The witness, in cross-examination, admitted that he had sworn to the protest which had been drawn up at Jamaica, and had stated in it that he believed the vessel to have been accidentally lost. He stated that the effect of the contents of the papers which he had picked up when the vessel was on the rocks was an intimation from the captain that he had cast away the ship intentionally; but he also said that the cigar-box in which they were contained lay at a depth of six fathoms, and that he had fished it up with an oar. He imagined that Loose had himself cut the hole which was found in the stern of the ship.
Other evidence was given, from which it appeared probable that Captain Loose was dead, and by which the various sums of money received on account of the policies of insurance were traced to the possession of the two prisoners.
Mr. C. Phillips, on behalf of Patrick Wallace, addressed the jury in a powerful speech, urging that the evidence of Shooltz was not worthy of credit, and that without that evidence the case was incomplete; and also contending that the policies of insurance which had been effected were by no means so excessive in their amount as to lead to the positive conclusion that they had been effected with a view to the destruction of the vessel. He alluded with great force to the death of Loose, and his consequent inability to put such questions on the cross-examination of the witnesses as might lead to the development of the truth; and he urged that the jury having found that a protest was made at Jamaica, describing the loss ofthe vessel to have been accidental, which was signed not only by Shooltz, but by four other persons besides him, and the captain, they would take that to be the truth, and would on that ground acquit the prisoner.
Lord Chief Justice Tindal summed up the case to the jury, and after some consideration they returned a verdict of “Guilty.”
On the next morning Michael Wallace was put upon his trial; but, as we have already stated, the facts proved against him were so precisely similar to those which were adduced in evidence in the case of his brother, that they need not be detailed. At the end of the second day’s trial, after a speech to the jury from Mr. Jervis, who appeared for the defence of this prisoner, in which he again urged the same topics which formed the grounds of defence in the former case, a verdict of Guilty was returned.
The two brothers were then placed at the bar to receive sentence.
The Lord Chief Justice in delivering judgment said that it would of course depend upon the decision upon the point of law whether the punishment which he should direct them to undergo would be carried out. The prisoners had been found guilty, after fair and impartial trials before intelligent juries, of the offence of having feloniously incited one Edmond Loose, the captain of the ship Dryad, wilfully to cast away that ship for the purpose of defrauding the underwriters. He felt bound to say that he was perfectly satisfied with the verdicts which the two juries had found in the respective cases of the two prisoners. It was an offence of very grave importance, tending to check the spirit of mercantile adventure, and the commerce of this country, because it was aimed at defrauding those persons upon whose responsibility much of that adventure and commerce depended. It was to be observed that the loss in this case had fallen upon the underwriters, and the checking of their business might produce serious results. The effect of a policy of insurance was to cast upon a company a loss which, if it fell upon one individual only, might be ruinous in its consequences; and it could not but be observed that the numerous insurance companies of this city could no longer exist unless their proceedings were protected by the law, and offences directed against their fair and honest gains were punished with its just severity. In this case there were circumstances of great aggravation, because the result of the foul crime which had been committed might have been not only the loss of property, but of life. The penalty applied by the law to this offence was no longer capital. He rejoiced at that, but at the same time he felt that it was his duty to visit the offence of the prisoners with a severe punishment. The sentence of the court was, “That the prisoners should be transported beyond the seas for the respective terms of their natural lives.”
The prisoners were then removed from the bar.
THEname of this hardened offender has been already before our readers, and his case will show how unavailing are the most solemn warnings to the mind naturally addicted to crime.
The first offence alleged against Sams was that of the robbery and murder of an old pensioner named Bennett, at Tewen, near Hertford. For that crime he was tried with two other young men named Roach and Fletcher at the Herts Assizes, when, although there appeared to be very little moral doubt that he had been the original concoctor of the scheme, and had actively assisted in the perpetration of the horrible crime imputed to him, owing to a failure of the necessary legal evidence as to his identity, he was acquitted, but his two unhappy companions were convicted and subsequently executed. Almost immediately after this, Sams committed another robbery, and was tried and convicted, and sentenced to six months imprisonment. Shortly after this period of imprisonment had expired, a young man named Thomas Taylor, who had also been charged with being concerned in the robbery and murder of the old man, was taken into custody, and upon his trial Sams was admitted as witness for the Crown, and he then detailed all the circumstances of the murder, and stated that it was committed by the two men who were executed, Taylor, and himself, and that they divided the money between them. Upon this evidence, and other corroborating testimony, Taylor was convicted and executed.
It might have been thought that such circumstances as these would have induced Sams to change his wicked courses, the more especially as some of the gentry in the neighbourhood of Hertford interested themselves in his behalf, and obtained him employment, whereby he might have earned a reputable subsistence, but he speedily resumed his old habits, and his employers could keep him no longer.
He now quitted the vicinity of the scene of his crimes and his disgrace, but, led on either by want or some worse inducement, he was again guilty on two separate occasions of acts of felony, for which he was apprehended and imprisoned.
On his discharge he was again thrown upon the world, and he once more ventured to the scene of his early life. Old recollections seem but to have reproduced new acts of crime, and at length he was secured while in the very act of breaking into a farmhouse at Ware. For this offence he was tried at the Spring Quarter Sessions for the county of Hertford, held in March 1841, the Marquis of Salisbury sitting as Chairman. The evidence was too clear to admit of a doubt being entertained, and a verdict of Guilty was returned.
The Marquis of Salisbury, in passing sentence, observed that he never knew an instance of so hardened a criminal as he appeared to be. He thought he should be neglecting his duty to the public if he did not pass upon him the severest sentence of the law; which was, that he be transported for the term of his natural life. The convict heard the sentence with the greatest coolness, and at its conclusion nodded to one or two of his old companions in the body of the court, and walked away laughing from the bar.
THEcharge preferred against this person, and of which he was found guilty, was that of stealing from his employers, Messrs. Mercer and Co., of the Maidstone Bank, a bag containing 500l.in gold. For this offence he was tried at the Maidstone spring assizes, on the 17th of March 1841, before Lord Denman, when the following remarkable facts were proved in evidence:—
It seemed that in the month of October, 1839, Mr. Mercer wrote to his London agents, Messrs. Masterman, the bankers, to remit to him fifteen hundred pounds in gold, and five hundred pounds in silver, and that sum was accordingly placed in seven bags, one containing a thousand pounds in gold, another five hundred in gold, and five bags, each containing one hundred pounds in silver, and the whole were placed in a box, of which Messrs. Masterman and Mercer had each a duplicate key, and the box was then committed to the care of Wallis, one of the Maidstone coachmen, to be conveyed to that place. The box was duly carried to Maidstone, and the prisoner, who acted as porter at Mr. Mercer’s bank, was sent to fetch it, and he brought the box to the bank about seven o’clock in the evening, and it was taken from him by Mr. Mercer, jun., who unlocked it and took out the bags of coin, and, without examining them, placed them in the strong chest; but he observed that at this time there were only six bags, namely, one large one, which he supposed contained the fifteen hundred pounds in gold, and the five bags of silver. The next morning, upon the money being examined, it was found to be five hundred pounds short of the proper quantity of gold, and on a communication being made to Messrs. Masterman, the loss of the second bag of gold was discovered.
No clue whatever at this time could be obtained as to the perpetrator of the robbery, but no suspicion was entertained of the prisoner, and he was retained in the prosecutors’ service until the following month of January, when, for some act of misconduct, he was dismissed. Shortly after this, the prisoner set up in business in the town as a grocer, and some other circumstances coming to the knowledge of the prosecutors, induced a suspicion that he was the thief, and a search warrant was obtained and placed in the hands of Faucett, the superintendant of the Maidstone police, who proceeded to the prisoner’s house, and, upon searching it, he found a number of watches and time-pieces. When the prisoner was told by the officer what was the nature of the charge against him, he denied all knowledge of the robbery, and told him he might search where he pleased. The officer then asked what money they had in the house, and about seven pounds in gold and silver were produced by the prisoner’s wife. He asked whether they had not got any more money, and the prisoner’s wife went up to the bed-room with him, and she produced from between the bed and the mattress a bag, containing forty-five pounds in sovereigns and half-sovereigns. He also found an I O U for 10l., signed by a person named Merston, who proved that the prisoner lent him ten sovereigns upon it, and that he was paying him interest.
It was also proved that before the robbery the prisoner had only been in the receipt of a pound a week, and that he was in very poor circumstances; and it appeared that after he was discharged he had purchased two houses in Maidstone, for which he paid 350l., and the payment was wholly in sovereigns and half-sovereigns. Further it was shown, that the prisoner had taken the grocer’s shop and had paid a considerable sum for good-will and stock in trade, without having any means to do so, except, as was suggested, by that of having committed the robbery.
Mr. Sergeant Shea made a powerful address to the jury on behalf of the prisoner, and said that the sole evidence by which it was sought to convict him of the crime imputed to him was his being in possession of an amount of money which the prosecutors chose to consider he could not have been possessed of by his own means. The learned counsel said, however, that he hoped to be able to satisfy the jury that the money the prisoner had spent was his own property.
Some witnesses were then called for the purpose of showing that at the various elections in the borough sums of money had been given to the prisoner, and it was elicited that a vote was always worth something, and one witness went so far as to say that he considered his vote worth 15l.
Several other witnesses were examined, but although it was admitted that money had been given to the prisoner in sums of 8l.and 10l.at different times, the witnesses said the money was only given out of charity, and the evidence did not in the slightest degree show a probability of the prisoner being lawfully in the possession of the money he had expended.
Lord Denman then summed up the evidence, and went through the whole of it in the most careful and impartial manner, and concluded by leaving the case in the hands of the jury, who, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict of “Guilty.”
The learned judge, addressing the prisoner, said that no person who had heard the evidence adduced could doubt, for a moment, that he was guilty of the offence imputed to him. It was a very serious one, and he felt himself called upon to pass a severe sentence. His lordship then ordered him to be transported for fourteen years.
THEcase of this unfortunate person excited considerable interest in the vicinity of the place where it occurred, as well on account of the peculiar circumstances by which it was surrounded, as of the great age and high respectability of character of the accused. Inglett at the time of his trial had attained the age of ninety-four years; he was indicted at the Huntingdon assizes on the 19th of March 1841, for feloniously killing and slaying one Elizabeth Harlett, by administering to her a quantity of arsenic.
The very venerable person who stood charged with this offence had for manyyears carried on the business of farmer and “cow-leech,” and in the latter character was in the habit of administering medicines to various kinds of cattle. His great age and his long acquaintance with the healing art had caused him to be regarded with much respect among the simple people of his neighbourhood, where his character had been unexceptionable. The deceased, who lived in the village of Houghton, near Huntingdon, was taken ill during the year 1840, and the parish apothecary used all his art to restore her to health, but in vain. About Christmas the prisoner was called in to see her, and he immediately administered to her a dose of liquid medicine, which made her very sick, and caused her great suffering, but she got better after taking it; and on the morning of the day when the fatal potion was given to her by the prisoner, she was, as her sister said, “quite purely.” On the morning of Monday the 11th of January, the prisoner called to see her; as soon as he had left the house, one of her sisters saw standing on the mantel-piece of the room in which the deceased was sitting a cup full of a similar medicine to that which he had before administered to her, and which had made her so sick and ill. When, three or four hours afterwards, this sister went again into the room, she found the deceased very unwell, and the cup standing empty on the table. The deceased got much worse towards night, and from that time till her death she was constantly sick, and suffered excruciating pain, with almost intolerable thirst. Early on Wednesday morning, January the 13th, having taken some opium pills, she fell into a quiet doze, and soon afterwards death put an end to her sufferings, and she woke no more. No suspicion was then entertained of her having died any other than a natural death, and in due time she was buried. When she had been ten days in the earth, however, various rumours got abroad respecting the cause of her death; and the county coroner directed the body to be exhumed, and a jury to be summoned. Two surgeons examined the disinterred body, and found it in a generally healthy state, the organs being sound and free from disease, but the stomach and bowels were much inflamed; and the jury returned a verdict that she had died from the incautious and improper administering by the prisoner of “a certain noxious, inflammatory, and dangerous thing to the jurors unknown;” and the old man was committed to prison for manslaughter.
At the time of the inquest the nature of the “thing” to which the verdict referred in terms so vague had not been ascertained; but the contents of the stomach of the deceased were preserved, and afterwards subjected to the usual tests of the presence of arsenic. Ammoniacal sulphates of copper and of silver, and sulphuretted hydrogen gas, were applied to the contents of the stomach, and the green and yellow precipitates, indicating the presence of arsenic, followed. In addition to this, the one infallible test, the reproduction of the arsenic itself, left no doubt that the deceased had taken that dreadful poison shortly before her death. It appeared by the evidence of a chemist’s shopman, that three or four months before, the prisoner bought of him an ounce of arsenic, but as he was in the habit of using that drug in the manufacture of his cattle ointments, the purchase excited no suspicion at the time. In order to show that it was the prisoner by whom or by whose direction the poison was administered, it was proved that on the morning of the death of the deceased he called at the house in which she had breathed her last, and a conversation ensued between the relatives of the unfortunate woman and himself, in which he almost in terms admitted that the factwas so. After some introductory matters, a sister of the deceased told him “it was his ‘stuff’ that had killed her;” to which he replied, “that could not be, for he had only given her half a grain, whereas he had given his own son, and others, a grain and more, without any harm.” The sister rejoined, “Then it was too strong for her stomach;” to which the prisoner answered, “Like enough, poor thing! for her stomach was almost gone.” This, and his observation on the day of her funeral, that “he would not for 20l.have given her anything if he had known it, for he’d rather have done her good than harm,” constituted the evidence on which the prosecutor relied for proof of his having been the hand which administered or the advice which directed the arsenic. The family of the deceased spoke very favourably of his kindness and attention to her in her illness.
The Lord Chief-Justice Tindal told the jury that they must first satisfy themselves whether, in point of fact, the deceased had died from the taking of arsenic, and whether the prisoner had administered it. If they were satisfied of those two facts, they would then have to say whether the prisoner had conducted himself so rashly and with such gross negligence as made him liable to an indictment for manslaughter. The question was, whether, in reference to the nature of the remedy he applied, he acted with a due degree of care and caution, or whether he acted with rashness and gross negligence. If they were of opinion that he acted with gross negligence and want of due and proper caution, he was in point of law guilty of the crime with which he was charged upon this indictment.
The jury consulted together for some time, and then returned a verdict of “Guilty.”
The Lord Chief-Justice in passing sentence observed, that the ends of justice would be answered by the responsibility to which the prisoner had subjected himself being generally known. If any person presumed to administer medically a deadly poison, being grossly ignorant of its character and effects, or with rash negligence in its use, and death ensued, he would be liable to be convicted of the offence of manslaughter. Such a person might have no evil intention, and indeed might be actuated by a desire to alleviate the sufferings of a fellow-creature, but it behoved him to proceed with caution and care. At the time of life at which the prisoner had arrived, it would be useless cruelty to inflict upon him a severe punishment; and as he had been already in jail during six weeks, the court would sentence him to a further imprisonment of fourteen days only.
The old man, who appeared to possess his mental and physical powers almost unimpaired, paid great attention to the case as it proceeded. His respectful demeanour, silvery hair, and mild countenance, secured for him considerable compassion in court, which was strongly increased by the sorrow depicted in his countenance for the deed, of which he had been so unwittingly guilty, and his known reputation for amiability of disposition.
THE END.
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