THE BROADSTONE TRAGEDY.

Otago Witness, Issue 311, 14 November 1857, Page 10

THE BROADSTONE TRAGEDY.

There is good reason to hope that the murderer of Mr. Little, the cashier of the Broadstone terminus of the Midland Great Western Railway, Ireland, has been at last discovered, thanks to the information given by his wife. As a considerable period has elapsed since the crime was perpetrated, it is possible your readers may have forgotten it - r I will therefore recapitulate the circumstances as

briefly as possible. On the evening of the 13th/ November last, '-Mr»~ tittle, was seen, for the last, time alive, by his.elerlf, who left him in his office engaged in making up his accounts for inspection ol the Jboard the following morning. The next morning the clerk,, on going .to the office, found the door was locked ; he waited until half-past 12' o'clock, when orders were given to the carpenter" to try and .get in by the window, which he did;; and on hearing an exclamation from him, the doorof the room was broken open, and the body of Mr. Little was seen lying upon the floor in a pool of 1 coagulated blood, his? head being almost severed from ljis body. On his desk, and on a table beside it, were found a, large quantity of gold and: silver,' apparently where he had himself placed it, ' together with some bank notes, amounting in all. to about £1500, so that it was very soon ascertained that £500 was the largest sum it was possible for the 'murderer to have taken. How themurder had been, perpetrated was a mystery, inasmuch as the deceased had evidently been knocked off his chair by a blow on the head with a hammer,, which was followed by other blows until his skull was beaten in in several places, so that it appeared: as if the murderer were a person well known tohhn, or he would not have been able to approachsufficiently close to accomplish the deed "without - causing Mr. Little to give an alarm, especially asthe latter appears to have been a somewhat timid man. About ten days before, he had been alarmed bj a man coming into his room and asking for theengineer, after the usual business hours ; in consequence of which he had a lock put on the door, which he invariably locked as soon as his clerk left, he having on one occasion refused to open it to receive a message from a little girl until she had first mentioned her name — which seemed to* prove that -whoever committed the murder must have been a person with whom he -was well acquainted. Several of the officials connected with the railway were examined, but without result ; and it was anticipated that this would add another to the long list of murders, the perpetrators or which had never been discovered. A few days since, the wife of a man named Spollen went to the police station and made a statement to Superintendent Guy, which induced him to have her husband apprehended immediately. The' "prisoner, who is about 43 years of age, and; has lost his right eye, merely said on being arrested, " Very good ; but you are mistaken in me." Between 10 and 11 o'clock the same night, he was confronted with his wife at the police station, and appeared greatly astonished at finding that it was she who had . caused his arrest The wife wasgreatly excited, and the moment she saw her husband she began tearing her hair, and cried our, " Oh, .you wicked man, you have destroyed your family ; what I done I did for the good "of your soul;'' to which the prisoner replied, "Oh, you. foolish woman," and was moving towards her, "but she called to the police to keep him back, and requested'them- to search him well. ."Give him,"said she, "aiair trial for his life, for I know his words when he was on his sick-bed. He is determined not toj3onfes.s it." " Confess what, woman ?" asked the prisoner. "You know you murdered him ;' you told me all about it on the Friday mornpig after- you t sajd to me that he would tell no tales," was the reply. The pHsoner, Spollen, was employed at the rail- ' way statwn to do odd jobs, such as painting, win*dxw .cttearling, , &q y "so that his being seen, in any part of the office' would excite no sui prise. He lived in a cottage wltich was so close to the station, and-irtsuch a "position that he. could jiot look out of it withortt seeing the window of the room where Mr. Little was murdered ; and perhaps it was partly from this cause, and partly from the fear that her husband would put her out of the way also, that his wife made a confession, which in sub- , stance was as follows:— "That her husband had returned home later than usual on the night of the 13th, and had with him a pail containing a la'gequantity of gold and silver; he told her this had belonged to Mr. Little, whom he had murdered, and afterwards escaped by the roof. He then burnt his cravat and also a pocket-book ; and, with the assistance, had hidden the money in two places, which she could point out. The blood on his clothes he -• daubed over with paint" This statement was sufficient to justify the police in -apprehending him but, t had there been no corroborative evidence, hemust \we again been set at liberty ; fortunateljr the case is otherwise. The woman took the policenien to the cattle platform, which overlooks the grounds in the rear of the North Dublin Union Workhouse, from which it is separated by a double wa'l, having a space of about 5 feet between them with cross walls to strengthen the platform, thus leaving spaces between the walls of about s" feet in breadth and ranging from 12 to 20 feet in depth, and partly filled with dirt and stones ; into one of these, indicated by the woman, a policeman descended, and after removing some stones from the top he found a sum of money, amounting toabout £132, wrapped in a piece of ca.ico, which, was made up of several different parcels, one of which was enveloped in paper bearing Mr. Little's endorsement, another in a piece of paper bearing upon it the initials of Mr. Little's clerk, while thecalico itself was identified by a daughter of Spollen as having been given her by an aunt to make & new bonnet, but which had been used as a duster. A further sum of £65 ss. in silver, in. a bucket belonging to the Railway Company, buried under a--quautity of red lead, was found in a privy, where thewoman stated she had seen her husband pl*ce it. The key of Mr. Little's office was found where she said he threw it. In addition to her statement, there is that of Spollen's boy and girl, both of whom stated that they saw him 'on the roof of the forge, and saw him put something in the chimney,' which the wifestates was where he concealed the pail containing the money in the first instance. The boy also, identified a razor as having belonged to his father whi.ch was got out of the canal. • Spolfen is still, under reman_d. . The .Frcemarts Journal (July) states thatdiTO^^ 1 the prisbher saw his wife and -heard the charge- V which was- made against him he haa scarcely spoken "' a word, and remains 'almost in one position, wijjjt* his head resting 1 on his hand, apparently impresses?' with the awful character of the charge brougfit* 7 "" against him. Two of the prisoner's children and his wife are in custody as witnesses for the Crown.

"You have: only yourself to please," said a married friend- to an old bachelor. "True,"" replied be, " but you cannot tell what a difficult task I find it."-.