Glasgow Courier. — 1847-07-03 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

LORD JUSTICE-CLERK said the Court had taken the case of the prisoners into very serious consideration, and their Lordships had also advised with the rest of their brethren of that Court as to the sentence to be awarded. If the charge of culpable homicide had been insisted on, the consequence would undoubtedly have been very serious. The offence to which the prisoners had pleaded guilty was still of a very aggravated and very heinous character, and though of very rare occurrence, and one which, even under all the anxiety and alarm of contagion, he (the Lord Justice-Clerk) trusted would ever continue to he rare, it was one which it was necessary the Court should punish severely. The prisoner MManimy had been a lodging-house-keeper in Stirling, making money by the avocation of receiving various parties into his house, and therefore in the event of tlleir sickness he was bound in return to do nothing to the injury of their health, still less to expose them to the risk of their lives. It appeared, and he trusted that the prisoner had been actuated by no other motive, that with the view of preserving the character of his lodging-house— a very short-sighted policy—he was anxious to prevent fever from being in his house, in case it should keep lodgers from taking up their abode with him, and hence, when Dl`Gill took fever, or some sickness of a malignant character, and was reduced to a state of stupor and unconsciousness, instead of reporting the case to the Magistrates or to the Inspector of the Poor in Stirling, if he wished him removed, the priennee ar-ranged a plan along with Higgins, of sending him to Glasgow, and deserting him there. Reckless of what might be encountered in the coach to Castlecary, or in the railway carriage, where there might have been a number of passengers exposed to tfte contagion of the sick person, and taking advantage of his unconscious condition, they had conveyed him from Stirling to Glasgow, to the injury of his health, and to the danger.of his life. The prisoners had arranged between them also, that it should not be even for the purpose of having the man properly taken care of, but for the purpose of deserting and exposing him when he had been got out of the way. That the man died appeared on the face of the indictment. The Court believed, as the charge had not been insisted on, that the act of the prisoners was not the cause of the man's death, but that he died in consequence of the fever being so strong upon him at the time when, with aggravated cruelty and heartlessness of conduct, the prisoners removed him to Glasgow. While the crime argued a very bad feeling on the part of M`Manimy, it was certainly most singular and unaccountable that the other prisoner, Higgins, without any apparent motive, should have joined in this criminal plan, and agreed to be the active agent in conducting the sick man to Glasgow, and thereafter desertinF him and leaving him exposed. Thongh he had the means of giving intimation immediately to the authorities in Glasgow, he had been afraid of being accused with having exposed the passentors in the coach and in the railway carriage to the contagion, and hence he had left the unfortunate man exposed at the railway terminus. It appeared that on account of some difficulties as to the jurisdiction, this case had not been tried at Stirling, and, therefore, with regard to Higgins, the Court was disposed to take into consideration the length of time which he had already been confined, and to mitigate the sentence which it at first contemplated, limiting the term of imprisonment to six calender mouths—(iliggins,—Thank you my Lord); but as to M'Manimy the Court considered his case worse than the other prisoner, and agreed to pass a sentence of nine months' imprisonment. The sentence announced by his Lordship was accordingly passed in due form.  The Court immediately adjourned till Monday, when, we understand, the case of an Irishman and some members of his family charged with murdering one of his own children, by placing it in a drain sink, near Cockburnspath, is appointed to come on.