Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1879-02-08 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

WNW IM4/1.0 was belle bailie into Ohl dock on the arms of six strong men. As they filmed him in his Moir all MOCti nti around Wm, the Widen on either side retaining a he'd cyanide arms wbße the clerk of the court was challenging the Jury and &mending Of them if they were agreed in their verdict. 'How my you, is the prisoner guilty or not ggnuty •Bo intwasi I. now the silent)e as the crowded assemblage lease forward that a pin falling might be heard, amt thin the r.ply, ' Guilty, rings oat with a strange clearness and sternness in the court. All eyes are tamed oa Peace, who, still sitting, whimpers out a word or two of faltering reason Wll7 he should not be hanged, but the judge, already ad ormaing him, stops short his plea. Soon are heard the dread word, Hanged by the neck until you be dead, yea body buried within the precincts of the gaol ' • and may t e Lord have mercy on your soul.' These are the lass accents the miserable criminal hears. The condemned wretch is quickly seised, hOiated out of the chair, and already on kW way from the court, when a sudden fancy—no one can tell what it is—seizes him, and, with a flesh of desperation on his countenance he clutches the rail of the dock. But it is only for an insaii. stronger arms than his loose his hold and bear him swiftly ,way. A moment longer, and he has passed to the cells below, and judge, jurymen, connect, and spectators are all quitting the solemn preseme Of justice."  There vu an extraordinary attendance on Tuesday at the &notion rooms of Mr. Harvey, in Sheffield, where thus violins belonging to Peace were announced for sale, the pm. eeds being devoted to his legal defence fund. The first tok strument disposed of was a copy of the "Duke" fiddle, aid to have been purchased by the prisoner six years ago. The bidding commenced at El, and ran up very rapidly to £2l 10s. 64, at which sum it vu bought. The xt was a " Kit " violin. The first bid was 65., but £.9 10a. was ultimately offered, and at that price It was knocked down. A violin, said to have been made by Peace himself, and bearing hi, name, was purchased for kb Ws. A "small grand" piano. formerly the property of Peace, was sold for 214 guineas.  The Times, In a leader commenting upon Peace's *rear, says that "12e may claim a remarkahle place among the great criminals of modern days. . .. . Though repeatedly convicted, he was, OD the whole, favoured by fortune. His recklessness in shooting at policemen and others who attempted to arrest him brought him two or three times to the verge of murder before and after his flight from Banner-cross. ills personal strength and agility must have been remarkable: • weaker man would often have been captured where he escaped, partly by a partly by promptitude and craft. A still more ging= was his power of facial contortion. in which be appears to have equalled some of the greatest actors, and on which he relied so confidently that he ventured to face the pollee in Sheffield after the murder of Mr. Dyson, and was never detected. The energy, the daring. the Ingenuity of the man are neither to be denied nor despised. The cool determination with which he organised his lawless expedltfons, bnylng a pony and In with the proceeds of a lucrative robbery in order to 'we? the business more readily and rapidly in the future, will no doubt, be regarded with gaping admiration by leas skilful practitioners in crime. Yet even these, if they took thought, must see whit a miserable and hideously barren tenure such a career Is after all. Peace is a very clever, a very strong-wllled criminal, but society has conquered him in the long ran. Nay, before Justice lal4 her grasp upon him the Iron had already entered into his sonL Deis believed to be still under fifty years of age, yet as be appeared in court he was a prematurely old and worn man. The anxieties of his long battle against the world of honest men had been too much for his rugged force and brutal endurance. Even had the charge of murder been never brought home to him, he must have felt, when he was carried a prisoner to Sheffield, that the game wa% up. Ills mad leap from the train within sight of his former home at Darnall was not a lolled effort to escape, but a deliberate attempt at suicide—a miserable confession, in very deed, of the guilt and failure which the seateaoe of death has solemilly ratified."