The Daily Times. — 1860-07-19 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

HANNAH HOLMES. The envelope was addressed " Mr. F. Holmes, Cossington, Leicestershire:"  The prisoner made several statements subsequently to her being in custody. She had, she said, put by the gruel made for the deceased on the first day in a basin on a shelf, and put it in the gruel that was made the next day, as they were so near she dare not throw it away: She more than once declared that she had done it, but she did not know why. And she told her companion in the cell, speaking of the charge against her, that they didn't know the bottom of it, nor they never would. When informed of her master's death she  _ e said, and hasl never intended to k- ill him. She had Taken the arsenic out of the packet and put a 1.., ~„-.. de it into her master's gruel ; adding that, if she had not told, it iiiotild ba-vo been laid to her young master , At' the cloSe of ,The else for the firosecettion, !Mr. O'nrien addressed the jury on lichalf oi' the prisoner, contending that the circumstances would justify them in finding by their verdict that the prisoner was not guilty of the capital offence of murder, but of ..2,u seemed greatly affected. She could scarcely believe it, spoonful 'and mistress: manslaughter only. The arsenic had Come into her hands accidentally, and nothing had occurred likely to induce in her the settled purpose to murder her master, the principal grievance of which she had complained being that she was kept from church. What she had written in the strictest confidence, and when she was not aware of her master's death, and apparently not conscious of the dangerous effect of the poison she administered, showed that the dreadful thought of murder had. never crossed her mind. The question for the jury was principally that of intent. An act passed in the present session of Parliament had made a distinction between the criminality of administering a noxious. 'drug with intent to do grievous bodily harm. If her intent was merely to annoy, and give the poison with that intent alone she had caused the death of the deceased, she would be guilty only of the crime of manslaughter. The second administration was probably accidental. The statement made by her in her agony of oiled should not weigh with the jury, and apart from that the evidence rendered it not improbable that, as it, was proved the same saucepan and bas-in were. used on the second occasion as do the first, the poisoning of the last made was not by design. I  The learned Judge, in summing up the evidence, indicated the importance, as to the question of intent, of the inquiry which the prisoner had made of her mistress respecting the likelihood of her master's recovery, and of her having afterwards, when informed that he was likely to recover, put the remaining portion of the poisoned gruel into that which was being newly made. He left it for the jury to consider whether the prisoner administered arsenic to the deceased ; whether he died from the effects of arsenic so administered ; if so, whether she knew it was likely to cause death, and administered it with an intent to kill, or with an intent to do grievous bodily harm. If either, she would be guilty of murder. But if she administered it merely with an intent to annoy or slightly injure, and not to do (grievous bodily harm or to kill, she would be guilty of manslaughter only. The jury, after retiring for a short time, returned into court and returned a verdict ofguilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy on account of the prisoner's youth  His Lordship then put on the black cap, and in a very solemn manner addressed the prisoner, whose expressed contrition he trusted was sincere, and, observing upon the heinousness of the crime of which she hail been convicted, and the manner of which was the worse because it showed deliberaCmn, he counselled the prisoner to prepare for the penalty of death. which it was not in his power to remit. He would, however, forward the recommendation of the jury to the proper quarter. His lordship then in due form, and amid the profound silence of all around, pronounced sentence of death upon the prisoner, at the conclusion of which he was visibly affected.