The Sun. — 1857-03-03 (London, England)

MURDER AT LANCASTER.  Much excitement has prevaileirduring the past week in the usually quiet town of Lancaster in consequence of the discovery on Sunday morning, the 22d ult., of the body of a man named John ragg in an unused stone quarry, abouthalf a mile from the town. The deceased was.a warehouseman in the employ of Messrs. Charnley and Co., ironmongers, and was seen alive by different persons in severat parts of the town shortly after the midnight of Saturday, being at the time a little " the worse for drink." He was traced in the direction of his own home, in a hamlet about a mile east of the town, called " Golgotha," and was seen in the company of two men up to a certain distance in his homeward road. Cragg's body, when found accidentally by an old man who lives at a small house in the so-called "Scotch" quarry, was lying at the case of an escarpment 68 feet high, protected above by a six-feet wall of loose rubble stone. His pockets had not been rifled, and the only suppositions which remained to account for his unhappy death were either suicide, the having mistaken his path home, or foul play. A most mortem examination, undertaken by Mr. Hare, surgeon, discovered that the liver was doubly ruptured ; the heart ruptured at the apex of the right ventricle, and an external wound on_ the left temple, corresponding with an internal depression of the bone beneath. The brain and abdominal viscera were perfectly healthy, but a fracture of the skull, extending from the wound on the temple across the base of the temporal bone, nearly separa' ed it into two pars. The indefatigable exertions of Mr. Wright, the borough superintendent of police, led, in the course of Sunday, to the apprehension of two men who had been last seen with the daceased. Much evidence of an inculpatory character was adduced before Mr. R. Hind°, the Mayor, and a bench of btlrongh magistrates at three examinations hold on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The character and extent of the evidence may be gathered from a brief summary. The two men were heard quarrelling with Cragg, and one of them speaking to him in a threatening manner on his way home. A prostitute deposed that she overheard that night the other prisoner vowing vengeance against some one whose name she could not catch. The two prisoners were found by a labourer in a barn on a firm called Highfield, about half a mile from the quarry, early next morning, and one of them began a conversation about Cragg, with whom he sa,d he had had a quarrel the night before. Added to this, the other prisoner had been repeatedly known to express animosity towards the unfortunate man for the share he had had in his apprehension and conviction for burglary in 1852. The discovery of the poor man's cap a few hundred yards front the place where his body was found, marks thereof a heavysubstance being dragged 'across the footpath, the deceased's clothes being covered with mud, a breach in the protecting wall of the quarry larger and differing in the position and character of the marks on it and of the thrown off stones from aose which could have been made by one man, sounds of contention heard by three or four inmates of the workhouse hard by about the time when Cragg was last seer, and when he would be two-thirds of the distance towards his own house, and a great amount of minor collateral evidence, all seemed to fix grave suspicion on the prisoners, while the locality of the quarry precluded the probability of Cragg's having either committed suicide or mistaken his way in the bewilderment of intoxication. The prisoners were remanded till next Thursday, but pending the inquiry before the magistrates the jury at the coroner's inquest on Friday night found a verdict of " Wilful Murder" against the two men, Nelson and Leach. The former, as we have already stated, was sentenced five years ago to transportation, and received a ticket of leave a few months since. The latter is well known to the local police as a poacher and man of dissolute habits.