The Cannock Chase Examiner. — 1877-03-16 (Cannock, Staffordshire, England)

THE HUNGEEFORD MURDERS. THE closing scene of the Hungerford tragedy was enacted on Monday at Reading tisol, the two brothers, HENRY and FRAN,I,(iEO'; TID• BURY being handed over to the tender mercies of Mr. M inwooD, and duly paying the extreme penalty of the law. The case has occupied a very large share of attention, and naturally so. It has created a painful impfession in the popular mind, in the first place because murderOHS poaching affrays are by no means of such fro. queut occurrence as they were in years gone by, and, because, secondly, two police officers both experienced and respectable Sen ants of the public —were the victims of a cold-blooded and deliberate assault. Before dying, the two culprits, abandoning all hope of pardon, made a full and complete confession of their crime. A general feeling of satisfaction will be experienced thereat. The average British juryman—even the patriot culled at random from an agricultural distriot—is by no means the noodle he is represented to be, where a question of business is submitted to him for a decision. Now and then he makes us laugh as he is twisted round and ound by the trickery of long robe," or trembles before a blast of forensic thunder: but in the main be is shrewd and patient, and certainly deserving of more respectful t eatment than he gets at the hands of his critics. Ills weak place is his susceptibility to that heartrending pathos which, to the glory of our judicial system, the vilest and weakest of our erring brethren m.y secure for a stipulated fee. Many an experienced barrister knows that a well stocked brief is often surpassed as an element of defence by his capacity to " work on the feelings " of the amiable bodies of bucolic jurors he is in the habit of addressing on circuit. Honest Bum. is invariably floored by these dramatic displays. In his reflective moments he knows he is bamboozled by the shallowest acting, but while the drama is in course of action he is under the spell of the emotional kidding actor, and he not unfrequeutly experiences a difficulty in according a becoming sense of appreciative attention to the deliberate coldness and impartiality of the judicial summing up. But there as instances in which any class of inrymen may be pardoned for feeling agitated as they listened to the stifling language of a poweiful, though palpably biassed, advocate, low of us, charged with the mission of deciding either for the life or the death of a fellow-creature, could listen unmoved to an eloquent appeal for mercy. And In cases where the issues of the prosecution are largely hinged upon circumstantial evidence it is easy to imagine that juridical deliberation must be attended with a great deal of anxiety. The trial of the poachers ()ladled with the murder of the two police officers at I lungerford is a striking example of the really painful duty which now and then attaches to the obligations of citizenship. The murder was perpetrated at night and wee witnessed by none save the desperadoes who committed the ghastly work. Suspicion attached to four men, sad they were all placed upon Hal. Happily it was shown clearly enough that the protestations of innocence made by two of the men were well grounded, and they were acquitted. The evidence against the other delinquents was, as we have indicated, almost entirely circumstantial, so far as the efforts of the prosecution were concerned. The police authorities evidenced 4 great deal of patience and skill in the management of their proofs, and were able to make out such ease as ootfid justify no reasonable doubt in the minds of commou-sease mewls to the guilt of the prisoners. Still, the ch..iu of testimony, consecutive as it appeared to be, was almost entirely circumstantial, Having regard to the licence given for the recap. Luce of circumstantial evidence land setting aside the explanations given by the men subsequentit acquitted, which contained several damaging admissions alleged to have been made by the murderers), it would have been an obvious miscarriage of justice to have found any other verdict save that which was returned against HENRY and Fnsse.M j