THE BRIGHTON BIGAMY Extraordinary Revelations at the Second Trlal. Conviction of Malcolm.- Heavy Sentence. London, November 5th.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 134, 26 December 1885, Page 4

THE BRIGHTON BIGAMY Extraordinary Revelations at the Second Trlal. Conviction of Malcolm.- Heavy Sentence. London, November sth.

The second trial of the < meat-salesman, James Malcolm (alias Captain McDonald, of the Kaikoura) for, bigamously inveigling the young affeotions of Miss Emma Dash, of Brighton, occupied almost, as many days as the first hearing, and excited fully aa much public interest. The accused maa came up smiling and confident to once more face the Wy who claimed ■to be his wife. He fooliabJy fancied the disagreement of the first jury a happy omen. Had the fellow only known it, conviction , at the initial inquiry would have been an absolute piece of good luck. In the then state of the case no judge would have passed a sentence of more tHan 18 months or 2 years at most, but when at the close of the second hearing Malcolm, stood fully exposed as a bold, brassy, heartless and unscrupulous libertine, Mr Justice Field proved pitilessly, and sentenced him to the extreme penalty allowed by law- seven years' penal' servitude. At firgt there seems-somobhing shooking, and unjust in a man of unblemished business character, strictly honest in ordinary matters, steady, hard-working and a teetotaller being sent to herd for years with convicts, and all through being too susceptible to the charms of " woman, lovely woman." There can, however, be no doubt Malcolm is now expiating not one, but a great many seductions, and seductions of a particularly brutal character. His whole story indeed reads more like a penny dreadful than anything else, especially those portions of it affecting the lovely Emma Dash. Who can say there is no romance nowadays ? (queries the "Daily Telegraph" in an amusing article on the salient points of the second trial). Here we have a love affair crowned by matrimony within a week or ten days. Captain McDonald, to give the name Malcolm assumed, came, saw, and conquered. He came to Brighton from the Metropolitan Meat Market; he saw Miss Daßh, evidently a sprightly and impulsive young lady, walking about with her mamma ; and he conquered all the scruples of morality and conscience which ought to have beei, but apparently were not, the result of having a wife of his own already living in London. The excuse given by the spurious mariner for his ardent desire to get married off hand was one that it behoved itties Dash, and still more Mrs Dash, to inquire into a little more closely. He said that he was only on shore for a short time, .and had to rejoin a ship of which he waa appointed captain in less th&n a fortnight. He further stated that he had previously been engaged to a lady, and when he came home from sea he found that ahe had bsen false to him, and that now he was determined to prevent the recurrence of such an event by taking his lady-love with him on his next voyage, in the lawful capacity of wife. All this sounded very specious, and unfortunately it was believed in without further examination. One morning a self styled sea-captain,' of whom nothing whatever is known, takes off hia hat to a girl whom he has never seen before, on Brighton Pier; two days later they were engaged to be married ; the wedding ceremony takes place in ten days, and the happy pair depart for the honeymoon. All this is romantic and remarkable in the extreme, but it is nothing to what follows.

■ —**••"* ""TlTe "Bigamist "Recognised. The marriage is celebrated on Saturday, the fourth of April, and on next Monday, late in the evening, off goes the gallant tar to London, driven thither, as he explains, by the cad necessity of a sailor's profession. His supposed wife, still trusting inplicitly to him, sees him off to town, grieving, yet resigned to bia departure. He says he is going to join "his ahip ;" but from that April day he is never seen or heard of again until, four months later, he is discovered dressed up as a Highland chieftain at a Butchers' Garden Party at Fulham. The moment when James Malcolm, meat salesman, was tapped on the shoulder at that party by Mr Osborne, who had been present at his marriage to Miss Dash, and felly recognised as " Captain Macdonald," can hardly have been & pleasant one, Everything, however, in the way of punishment which the man has received he most entirely merits, and there will be no pity whatever felt for the fact that for the next seyen years he will find himself forcibly prevented ftom pursuing his customary occupation of**tl«ceiving credulous females.

New Witnesses. At the first trial, a month ago, the prisoner and his friends contrived to throw enough dust in the eyes of a jury to prevent a verdict of guilty. It is in every way satisfactory that they have not been able to repeat that success. There cannot now be a shadow of a doubt that Malcolm and Captain Macdonald were one and the same individual. Two new and striking pieces of evidence were adduced at this second trial which told moat strongly against the prisoner, and to which, indeed the verdict was largely due. At the previous inquiry Mr Blofield, the meat salesman, in London, in whose employment Malcolm was, gave evidence as to the prisoner having ten days' holiday at Easter time, and returning to his work at the Meat Market at four o'clock on the Tuesday morning. This was important, because, curiously enough, the mysterious Captain Macdonald had told Miss Dash that he was due vf to join his ship " on the same morning at precisely the same hour. His ship, as Mr Poland observed, was the Metropolitan Meat Market. Now, however, Mr Blofield has given an additional piece of evidence of the utmost value. One day, he said, a week or two after the prisoner's return from his Easter Holiday, the latter took a photograph of a young lady from his pocket, and asked what his employer thought of it. Mr Bolfieid replied that it was a nice looking face, and particularly commented on the prettiness of the eyes.

Miss Dash's Photo. That photograph was a picture of Miss Dash. At least, co the prosecution as sorted, and no contrary evidence was forthcoming. If the jury believed this statement, practically there was almost an end of the case at once ; for, if Malcolm was, as, he asserted, an utter stranger to Miss Dash, he could not have had her portrait. Ifc wways y natural to ask why, Mr Blbfieldv'had^ kept this v fact about the photograph to himself at' the first 'trial, and he replied thatjj&wqs, not asked about it. < * If anythingphe*appeared ;reluotant to say what 1 minate the prisoner so that. his production of this damning circumstance i qn the second, trial could hardly be represented as a de liberate intended to ruin Mal-^ colm'BcauBe r .withjihe;Ja*ry.J^ :< *' ' ' _ &

' Thei'Othernoyeltyioftheaeoorid trial .was; the^^Jn¥truqtiye'|;littleK-Btdry Emma v Diokihsonii : ft young woman resident

.Malcolm CatteDdedi^beSSrplfdia^Ba^^ fefthat town, and-^afJint^au^eart^AaieHV Dickinson, withrwhomtheiapneirs tto' have toer talejßimplyj and^appj^nfcly^itli'iruth, and there was nq attempt to throw doubt <jn her. 4&sfasm\\ tf6t\imsdBixW!iwel\ .have been more fatal to the prisoner's prospects of eBcapibg % puniBhment than this ?dung, lady's. recifei,^oC what., went \ on' down at St Albans ; ,THe prisoner'B^Dame at that time was eai3, by .the friend Who, introduced him to fier, to f i be Macdojoald ,' and as .Macdonald^he' always represented himeelf to her,' a?iid;/in that name wrote her letters. This spurious Macdonald, the supposed bachelor, .who was really the married meat salesman called Malcolm, presented Miss Dickinson^ with a ring and eariogs and a broach/ and according to her evidence, as well as that of her sister, he was virtually engaged to her. It is therefore perfectly evident that the prisoner whether he was or was not the Captain Maodonald who preten ted to marry , Miss Dash in Ap r^> offer himself in marriage in the name of Macdonald to Miss JDickihson in June. When the first trial was going on, the sister came up to town and recognised Malcolm at once. Afterwards the prisoner went down to St Albans and begged that Miss Dickinson, to whom he had got engaged, would forgh c him, and also wrote that " lie would be only too pleased to do anything he could for her, through his solicitor." This was trignedii J. Malcolm"" If the letter and visit were intended' to keep the Misß Dickinson's out of the witness-box on the occasion of the second trial, it is fortunate for the cause of justice that the attempt failed. The St Albans episode is just what is wanted to aimove all 1 ngering doubt of the identity of the prisoner with the Captain MacDonald of Brighton, and it throws a flood of light on the character and usual couree of conduct pursued by the faithless meat salesman of the Metropolitan Market.

A Suspicious Defence. Of the defence which was set; up for the prisoner perhaps the less said the better, As Mr Justice Field remarked, it is not necessary to impute perjury to anybody ; but there are incidents in connection with the evidence adduced on Malcolm's behalf, and still more in connection with the evidence that was not forthcoming, which can only be regarded with the gravest suspicion. The prisoner was a bold and throughly unscrupulous man, and nothing could, therefore, be more natural and inevitable than that be should attempt to wriggle out of the meshes which so fatally encompassed him. Some of his witnesses no donbt, honestly believe that he was not the person who was stopping at the Victoria Hotel, at Brighton, last Apiil; others probable were quite as honest in swearing that they save him in London or elsewhere at times at which, according to Miss Dash's statement, he was flirting with her at Brighton. It is astonishing that witnesses should be 80 ready to swear to people's faces and to dates six months afterwards. Bow can a cabdriver for example, be now positive that he drove Miss ©ash and a gentleman who was nob the prisoner on the evening of the 3rd of last April to come place near Brighton ? These questions of confused indentity are difficult enough in themselves, but they are rendered far more so by the cheerful alacrity with which people are ready to go bail for the infallibility ot their own memories. At all events, there is nothing in any of the assertions made by the witnesses for the defonce which need cause tfiesligtftesfchesitationabout accepting the verdict of the jury as correct. One of the most heartless deceptions of recent years has thus been fully exposed and appropriately puniehed. The bold sea-captain who won Mips JDaab's affections expressed his desire to be married in " Highland costume ; " and it was in Highland costume that he was found at the Butchers' Garden Party. The coincidence is curious, and shows that the cleverest deceiver is not quite clever enough to prevent a little bit of his real nature peeping through even the most artful disguise.