The Sun. — 1863-04-11 (London, England)

THE ACTON MURDER.  It appears that for some time after the convicion of the prisoner Joseph Brooks he continued to assert that he was innocent of the offence, but it is satisfactory to state that during yes terday he appeared to feel the awful position in which he was placed, and he has made statements tantamount to an admission of his guilt. When he was visited on Thursday by the sheriffs he stated that It was not true that when he procured the gun at the shop of Mr. Ayres, at Hammersmith, it was loaded, and on his being reminded that the witnesses had sworn postively to the contrary, besides which it was not likely that a pawnbroker would take in a loaded fire-arm as a pledge, he persisted in declaring that what he had stated was true. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Lawrence, and Mr. Sheriff Jones, accompanied by their under-sheriffs, Messrs. Mackrell and Farrar, and the governor of Newgate, proceeded to the prisoner's cell, and informed him that in accordance with the painful duty that devolved upon them they would fix Monday, the 27th instant, as the day for carrying out the law. The culprit did not betray any emotion upon hearing the fatal announcement, but he expressed a desire to make a statement in reference to the crime of which he had been convicted. Some portions of this have transpired, and it appears that the prisoner, finding it was useless any longer to state any falsehoods, admitted that it was his gun that had caused the death of the deceased, but he seemed to convey the idea that his was not the hand that discharged it, although he at the same time admits that he knew all about the transaction. The prisoner states that the evidence given by the girl Jane Lake, to wham, it will be remembered, he was to have been married three or four days after the murder was committed, is quite true in every particular, and he expresses his sorrow for the pain he has caused her_ It will be recollected that the suggestion on the part of the prosecution as to the motive that led to the commission of the crime was that the unfortunate deceased, while on his duty on the evening of the murder, had detected the prisoner and his brother Isaac in the act of stealing some building materials belonging to a Mr. Saunders, who was carrying on some building operations in the neighbourhood, and it appears that the prisoner has admitted that about 6 o'clock the deceased met him and his brother carrying some wood that they had improperly removed, and that he taxed them with stealing it, and told them they must accompany him to the police-station. He stater that his brother Isaac ran away, and he accompanied the constable a short distance, but, upon arrivieg at an open gate leading across the fields, he also ran off and succeeded in getting away from the constable. The prisoner was aware that the constable knew him, and that he was pretty certain that proceedings' would be taken against him, and he states that he and his brother held a consultation as to what should be done, and he appears to endeavour to throw the blame upon his brother, although the evidence all tended in the contrary direction, and to show that the prisoner was himself the principal agent in the sad affair. The prisoner and his brother Isaac are both natives of a small village in Oxfordshire called Cuxham, near Oxford, and the early part of their lives was occupied in farming and other agricultural operations, but about 10 years ago they both came to Lundon. The prisoner served for a short time in the Royal Artillery, and during the Russian war ho was with his regiment in the sCerritmer. He Crimea; and it has been ascertained that he is a deehibsacsonnovticbteioen. n visited by any of his relations