THE HAMPSTEAD MURDER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 9292, 22 December 1890, Page 6

THE HAMPSTEAD MURDER.

THE ACCUSED BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES. London, Nov. 7. ■ Nothing new in connection with the fearful crime at Hampstead has transpired daring the week, and it now seems certain that the wretched woman Piercy committed the dread deed without accomplices. Whether she planned it all out beforehand and treacherously struck her guest from behind with the poker, or whether the women quarrelled and fought will, in all probability, never be known. The police favour the former theory, as Mrs Hogg was the stronger woman, and Would, it is thought, have been more than a match for Piercy in a fair fight. The accused was charged at Marylebone Police Court on Monday, ia presence of a gaping crowd of neighbours and pressmen, not to mention Lord Royston, Lord D’ingan, Lord Cardross, Lord Greenock and other aristocratic cohnaisssurs of causes celebres. After a long- course oi Monday druuka had been mulcted the inevitable penalty, the side door of the Court was opened, and a way made through the crowd, and amid a painful hush the unhappy young woman stepped up into the raised enclosure in the centre of the Court. She was clad completely in black, with the exception of her hat, which had a faded blue trimming on it. Her cape was trimmed with crape, and she wore black kid gloves. She is a slightly built woman, of scarcely the medium height. She cannot be said to be particularly good-looking. She has high cheek- ones, a large and rather prominent mouth, and a thin, rather long face; but she has a pair of lustrous eyes, and a fine set of teeth, and altogether the face may be said to be au interesting and expressive one, and characterised by great gentleness, admirably in keeping with her soft, low, musical voice. Probably the feeling of everybody in Court in a position to see her was that it seemed absolutely incredible that so frail a form and bo gentle a spirit as seemed to be shown in that face could, by any possibility, be concerned single-handed in one of the most ferocious murders of recent years. She stepped into cue dock, looking pale and slightly scared, but very self-possessed, and stood motionless. Her solicitor bent over to her, and asked her if she would like a seat. She whispered that she would, and a seat was procured for her, while Mr Gill proceeded to make his opening statement —a dreadful array of facts which he pieced together in a quiet, phlegmatic, business-like fashion, without the 1 east trace of feeling either for or against the prisoner, who as she sat down had dropped into an attitude which throughout the speech she did not vary by the movement of a muscle. She sat with hands crossed in her lap, and her lustrous eyes set full on the face of the Crown lawyer, with a hard stony stare of misery as he told the fearful story that seemed to point to her. As she sat, motionless as a statue, she had the appearance of one in a trance, but when at the end of about half au hour the counsel for the Treasury sat down, and her solicitor stretched across to speak with her, it was evident that she had been particularly alert to every statement, and in a quiet, soft voice she indicated two points for Mr Palmer’s attention. “Mrs Butler,” she said, “ can tell you as to the mice; and it was eight o’clock, not ten, when Clara came down.”

Mr Frank Hogg, the husband of the deceased, was the first witness called. He was very pale, and evidently labouring under suppressed excitement; but he was entirely self-possessed and gave hia evidence faultlessly. He is an intelligentlooking man, of something over thirty years of age, with a short, reddish-brown moustache and beard. With rather a pleasant-looking face and a soft, mellifluous voice, he looked, in his mourning clothes, like a highly respectable working man. Nothing could have been better than the manner in which he gave his evidence, and yet there was something profoundly unpleasant about it. The very candour and frankness of the witness jarred painfully. In the suavest and blandest of manners and the gentlest and silveriest of tones he told the Court of the birth of his child six months after marriage, and he admitted that his visits to Mrs Piercy began shortly after his marriage. Mr Hogg had a peculiar little inflection of his voice, which every now and then seemed to say, in giving denial to a question. “How could you think it of me? ” Once, when there was an allusion to his child, he showed some little emotion. “ Would you be surprised to hear that Phoebe and Tiggy had been here ? ” Mrs Piercy had asked him. “Who was Tiggy?” he was asked, and there was a puckering of the face, and his eyes filled with tears as he replied, 41 It was the child—it was a pet name.” The emotion was creditable, and it was a relief to see it; bub when presently he began to whimper again at having to speak about hia poor wife in open Court, one couldn’t somehow resist a feeling of repulsion. But this was not the most unpleasant feature in his evidence. Asked whether ho had ever contributed to the support of the woman whom he said he had visited sometimes once and sometimes two or three times a week, the witness, with that sort voice and peculiar inflection of his, denied emphatically that he had ever dona anything of the kind. “ Oh, dear no,” his manner seemed to say, “how couid you imagine I should do such a thing ?” He had never contributed in any way whatever. It ia charitable to assume that ba did not perceive how terribly this fact added to the difficulties which beset the dei'euco of the unhappy creature in the dock/who had now turned her bright eyes and rigid, stony face upon him, and seemed to bo devouring every syllable of his evidence. Never once did the witness look towards the woman in the dock.

The next to be called was his sister, a ladylike young woman, becomingly attired in mourning. The one important point in her evidence told decidedly in the prisoner’s favour. After the murder a latch-key of the house in which Mrs Hogg* lived had been found in the prisoner’s pocket, aud it has been assumed that this was the key that had belonged to the deceased. Miss Clara Hogg’s evidence proved that she, who lived in. the same house with her brother and the victim of the murder,hud lent her door-boy to the prisoner, and it bad not been raturaad. Thus the possession of it was accounted for without the assumption that it had been taken from the murdered woman.

Sorely can v.. November afternoon have been spent in listening to a ghastlier story than that which was set forth yesterday. As tbo shadows grew deeper, the black figure of the prisoner, elevated in a terrible isolation in the centre of tbo court, looked more melancholy, but couldn't possibly bo more motionless, escopt when once or twice cbo rose to lean over and whisper to her solicitor. Ac if to add to tbo sorrowful gloom of the place, at one point in tbs proceedings come boll in the neighbourhood clanged out for a moment or two, and again and again iba dull hoarse roar of the inch outside seamed to contrast strangely with the dull mono tony o; the scene within aa one after the other • witness stepped into the beet ur.d told the tala. The bassinet perambulator ‘ was called for at one point, but such wac toe crowded state of the Court and its approaches that Inspector Bannister objected to its production, as it couldn’t bo got in without rubbing its sides, and thus—as it was implied—possibly wiping oil some of the gory stains testifying to the use it had been put to. At tbo adjournment of the Court until this day week, there was great exoiiem<-ati outside, where hundreds of people were hop'ng to see. some of the wi;,acs«e if not tor prisoner. 0;.,e reetle- : man or emerging from tbo Court with «. 1 i » - i V!,- and a rery {. • 1 'i tfl 'i.-ior turn, yelling | «h<-utiinc nil r,he way !o the M*<ry *ei bouc read, where h« effected ilia escape in a hansom orb. One Of two female witnesses also had to be prat*cted by the ■police until in tbo Marylebona road they were able to obtain the shelter of a fourwheeled cab.