The Sun. — 1840-03-31 (London, England)

MURDER ALLEGED TO ,HAVE BEEN COMMITTED SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.—Considerable sensation  has been produced in this neighbourhood (Aylesbury) by the deposition made by a woman named Rice, at the meeting of the Ashendon Magistrates, on Monday last, implicating tour re spectable persons in the murder of a Welsh drover, said to have been committed seventeen years ago. For obvious reasons, we have suppressed our report of the proceedings, and we now notice the matter for the purpose of calling attention to an advertisement which appears in another part of our paper of this day, in which the parties best calculated to form an opinion on the subject, express their utter disbelief of the woman's story. In the statement, as taken down in writing by the magistrate's clerk, and attested by the oman Rice, a connected and circumstantial account is given of the occurrence—the number of blows struck, and by whom—the mode in which the body was taken away Seam the house —the description of the man's dress—the conversations which took place between the alleged murderers—with several other remarkable particulars ; which she gave in a cool, collected, and straightforward manner, never once contradicting herself. It is not a little singular that a similar report was current seven years ago, and that, at that time, steps were taken to discover the truth or falsity of the report. The not finding the body, however, arid the improbability of four persons allowing a fifth to follow them, and observe all their proceedings, while they were committing so horrible an act as murdering a fellow creature with a mallot, must convince all of the falsity of the woman's story. Should any doubt remain, the fact that the woman Rice is one of the worst of characters, coupled with the decleration of all the respectahle individuals in the township in which thi• murder is alleged to have been committed, published in the advertisement alluded to, must tend to remove Cut doubt. The excitement which the woman's deliberate statement has occasioned in this town and immediate neighbourhood justifies us in, making these few remarks; while the otr'ss'on in our report of the Ashendon Petty Sessions, of all that relates to this extraordinary case, will convey to the public our own opinion of th,, matter.—Aylesbury News. THE AssuEs.--The assizes have been the most protracted known for many years. The Learned Judges sat nine days, Mr. Baron Rolfe closing his Court at two o'clock on Friday morning; and Mr. Justice Coltman terminating his labours at the witching hour of night—a couple of hours before him. The greatest credit is due to the Learned Judges for the anxiety which they have shown to dispose of every cause in this unusually heavy Assize. The excellence of the motive is unquestionable ; but we much question the goodness of the practice in sitting so late night after night. It is impossible that men drawn from open- air vocations can keep their attention alive for twelve or fourteen hours together, in a close-heated Court, to a series of complicated facts, tangled and perplexed with legal subtleties and superfluities—jury and witnesses become exhausted, and the losing party goes away from Court, impressed with dissatisfaction at the reflection that his case had been decided by men who had been kept out of their beds too long, and were in no humour to deliberate upon nice distinctions, for winch indeed their minds were not equal. Some alteration should be made in the system to meet the exigencies of such an Assize, for no learned Judge cul,,ht to be made a judicial Macbeth, to " murder" the " sleep" of a whole county. To Sre the same haggard, anxious faces, night after night, glancing with lack-lustre eye on the wakeful functionary who kept them from their rest, brought to one's mind the curse of the Thane of Cawdor—" Sleep no more—the Judg,- cloth murder sleep. " If estern Times.