The Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder. — 1884-04-12 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

TRIAL OF PRISONERS.  The trial nf prisoners st the Glaraormashire Quarter &Wong, oommemeed at the Guildhall, Swansea, to-day (Tuesday). _ MST 00l7RT. _ _ _  Before the D-optity:c1;;;;;;;-(J. C. Fowler, Iraq.), J. T. Jtm, and W. Hunter, &qrs. The Queen's proclamation against immorality and vice having been rola the following gentlemen were sworn on the grand jury : Mews. John Angel (foreman), H. Broughton, A. S. Gardner. T. W. Gaydon, Tiros. Gwilym, y. A. Jones, F. Knight,W. M. Lewis, C. Marans, W. Nisbech, W. Powell, D. J Rees, 0. D. Richards, Morgan Richards, J. W. Robinson, D. Shepherd, C. E. Sutton, H. Walsh, and T. Tomtit.  The Deputy Chairman then proceeded to I address the grand jury. He said he was always I glad to see gentlemen of the neighbourhood, come forward to discharge the functions of a grand jury, and thus talce• pert in the adrainis-1 tration of justice. The caindaz that lay befor, him was numerically email—far asnallor.l In point of numbers, than it -was years ago, but he was sorry to tell them that it was • wailer calendar in one respect. There were only ss bills of indictment to be laid before them, but: out of these he had the depositions of no lass' than 14 eases in which violence to the person in various forms would be charged against the, parties. There were also two oases of attempted suicide--e form of charge which sraa some- ' what rarely laid before a grand jury. With! regard to these charges he would only say that, if a person intended or attempted to take away his or her life, that constituted an offence at law; and he thought from what he had seen of the depositions, they would have no doubt these two persona both intended to destroy their own liven and, therefore, they would have no difficulty in returning true bills against the prisoners. With regard to the charges of unlawfully and maliciously wounding, he took ten of these and grouped them ttogether, because the facte in the cases were not at all complicated, and they would, therefore, have no difficulty In dealing with them. Bat the doctrine he would lay down in respect to them was this—that if they found the injury done was inflicted giury and not accidentally, and was not justified tE7tlle right of self-defence, then it would be "r duty in an the oases to retutn true bills. One came which he excepted from the rest, he desired to make a few remarks upon. It was the cese in which the prisoner was a man named John Brown, and in which a sad story of low life was revealed, Probably in all their experience they would never have heard a more deplorable narrative, here were two couples living is the same room; neither of them were married, but were living togetherin concubine oy. One couple began quairelling; the man got up, took hold of • bucket of some kind, and then threw it at his partner, evidently with the Intention of striking her; but it struck the woman who was associating with the other man in the room, inflicting upon her a dreadful injury to her skull. When she was brought before them they would fled that ahe waa still suffering from the effects of the blow, which had carried away a part of the top of the skull. Her speech bad also been affected by the injury, and from what he saw of her when she wag brought before him at the magisterial enquiry, he thought it had also affected her memory and her mind. They would have to exercise all the kindness and patience they could in trying to extract from her what she knew of the case, and bethought they would then be able to gain much information from her respecting the case. They would find from her statement that she hermit did not believe that the prisoiter BriArn intended to strike her, hut on the contrary he meant to strike the other woman, and that ml ging his own companion the bucket fled across the room, and thus injured herself. But that was no reseon why they should not return a true bill, because if a person, doing an unlawful act of this kind, intended to commit a violent assault on another, and so doing failed to execute his intention, but injured another party, he was nevertheless liable for the coneequencee of this Rot. If what he I had stated came out in the evidence, then they would have no difficulty in finding a true bill against the prisoner. There was oily one other case to which he would call their attention, and that wits an indictment against • man for attempting to have carnal knowledge of a girl between the age of 11 and 13. In this case, Mr. Fowler painted out that although it was alleged that the girl was a consenting party, the 1 law had been so altered that the consent on the part of the girl made no difference, so far as the cane was coi.cerned up to the age of 13. II they, therefore, found that the prisoner was guilty of the attempt, it would be their duty to return • true bill. There was another cans of indecent assault upon a young woman, but in this indance there was some difficulty as to the identity of the prisoner. There was in the , calendar a ease of kicking, by which a man's jaw had been broken, and various cries of larceny, and others of a simple nature. In conclusion, lie would only say in all these cases the grand jury would, he was sure, give their etriniet sttention. He thin dionissed them to their dudes.