The Sun. — 1851-08-04 (London, England)

POISONING A HUSBAND.—At the Crown Court this day of the Suffolk Assizes Maria Cage was arraigned for the wilful murder of her husband, James Cage, by administering to him arsenic. Messrs. Power and Mills prosecuted; Mr. Cooper defended. The case presented features of great depravity. The deceased was an agricultural labourer, and wjh his wife, the prisoner, lived at Stonham Aspal. They had a family of seventeen children, but ono of them, now a lad 20 years of age, was not the result of wedlock. The deceased was imprisoned twelve months, and during his incarceration prisoner cohabited with another man, and the result was the birth of a boy. During the last eighteen months she left her husband not less than three times, and exposed her daughter, 16 years of age, to be debauched. In other respects she led a very dissolute and depraved life. About three weeks before the deceased died he was taken suddenly ill while at work in the fields. He went home and died, and the funeral procession was on the way to the churchyard, when the clergyman, in consequence of certain rumours, caused the body to be returned to the cottage. A coroner's inquest was called, and it was found that the deceased had died from the effects of arsenic. It then transpired that while he was ill the prisoner visited a Mrs. Lambert, who lived four miles from her own cottage, and induced her to purchase a pennyworth of " stuff" for her daughter to kill rats and mice. The stuff comprised a compound of arsenic and linseed enough to kill six men. The daughter was called, and swore that she never gave her mother authority to purchase the poison for her. Avast amount of evidence was given relative to the deceased's state, confirmatory of poison having been administered to him. It was also shown that she bad wished him dead, and that she would sustain no loss, as she had the other man near. A strong and conclusive chain of facts having been adduced,' Mr. COOPER addressed the jury for the prisoner. The CHIEF BARON then summed up, and the jury, after being absent nearly half an hour, returned into court with a verdict of Guilty. His LORDSHIP then put on the black cap. After al. hiding to the guilt of the prisoner, he said it was melancholy, to consider the number of instances of similar murders that had disgraced the domestic and private history of the country. In the short time he had been on the bench it had been his great misfortune to have presided at several of such investigations, and unfortunately, the majority of them had been of murder by poison on very near relations. He could hold out no hope of mercy to her, and in the usual terms he sentenced her to be executed. The culprit, who remained seated during the solemn address, rose from her chair apparently very weak, and was conducted from the dock. Several of her children were present while the sentence was being delivered.  OXFORD GI iiCUlT.—Shrewsbury, Aug. 1. The courts were opened for business this morning at ten. The calendar was unusually heavy, there being no fewer than 48 prisoners—of whom three were charged with murder, two with manslaughter, three with stabbing, cutting, and wounding; eight with burglary, four with robbery, three with rape (one of these is charged with a rape on two of his own daughters); one with poaching, one with forgery with intent to defraud a lodge of Odd Fellows, and the rest with larcenies. Of these 13 could not read or write, 20 could read, 11 read and write imperfectly, one (an attorney's clerk) coull read and write well, and the rest being on bail wore not marked. On the Nisi Prins side the business was very light, and was all finished by half-past one. There were but five causes, all for common juries—two were undefended, and two were settled out of court.