court.  His Lordship, in sddressing the gentlemen of the Grand Jury, said: As to the offences themselves, they had first a case of murder to deal with—a case in whith John Hadwen wascharged with the murder of John Arnold_ This case, he was sorry to say,, which not only presented no difficulty, but about which, as it seemed to him, it was impossible to raise a doubt The victim of the crime was a boy. about 14 or 15 years of age; and as far as he (the judge) gathered from the evidence, he was playing, along with some companions, innoceutly and nnoffending in every way, when the offence was perpetrated; and the crime seemed to have been cowwitted without tile slightest provocation. He.thought it would be needless for him to make a single observation on the case. There was another case of murder—a crime which, if committed by a man in his sane mind, would be one of the most horrible it was possible to conceive. It was a case in which a con was charged with putting his own mother to death by one or two blows of a hatchet, in a most barbarous and horrible .manner, and in a way whichled him to hope that the prisoner was not in a right state of mind at the time of the commission of the offering. There was nothing in the evidence to satisfylim on this point, and he need ,hardly point mat to the Grand Jury that they would be called .upon to consider the matter upon the facts. He presumed that, having heard the evidence, it would be their duty to return a true bill, and the case would then tie dealt with before a common jury, who would deal with it according to the evidence as affecting the state of mind of the unhappy man.  The Grand Jury then left,the court, and almost immediately returned a true bill in the  lILTEINTON ABDUCTION CASE, in which Henry Sharpies, on bail, was indicted for unlawfully taking' at the township of U'!version, on the bit of March last, an unmarried girl, named Agnes hfuckalt, under the age of 18 years, out of the custody and against the will of her father.—Mr. E. B. Dawson, who appeared for the prosecution, stated that since the offence was committed, the prisoner, with the consent of the father, had married the girl, and that being the case, he supposed that, under his Lordship's direction, the case would not be proceeded with.—The Judge expressed himself favourably as to the course which had been adopted by the prisoner, for he was firmly. of opinion that the young man was perfectly innocei it of any legal offence. The Grand Jury had acted quite right in finding a true bill against the prisoner, as there was, undoubtedly, some difficulty as to the law in the case; but he had studied the depositioLs with much attention, and he had no hesitation whatever in saying that the prisoner was entirely innocent of any legal offence within the means of the Act of Parliament —The common jury was then sworn, and by the direction of his Lordship, they returned a formal verdict of not guilty\ and the prisoner was at once discharged.