The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1908-01-11 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

OMINOUS THREAT.  The prosseutrix, who was allowed to be eeated, and who once nearly fainted, stated that on the morning of December Mth she sent her eon out to poet a letter, and herself went on a message to a house close by, leaving the front door open. The prisoner had been out all night, but when dhe reentered the house he had come in, and met her with a pair of tongs in his hand, and bit her on the head. He said, "Now I am going to finish you. I have made up my mind to finish you. I won't leave you behind me." (Later on, in ere-examination, the witness daid the prisoner s last remark was—" I am going to Anidh myself, and I won't leave you behiffd me.") He was going to knock me again (Mrs. Cavan went on), but I flew and caught hold of the tongs. How long I wrestled with hint I don't know. I was in the kitchen then. I shouted "Murder! Murder!" and I called to Mrs. Gardner, because I knew no one else could hear me. He got hold of my finger with his teeth, and then I had to releme the tongs. I ran to the scullery to get away from him, and he gave in, another blow, and another, on my head with the tongs. At the fourth blow I fell, and I remembered no more until I was in the entry in the. Gardner's arms, and found I wai bleeding. I then became unconscious, and did not recover until I was in the hospital. The Clerk (Mr. Copeland): Had you had lany quarrel with your hudband the night I before? _ .  Witness: He has been drinking very heavily lately, and when he drink,: he ig mad, and he is jealous of everybody and everything. I give him no cause to be jealous of me.—Mrs. Cavan added: I wiah you to be lenient with him Please, beefily* it ia in hie drunken. frenzy, and he ia mad,  _ In croes-examination, the witness said it was a fact that for 25 years the prisoner was in the pollee force, and he wee a pensioner at the present time, and he had been for eight years in the Custom Mouse. Witness was his iiecond wife, and they were married three years ago. Mr. Eastley: I am afraid the married life has not been a very happy one, bail it? Wituew_ Well, it lie. ma been on my account. He is jealous when he is in drink.  Either rightly- or wrongly, he haa made some. charges about men coming to the houae—Yes, he hail eaid it, but he had no provocation. . . .  And he complained only a few weeks ago of having been assaulted by a man whom he ea w running away from your house:— It is a falsehood. _ _  Baatley: But he made that complaint? Witneem explained that on the morning of the 23rd the prisoner said there was a man outside, but it wad only a man who came to knock up" a neighbour of their..  in further cr-exam4nation. witness would not say if the prisoner was a sober man before he married her. Be was a friend of her first hueband. Questioned as to the number of blowe with the tongs, she said four were given. Dr. Lawrence, who received the prosecutrix at the Borough Hospital, said there was a oontused wound on the front part of the ecalp, and it was bleeding profusely. The woman was sneering from concussion from the blow, she had contusions on the body, and injury to one of her lingers. The pair of tong.] produced would have produced the wound on the head.  By Mr. 'ins- tley: Th-e-re—w-as—o-n-fy the one mark on the head.