The Cotton Factory Times. — 1888-12-21 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

YODTHS SENTENCED TO DEATIT.-At the Kent Assizes on Friday two youths, named respectively Dobell and Gower, were sentenced to death fox the murder of a man named Lawrence. The case excited great interest, and is one of the most remarkable of which we have any record. The lads were aggrieved by something Lawrence had done, and they drew lots to shoot him. The secrecy with which the crime was committed baffled the police, and the mystery would probably never have been penetrated had not the prisoners been brought under the influence of the Salvation Army, and induced to confess. They were recommended to mercy, but the judge held out no hope of a reprieve.  At the Warwickshire Assizes, on Monday, before Mr. Justice Cave, George Nicholson, aged 54, was indicted for the wilful murder of his wife, Mary Ann Nicholson, on the 22nd of September. The prisoner, who was in business in Birmingham as a baker, married the deceased in 1883. Their married life was very unhappy, and frequent quarrels took place between them. On Saturday night, September 22nd, the parties were heard quarrelling tegether. and subsequently the woman was found in tichs.ir with her skull battered in by blows from a hatchet. The same night the prisoner pawned a watch and chain belonging to the deceased. On the Sunday the prisoner was apprehended at Walsall. He denied that he was Nicholson, but the pawn. ticket of the watch was found on him. Both the watch and some clothes pawned by him were bloodstained. The prisoner, in talking to another man about the Whitechapel murders on the day of the crime, said they were nothing to what he would do on those at home before the day was out. Mr. Soden, for the defence, said the crime was provoked by continued irritation and persecution on the part of the deceased and her children. The jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to death.  At the Leeds Assizes, on Saturday, Henry Hey, publican, of Thurlestone, near Sheffield, was charged with the murder of Margaret Hill, a domestic servant in his employment. Prisoner was in his bedroom on the morning of Monday, 3rd September. The girl took something into the room, and shortly after she entered gun shots were heard, and on the neighbours rushing into the room they found the young woman lying bleeding on the floor, with a fearful wound in her abdomen and another on the elbow, which was fractured, the prisoner being there with a double-barrelled gun in his band. The girl died shortly afterwards from her injuries. The evidence of the prisoner's son, aged twelve, showed that for several days Hey had been ill, and had suffered from delusions. It was also stated that the prisoner was under the impression. that someone was attacking him in the room, and that his conduct generally at the time of the murder was that of a man who was labouring under halluoinations. The doctor who was called in, and who had previously attended the prisoner for delirium trentrns, was satisfied that when the murder was committed Hey was suffering from that malady, accompanied by strong delusions. This testimony was borne out by other medical witnesses, and at the close of the case for the prosecution the jury expressed themselves satisfied as to the state of the prisoner's mind, and found that the prisoner was guilty, but that at the time he committed the crime he was insane.—Mr. Baron Pollock ordered the prisoner to be detained during liter Majesty's pleasure.  James Buckley, iron dresser, aged 48, of Radcliffe, committed suicide by cutting his throat on Monday. The act is supposed to have been caused through grief at the death of his son. Notwithstanding the Roman Catholic chargy's condemnation of Irish emigration to the Argentine Republic, no fewer than 2,000 applications for the free passage offered have been made from destitute labourers and others in the Limerick district. The German steamer Sophie, from Swansea to Gothenburg with coal, put into Plymouth Sound on Monday, her captain and steward seriously injured by the explosion of ail accumulation of coal gas in the captain's cabin. The injured men were landed and taken to the Infirmary.  A London correspondent states :—I hear on gad authority that a ring has been formed in the mega trade with the view of sending up prices during the Christmas holidays, and that some hundreds of thousands of pounds weight of frozen mutton iii being held in reserve at a certain well-known repo. sitory.