A TALE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 691, 10 August 1870, Page 3

A TALE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

«•— . (JFro/n Chambers' Miscellany.") In the year 1 723, a young man, who was serving his apprenticeship in London to a master sailmaker, got leave to visit his mother, to spend the Christmas holidays. She lived a few miles beyond Deal, in Kent. He walked the journey; and on his arrival at Deal in the evening, being much fatigued, and also troubled with the bowel complaint, he applied to the landlady of a public-house, who was acquainted with his mother, for a night's lodging. Her house was full, and every bed occupied; but she told him that if he would sleep with her uncle, who had lately come ashore, and wa3 boatswain of an Indiaman, he should be welcome. He was glad to accept the offer, and after spending the evening with his new comrade, they retired to rest. In the middle of the night he was attacked with his complaint, and wakening bis bedfellow, he asked him the way to the garden. The boatswain told him to go through the kitchen; but as be would find it difficult to open the door into the yard, the latch being out of order, he desired him to take a knife out of his pocket, with which he could raise the latch. The young man did as he was directed, and after remaining nearly half an hour in the yard, he relumed to his bed, but was much surprised to find his companion had risen and gone. Being impatient to visit his mother and friends, he also arose before day, and pursued his journey, and arrived at home at noon. The landlady, who had been told of his intention to depart early, was not surprised; but not seeing her uncle in tht morning, Bhe went to call him. She waa dreadfully shocked to find the bed stained with blood, and every inquiry after her uncle was in vain. The alarm now became general, and on further examination, marks of blood were traced from the bedroom into the street, and at intervals down to the edge of the pierhead. Eumour was immediately busy, and suspicion fell, of course, on the young man who slept with him, that he had committed the murder and thrown the body over the pier into the sea. A warrant was issued against him, and he was taken that evening at his mother's house. On his being examined and searched, marks of blood were discovered on his shirt and trousers, and in his pocket were a knife and a remarkable silver coin, both of which the landlady swore positively were her uncle's property, and that she saw them in his possession on the evening he retired to rest with the young man. On these strong circumstances the unfortunate youth was found guilty. He related all the above particulars in his defence; but as he could not account for the marks of blood on his person, unless that he got them when he returned to the bed, nor for the silver coin being in his possession, his story was not credited. The certainty of the boatswain's disappearance, and the blood at the pier, traced from his bedroom, were supposed to be too evident signs of his being murdered; and even the judge was so convinced of his guilt, that he ordered the execution to take place in three days. At the fatal tree the youth declared his innocence, and persisted in it with such affecting asseverations, that many pitied him, though none doubted the justness of his sentence. The executioners of those days were not so expert at their trade as modern ones, nor were drops and platforms invented. The young man was very tall ; his feet sometimes touched the ground ; and some of his friends who surrounded the gallows contrived to give the body some support as it was suspended. After being cut down, those friends bore it speedily away in a coffin, and in the course of a few hours animation was restored, and the innocent saved. When he was able to move, his friends insisted on his quitting the country, and never returning. He accordingly travelled by night to Portsmouth, where he entered on board a man-of-war on the point of sailing for a distant part of the I world ; and as he changed his name, and disguised his person, his melancholy story never was discovered. After a few years of service, during which his exemplary conduct was the cause of his promotion through the lower grades, he was at last made a master's mate, and his ship being paid off in the West Indies, he and a few more of the crew were transferred to another man-of-war, which had just arrived short of hands from a different station. What were his feelings of astonishment, and then of delight and ecstacy, when almost the first person he saw on board his new ship was the identical boatswain for whose murder he had been tried, condemned, and executed five years before 1 Nor was the surprise of the old boatswain much less when he heard the atory. An explanation of all the mysterious circumstances then took place. It appeared that the boatswain had been bled for a pain in the side by the barber, unknown to his niece, on the day of the young man's arrival at Deal ; that when the young man wakened him, and retired to the yard, he found the bandage had come off his arm during the night, and that the blood was flowing afresh. Being alarmed, he rose to go to the barber, I who lived across the street, but a press-gang laid hold of him just as he left the publichouse. They hurried him to the pier, where their boat was waiting ; a few minutes

brought them on hoard a frigate then underway for the East Indies; and he- omitted ever writing home to account for his sudden disappearance. Thu3 were the chief circumatances explained by the two friends thus strangely met. The silver coin being found in the possession of the young man could only be explained by the conjecture, that when he took the knife out of the boatswain's pocket, in the dark, it is probable, as the coin was in the same pocket, it stuck between the blades of the knife, and in this manner became the strongest proof against him. On their return to England, this wonderful explanation was told to the judge and jury who tried the cause, and it is probable they never after convicted a man on circumstantial evidence. It also made a great noise in Kent at the time.