The Cannock Chase Examiner. — 1875-12-04 (Cannock, Staffordshire, England)

INCLUDED. The trial of the Wainwrights for murdnr was resumed at the Old Bailey on Saturday, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. A clerk from the London and County Bank was called to prove the handwriting of Thomas Wainwright, and the Attorney General said he had now closed the Case fur the Crown. Mr. Bosley then addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner Henry Wainwright. He spoke of the unenviable position in which the unfortunate prisoners were placed. They had already undergone six days mental torture. The issue to them was existence or non-existence, but upon the jury rested the sole and undivided responsibility of the verdict. The prisoners laboured under a great disadvantage by the comments which the ease had received at the hande of the press, and he appealed to the jury to form their judgment calmly and dispassionately from the evidence only. The charge was one which in all times had created indignation in the human breast. Public feeling was invariably morbidly excited by the cutting up of a human body, but he pointed out that after death there was nothing more revolting or horrible in the cutting up of human remains by an unskilled person than in their dissection by a surgeon. Dealing, in the first instance, with the early life of Harriet Line, from leaving Waltham to her disappearance in September, 1874, he commented upon the absence of evidence as to the original connection with the prisoner Wainwright. He admitted that Wainwright had never disputed the paternity of the children, and there was ample evidence that he had made ample provision for them. But there was no evidence whatever, with the exception of the necessary introduction, that after lodgings were taken for Harriet Lane she continued to be closely connected with Wainwright. On the contrary, there was strong evidence to show that Wainwright had become weary and had lost all affection for Harriet Lane although he still continued to provide for her beyond the extent the law required him. Adverting next to the Frieake episode, he said that it would be part of the defence that there was a person other than Edward Prieake, the auctioneer, who bore or assumed the name of Frieake. The theory of the Crown was that from October, 1070, there was a deliberately planned scheme by Henry Wainwright to murder Harriet Lane, and a conspiracy to frustrate the ends of justice by pretending that she had eloped with Edward Frieake. He thought the jury would have much difficulty in reconciling this with the conduct of Wainwright, who had invariably shown feelings of consideration, if not of affection, for the woman and her children. It was not. for the prisoner to prove his innocence, but upon the prosecution lay the burden of proving his guilt. He denied that there was any conspiracy to enable Thomas Wainwright to personate Frieake, and analysed the evidence to show that so far as it affected Thomas in this respect it was of the most flimsy and frivolous nature. He contended that the letters of Harriet Lane pointed clearly to the fact that she had another lover who went by the name of Frieake, and who was neither of the prisoners. He further disputed that the chloride of lime found in the grave was the same as that purchased of Mr. Baylis. If the theory of the prosecution was true and this was the last step in the deliberate destruction of Harriet Lane, it was astounding that with every motive for secrecy the prisoner should have taken almost every one he camein contact with inte his confidence. He urged that