KILLING NO MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9172, 29 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

KILLING NO MURDER.

WHEN A WIFE KILLS HER HUSBAND. At Chester, before Mr. Justice Field, Mary Ellen Coleman was charged with the manslaughter of her husband, John Coleman, at Stockport, on the 17th of April last, and pleaded " Guilty" to the charge. From the statement made by the prisoner's counsel it appeared that the deceased man had been in the habit of brutally ill-treating the prisoner, and on the day of the fatal blow the deceased had been drinking heavily, and the prisoner endeavoured to get him home from a publichouse. While doing so he kicked her violently in the chest. She retreated into another room, and the deceased followed her and sat down on a chair by the tire, leaning down to where a poker was lying. This the prisoner seized, and dealt the deceased a blow, not of a violent nature, on the side of the head, and from the effect of this blow the deceased died four days afterwards. His lordship sentenced the prisoner to one day's imprisonment.

WHEN' A HUSBAND KILLS HIS WIFE.

The trial of Neale, the draper charged with the manslaughter of his wife, took place at Leeds assizes. His wife had committed adultery with a man named Black, and Crown Prosecutor Mr. Stansfeld declared to the jury that " speaking not as a counsel for the Crown, but as a man, he should have acted as the prisoner at the bar had done." The presiding judge, Mr. Justice Smith, said the prisoner had done "that which was proper" in kicking the man Black downstairs ; and went on to suggest that in a paroxysm of rage, induced by the action of Black, the prisoner had turned upon his wife and inflicted upon her the injuries of which she died. " There were," Mr. Justice Smith continued, "manslaughters and manslaughters," and as the prisoner at the bar had been in prison awaiting trial for two months, his lordship expressed his determination to inflict no further punishment, but ordered him to be imprisoned for one day, which was equivalent to discharging him.