The Sun. — 1864-09-21 (London, England)

THE CHARGE OF ATTEMPTING TO MURDER A WIFE IN  LEICESTER SQUARE. John Williams, aged 36, surrendered to answer an indictment charging h:m with assaulting Annie Williams, his wife, with intent to kill and murder her. In several other counts he was charged with wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. _  The prosecutrix said on the evening of the 25th of August last, about half•past 10, she was walking in Leicester-square, in the direction of the Alhambra. A gentle man was with her, and while so walking, the prisoner came up and asked her to leave the gentleman and come with him. The gentleman told him to go away, when the ~.  soner said she was his wife, and ought not to be walking there. The prisoner then struck her with a knife in the  neck. The weapon broke, and he then threw it away. The prosecutrix rushed to tho Sabl,miere Hotel, followed by the prisoner, when she found her throat cue, and a medical man was sent for and the prisoner was taken into  custody, Cross-examined by Mr Sleigh—She knew a Mr Cutler, he was a doctor, and she had known him from a child. He had attended her mother. She had been married to the prisoner 14 years. They lived happy together for several years at Barnstaple, but they afterwards came to London about four years ago. She was residing in Nutford-placa. She had an illness at that time. Dr Cutler visited her there several times. She lost sight of him for about IS months. She was then living with her husband in Brewer-street. Cutler had become reduced in circumstances, and the prisoner entertained and kept him with great kindness. Shortl3 after Cutler came into a fortune of £5OO, and took the Cock publiehouse, Market-street, St. Martin's-lane, and put the prisoner and witness into it, he also being in the house, and the result was she cohabited with Cutler. Mr Sleigh—And you and Cutler actually turned the prisoner out of the house.  Witness admitted that was true, and, in answer to further questions, she admitted she was in the habit of walking the streets and meeting gentlemen. Her husband had re• peatedly urged her to give up her abandoned mode of life, and come to live with him, and he would forgive her. On the night of the occurrence the prisoner came up and entreated her to come home, and when he did so the gentleman told him to go away, and she also told him she would walk with whom she liked, when he struck her. Police-constable Conquest said he took the prisoner into custody, when he found the prosecutrix had been wounded in the throat. Prisoner then said he was glad he had done it. He found a broken knife on the pavement. Mr John Skegg, surgeon, of St Martin's-lane, said he was sent for on the 25th of August to the Sabloniere Hotel, and found the prosecutrix with a wound on the lett side of her neck. It was an incised wound about half an inch in length, but not a dangerous one. Inspector Wilson, of the C division, said when the prisoner was in the room at Vine-street station he pulled out a locket, and said it contained the portrait of a man who had murdered his wife. The prisoner was excited but sober. At the close of the evidence for the prosecution, Mr Sleigh made an earnest appeal to the jury on behalf of the prisoner, urging the misery the prosecutrix had brought upon him, by her voluntary cohabitation with the man Cutler and the abandoned life she had adopted. Mr Baron Piggott summed up the evidence, and The jury returned a verdict of unlawfully wounding. Baron Piggott, in sentencing the prisoner, said he was not justified is taking the law into his own hands, and although sympathy might be felt for him, he had no right to carry a knife about with him, which could only have been intended for an improper use. He then sentenced the prisoner to three months' imprisonment, with hard labour,