The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1842-12-23 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

ATTEMPT AT MURDER.—Another of those " necessary accidents," as the Newry Examiner playfully remarked when commenting on the horrid murder of Mr. Scully-, is thus chronicled by a Birr correspondent of the Lenster Express. A reward of £BO is offered by the Lord-Lieutenant for the discovery of the miscreants concerned in the outrage : —" Truly (says the Express) this county bids fair to become even more notorious than Tipperary, where 'crimes unptirelleled for brutality and atrocity have been almost daily committed. Let us hope that this is but an isolated case, and we have every reason to hope it is, for, in point of fact, a crime of so heinous and diabolical nature has not been committed in this locality for many years. Such ferocious attempts on the lives of-unoffending- victim's have" been hitherto chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of 'Morleygall. The particulars of the case are as follows :—On !the night of Tuesday last, the 13th instant; about the flour of half-past seven o'clock, a party of six armed men came to the dwelling-house of a farmer named William Young, at Ratligibbon, within three miles of Parsonstown ; Young and his family were at the time sitting round the fire ; three of the party remained outside, no doubt to give the alarm should any persons chance to approach the house ; the other three entered, two of whom were armed with a pistol and a dagger each, and the other with a blunderbuss. Orr going in one of the fellows ordered Young to come upon the middle of the floor ; the ruffian with the blunderbuss placed Young's wife and children in a room, on which he remained as a sentinel during this murderous attack. On Young complying with the mandate, the two fellows presented their pistols at him, both providentially burned priming. Seeing they had failed in thus accomplishing their object, one of the miscreants struck poor Young a violent blow with his pistols on the head, which inflicted a large wound and felled him to the floor. On seeing this, Young's eldest daughter, a girl about sixteen years of age, who had up to the present remained unnoticed by the fellow with the blunderbuss, threw herself between the villains and her father, exclaiming, ' Spare my poor father to his small children, and murder me!' With unrelenting rancour and hellish perseverance, the vile and unmanly wretches fell upon her, tore her garments and the hair from her head, and inflicted no less than four large wounds on her arms with their daggers. In the struggle one of them also stabbed Young in the neck, and inflicted a dangerous wound. Seeing him and his horoic daughter lying insensible on the floor weltering in their blood, and no doubt thinking they had fully completed their bloody and fiendish design, they were about to leave the house, when the ruffian armed with the blunderbuss, who, up to that moment had done nothing except to keep the wife and children in a room, seemed determined that he would close this tragical and heart-rending scene, and discharged his blunderbuss at his unoffending victims. Fortunately be aimed a little too high, and consequently the contents of his piece lodged in the opposite wall. They then departed. During the conflict Young repeatedly asked what he bad done? The only reply he got was, ' They would murder him, and his family should quit that neighbourhood on the following morning.' The only cause assigned for this outrage is, that Young took a farm (the one on which he resides, and which contains nearly 16 acres) about 18 months ago, from which the former tenant had been ejected for nonpayment of rent by the landlord, Mr. Robert Cassidy, Monasterevan. Young and his daughter lie in a very dangerous state, and weak from loss of blood. They deny knowing any of their assailants."