hand a little up and down; Jones stood opposite Hillas, they each moved away. On his cross-examination he said, that he is connected by blood and marriage with the deceased; Captain Ferrall was friend to Hillas; there was no better judge of the laws of honour; believes Ferrall tossed up for the choice of the ground, and won it; Hillas was dressed in black; when he threw off his frock, he had on a black waistcoat with black sleeves to it; he saw Hillas at Captain Soden's house shortly before the duel, and asked was it possible for any friend to bring about a reconciliation? Hillas said not, and that he would not make any apology while his heart beat in his bosom; he heard that before the duel he said he would insult either Thomas Fenton or one of his family; there was such a report in the country, but he did not hear him say so. Loftus Jones, esq.-He was present when a message was delive ed to Hillas by John Fenton in the name of Thomas. The message was to fight a duel; he was present at the duel; he was not on the ground exactly when Fenton arrived; he was walking with Hillas; not sure who was first there, but he accompanied Hillas; he was 15 or 16 yards from the Fentons; he saw the ground measured, and stepped out the nine paces himself, at Captain Ferrall's request, who was lame; he saw them both take their ground; Fenton was on his ground about a minute before Hillas took his; he had his eye on Fenton; saw him squaring himself to fight; John Fenton was with his friend, and put his pistol in his hand, and shoved him round; Fenton got his pistol before Hillas, because Captain Ferrall was a lame man, infirm, and between 70 and 80 years old; Hillas declared he had no animosity; Fenton might have heard him, as he was within seven or eight yards of him; John Fenton was behind him first, and then he shifted before him; he heard no word given; but supposes Ferrall gave it, as he won the toss, as we call it." John Fenton remained in front of Thomas about a minute. Witness was much agitated; he does not think there was half a second between the shots; could not say how soon Thomas fired after John went from before him. On being cross-examined, he said he was an advising friend to Hillas, so was Mr. Taaffe; Captain Ferrall was his acting friend; they were all practitioners. When Fenton squared himself, he made Hillas square himself also; after the message, Hillas was in witness's house: he made arrangements for the duel there : he prepared his pistols there: tried them: there was a vast number of shots fired: Hillas fired two shots out of witness's pistols at a tree, as a mark: he was dressed in black on the ground, and had black sleeves put on his waistcoat after the message was delivered, no doubt with a view to the duel. John Armstrong was on the ground, and described the transaction in a manner similar to the preceding witness. He believed it to be the duty of a friend to square his friend on the ground, so as to place him as advantageously as possible-John Fenton did nothing more to his friend. Robert Robert Ormsby was present at the wreck; there was an altercation between John Fenton and the deceased: John Fenton threatened to throw the deceased down the rock; Hillas was a great means of saving the crew: he heard Fenton say, “G➡d damn you;" there were warm words on the subject of the wreck-he heard that the mate, on whom the care of the vessel devolved, gave it up into Mr. Fenton's charge, and he saw the writing by which it was conveyed to him; he heard Mr. Fenton had remained all night upon a rock on the shore, endeavouring to give all the assistance in his power. He saw Major Hillas at Mr. Jones's house on the day before the duel, and saw them preparing the pistols, and Hillas practising at a board, and firing: Hillas fired but a few shots only to try his pistols. Mr. Wynne was one of the magistrates who sat on the investi. gation of the salvage claims; CoIonel Irwin sat along with him ; Mr. Hillas remained all the time of the investigation; he used very warm expressions to Mr. Thomas Fenton; he stated his own case, and alleged that the mate was unwarrantably taken out of his hands by Mr. Thomas Fenton; his words were very strong: he recollected his concluding by saying," that the mate was taken, he might say, stolen from him;" the magistrates interrupted him: his belief was, that he meant to apply the expression to Mr. Thomas Fenton: as a magistrate he wished to put a stop to the proceeding. Mr. Whitestone, counsel for VOL. LVIII. the prisoners, said, he would call but one witness. Doctor Carter was at the duel; he proposed an apology to Mr. Ferrall to be made by Major Hillas; the apology he proposed was for him to say, that "the expres. sion which he used relative to Mr Fenton, were spoken in heat, and not founded in fact, and he was sorry for them." This was objected to. Doctor Carter then proposed to expunge the words not founded in fact," but Captain Ferrall would not suffer any apology. Hillas was attended by three men, ali very competent to advise him on such a subject; but Captain Ferrall was particularly On being cross-examined, he said, there was no written apology required from Major Hillas; he did not know whether Mr. Michael Fenton, the prisoner Thomas's father, was skilled in duelling; but he was quite sure that Mr. John Fento:, his second, was quite inexprienced, and he believed Thomas never sent a message before. The case here closed on the part of the prisoners; and Judge Fletcher proceeded to charge the Jury: he said that he had an arduous duty to discharge, but that there was no exception in a case of this kind; and he was bound to tell them, that where in a dwel death ensues, it is murder-murder as well in the principal as in the second. Here one of the seconds was the cousin, and the other (Mr. Ferrall), though not indicted, was equally culpable. No matter whether the duel was fair or foul, usual or not; the law recognised no shades of dis. Y tiLction; tinction; and he was obliged to tell them, that if two people went out with mortal weapons to fight, and if a death ensue, it was murder. It was his painful duty to tell them so; but in such a case nothing could be innocent, unless where two men, wearing, as formerly, swords, had a sudden rencontre; if death ensued, it was only manslaughter; but even there, if a previous message had been delivered, it was murder. As to the discussion whether this was a fair duel or not, it was for them, having thus laid down the law to them, to consider. He had told them, if they acted legally, how they should find, but he could not pretend to be ignorant of what his experience had taught him ; and he must say, in the melancholy course of his professional experience, he had never seen less deviation or corroboration in the witnesses, or less to induce them to suppose that a fairer duel was ever fought. On the part of the unfortunate deceased, there even appeared to be some attempt at display; he made a speech before the magistrates; he made a speech before the crowd-there seemed even some stage-trick in his proceedings; and he could not help remarking it to them, though he must at the same time greatly regret that so very worthy and excellent a young man, as he appeared to be, had met with so untimely an end. It was proved, also, that the deceased not only wore a black dress, but had prepared black sleeves to his waistcoat; what effect black had in such a case he did not know, but it at least showed a purpose on the part of the deceased. He Judge Fletcher then addressed the young gentlemen in a very impressive admonitory address as to the awful situation in which they were placed, and ordered them to be immediately discharged. Lancaster Assizes, SeptemberSusannah Holroyd was put to the bar, charged with three murders; with the wilful murder of her husband, at Ashton-under-Line, by administering poison to him on the 15th day of April, of which he died on the 18th; as also with the murder of her own son, a boy of eight years of age, by the same means; and of Ann Newton, an infant of about 15 weeks old, by the same means, and on the same occasion. Mr. Cross, Counsel for the prosecution, stated the law applicable to this case to the jury, and gave an outline of the evidence by which the charge was supported. The deceased, Matthew Holroyd, followed the trade of a weaver, and had the misfortune not to live on good terms with his wife, the prisoner at the bar, by whom he had three children, the last of whom was mentioned in the present indictment. The prisoner was in the habit of nursing administer them, saying, it was of no use, for " her husband would die." About would die." After the death of the deceased, the prisoner was taken into custody, and before the Coroner made a full confession of the murder, which, as it was signed by her, would be given in evidence. There were two counts in the indictment respecting Matthew Holroyd: the first charged the prisoner with petty treason, in making an attempt on the life of her husband; the second with administering poison, of which he died. It was necessary to have these two, as on one occasion, where the latter was omitted, and the former could not be proved, the Judge felt himself obliged to direct the party to be acquitted, though there was no doubt that the deceased died by poison. nursing illegitimate children, one of whom likewise she was now charged with murdering. About a month before she exercised this unrelenting cruelty, she had a very extraordinary conversation with the mother of this infant, who resided in the house with her. She told Mary Newton that she had had her fortune read, and that in the course of one week, and within six weeks from the period on which she was speaking, three funerals would go from her door. One of the destined victims was her husband, another her son, and the third the child of the person to whom she was addressing herself. She did not delay her purpose, however, till the six weeks of the fortune-teller had expired; for in about a month afterwards she went to a chymist's shop and purchased an ounce and a half of arsenic, to fulfil the prophecy. This happened on Saturday, the 13th of April, or Easter-eve. Next morning her husband had some coffee for his breakfast, and soon after became ill. To restore him, she prepared him some water gruel, and in it she mixed the poison. The wretched man immediately felt that the gruel had an uncommon taste, and refused at first to drink it; but she urged him so strongly, by telling him that "it was the last gruel she ever would prepare him," that he complied with her entreaties, not knowing the enigma hid under these expressions. As he grew worse, she called in medical assistance, the better to allay suspicion, and was entrusted by the medical man with remedies to be administered; but she refused to John Taylor, a chymist at Ashton-under-Line, proved, that he sold an ounce and a half of arsenic (or mercury, as the common people call it) to the prisoner, for destroying rats and mice; that he refused at first to sell any, unless the prisoner would bring a neighbour along with her, to vouch for the purpose for which it was to be applied; and that, upon such attestation, he sold the quantity in question. Mary Newton had lodged with the prisoner for ten or eleven weeks previous to the murders, and had her child, Ann Newton, about fifteen weeks old, in the house with her. She remembered Matthew Holroyd becoming ill on the 14th of April, and he complained of a fire or burning pain in his stomach. His son sickened about the same time. When his Y 2 wife " wife gave him the gruel, the witness heard him say, Susy, you have put pepper in this gruel;" which she denied, and he persisted in declaring. She threatened him with cooking no more for him while he lived, if he did not drink it. He died on the Friday morning at six o'clock, after a week of severe agony; and his son survived him only six hours. The child of the witness, which was under the care of the prisoner when witness went out to work, died on the Tuesday at six o'clock in the evening, with violent retchings, convulsions, and vomiting, like the husband and son of the prisoner. This witness recounted the story of the fortune-telling, as stated above. There were no rats or mice in the house to justify the purchase of arsenic. John Swindels, who practises medicine at Ashton under-Line, deposed, that he was sent for by the prisoner to her husband; that he complained of violent pains in the stomach; that he gave him an emetic, which relieved him a little; but that he gave over his visits when the prisoner refused to administer his prescriptions. Jonathan Hague, clerk to Mr. Gibbon, an attorney at Ashtonunder-Line, stated a confession that the prisoner made to him when in custody after her apprehension for the murders. Samuel Newton, a constable, presented to the Court the confession of the prisoner before the Coroner, stating, that no threat, promise, or allurement was held out to her to induce her to make it, but that, on the contrary, she was warned not to criminate herself, and told that every thing she sad might be given in evidence against her on her trial. The confession was read, and acknowledged the murder in the most unreserved manner. Thomas Ogden, a surgeon at Ashton, was called at the inquisition taken on the body. He examined the stomach, which was indamed nearly over its whole extent, and in one place the inflammation had amounted to gangrene. There was a quantity of fluid on the stomach, which he analyzed, and in the analysis detected arsenic. He had no doubt that inflammation was the cause of the death, and the arsenic the cause of the inflammation. The Judge summed up this evidence, which seemed very clear, and the Jury returned a verdict of-Guilty. The Judge immediately pronounced the awful sentence of the law, that Susannah Holroyd, being convicted of so atrocious a crime, should be hanged on Monday and her body given for dissection. The prisoner, who had continued during the whole of her trial apparently insensible to her awful situation, and had even heard the word guilty without betraying any symptoms of emotion, seemed impressed with the solemn formalities and moving address that accompanied the delivery of her sentence. The sympathy of the numerous crowd that attended this trial was powerfully turned against the prisoner, not only from the natural horror felt at the crime for which she was doomed to suffer, but from a very general belief that, in her occupation of nursing illegitimate chil dren |
