The Sun. — 1854-04-06 (London, England)

THE QUEEN V. CASTRO. Juan Antonio Castro, a Spaniard, was charged with the wilful murder of Cornelius Murphy, on the 25th of February last, at Bristol. Mr. Skinner and Mr. Matthews appeared for the prosecution ; Mr. Powell defended the prisoner. The prisoner was by birth a Spaniard, and when yesterday called upon to plead, he was asked whether he would be tried by a jury of Englishmen, or by a jury of half Englishmen and half foreigners. He said he was indifferent. He was accordingly tried by a jury of Englishmen. The present inquiry arose out of the death of an Irishman named Cornelius Murphy, who died on the 25th of February last, in consequence of a stab inflicted by a knife in his hack on the previous night, at about 11 o'clock. It appeared in evidence that, on the Saturday night in question, a number of Spaniards, of whom the prisoner was one, were at a public-house in Princes-street, Bristol, called the Hole in the Wall. In the same house there was also a number of " Highlanders," viz., sailors belonging to the bark Highlander. The two parties were using bad language and quarrelling, which caused the landlord to put the Spaniards in one room, and to request the others to leave the house. A man named Muir, a sailor, was at the Hole in the Wall, and he said a man, whe he believed was the prisoner, struck him and knocked him down, without any provocation. Muir then went in to fetch his shipmates, who were at the time in the house. They rushed down stairs, and were met at the door by the Spaniards, who assembled in large numbers. A row then ensued, in which a man named Robert Hoskins was stabbed. There was fighting at the time in the street, and Muir, seeing Hoskins fall, went to his assistance. He was on the pavement, and saw a man whom he believed to be the prisoner coming up to him with a knife in his hand. Muir endeavoured to avoid the party, and got off the pavement for that purpose. The man, according to Muir's statement, then ran along the pavement, and stabbed in the back a man who was standing on the pavement, and who had taken no part in the row. This witness then returned for ten minutes to the public house, where Hoskins was. The man so stabbed was Cornelius Murphy, an Irishman, who died next day of the wound'. This witness stated that he saw the man who inflicted the wound on Murphy run in the direction of Queen's-square, where the next day a bloody knife was found stuck in a shutter. The blade was about five inches in length with a dagger pointfirmly fixed in its handle. A young woman named Jane Blakeman said she was standing outside the Hole-in-the-Wall on the night in question, and saw the prisoner, whom she had seen nearly every evening, run across the street and stick a knife into the Irishman's back. She saw him run along the pavement on which the deceased was standing, and then across the street towards Queen's-square. Mr. Powell, for the prisoner, contended that the evidence of Janeßlakeman, the only witness who spoke positively to the prisoner's identity, was not sufficient to warrant the jury in coming to the conclusion that he was the man who inflicted the wound on the deceased. At all events, considering the fight which had taken place the offence would not be more than manslaughter. Mr. R. Gurney, in summing up the case to the jury, said he thought the jury would hardly come to the conclusion, under the circumstances, that the prisoner had been guilty of murder. There was not only the fight, but, as a foreigner, the prisoner might reasonably suppose he was in greater danger than was, in fact, the case. The jury found the prisoner guilty of manslaughter. Sentence deferred.