been in Mr. Barbour's employ at the same time, and were companions, and slept in the same bed. The prisoner, after he was dismissed, was absent in Scotland about a fortnight, and then returned to Sheffield, and had been there only a very short time before this occurrence happened. He employed a young man named M'Cormack to assist him in collecting the money still due to Mr. Barbour for goods he had sold, and the prisoner and M'Cormack lodged in Sheffield with a person named Pigot. M'Cormack had not paid the prisoner any of the money which he had collected while he was away in Scotland until the Monday after the discovery of the body. On Thursday, the 2nd of September, the last day that the deceased was seen alive, the prisoner, the deceased, and two other Scotchmen, named M'Clelland and Fagan, were in company together in Sheffield, and dined together. The prisoner then stated that he was about to leave Sheffield for London. At half-past one they all adjourned to Naylor's public-house, where they had some porter. At that time the deceased was wearing his silver watch and silver guard, and he also had with him a pack of drapery goods. It was the deceased's custom on that day to change all the silver he had received, at Naylor's, for gold, and Naylor asked him if he wanted his change. The deceased replied, "No, he expected to get more that afternoon, and he would change it afterwards." They then all left Naylor's, M'Clelland asking the prisoner and the deceased where they were going. The prisoner replied, he was going to show Robison some customers that Barbour knew nothing of, and after that he should

go to London and the south in a day or two, as he thought the south was better for business. They left Naylor's about two o'clock and parted at the bottom of Watson's Walk, M'Clelland and Fagan going one way, and the prisoner and the deceased another. For an hour after that there was no evidence of what had become of them; but at three o'clock an old man of the name of George Hind was seated on a stile leading to a footpath crossing some fields in the outskirts of Sheffield, and 640 yards from the place were the body was found, when two men came up to the stile from the direction of Sheffield. One was a taller man than the other and carried a bundle under his arm. Hind said to them, as they came up to the stile to get over it, "I will give you room, gentlemen," and they got over into the field. The smaller man, as he was passing him, said, “What are you doing here? You should have some employment." Hind answered, "I have as much right to be here smoking a whiff of tobacco as you have." The smaller of the two men then called out to the other, "Let this man bring one of your bundles." The man who so spoke to George Hind, Hind identified as the prisoner, and the taller man was the deceased. A man named Christopher Corbett, coming from Newfield Green to Sheffield by the footpath across the fields, which is very little frequented, met two men going towards Newfield Green, one taller than the other, and carrying a pack.

The prisoner

was the shorter man of the two; the taller one answered the description of the deceased. This was between three and four o'clock, and 375 yards from the place where the body was afterwards

found. About that time a young man named Charles Renton was in a field adjoining to that in which the body was found, and divided from it by a high hedge and brook, when he heard two shots fired quickly after each other. He was lying down in the next field, about 200 yards from the place where the body was. The deceased was never after that seen alive. The field in which the body was found was a grass field, having no pathway across it. Why the prisoner and the deceased had entered that field was not known. The prisoner was expected back at Naylor's at five, but never returned. Ábout four o'clock that afternoon the prisoner entered the Royal Standard public-house, where the body was taken the day after. He was then alone, appeared heated, as if from walking very fast, and was carrying a pack. When last seen he had no pack, but the deceased had; when the deceased's body was found there was no pack. He asked for threepenny-worth of gin, and asked the landlord, who was a stranger to him, to take charge of his pack, and said that he would call for it on the following morning. The prisoner never did call for it. This pack was shown to be the pack of the deceased, and Mr. Barbour identified his private marks on some of the drapery goods it contained, and the goods in it were worth about 101. At the time when the prisoner brought it to the Royal Standard public-house there were spots of blood upon it. The landlord placed the pack in a closet and locked it up, and next day, when some inquiry was made as to the dead body which had been found, he delivered up the pack to the police. From the Royal Standard the prisoner took

a cab and drove to the Reindeer a short distance off, where he found M'Cormick, whom he treated, and to whom he gave some money. He stayed there a short time, and went to his lodgings about a quarter to six o'clock. He then gave M'Cormack some money to fetch some gin. Mr. Pigot was there, and one or two other persons. One of them asked what time it was, when the prisoner pulled a silver watch and guard out of his breeches pocket. Pigot said, Hallo, you have got a watch, Mr. Barbour," he not having had one before. The prisoner answered, "Yes; I had sold it some time since, but not having got paid for it I took it back." About eleven o'clock he went to bed, M Cormack sleeping in the same bed with him. The prisoner pulled out the watch and laid it on the dressing table, and M'Cormack then asked him"How did you get this?" The prisoner replied, "Oh, I had it in pledge, but did not like to tell about it." Next day he told M'Cormack that he wished to sell some debts for 301. that he had to collect. That night Pigot observed that the prisoner had not his watch, and asked him what he had done with it, and he said "it had happened an accident" and he had sent it to the watchmaker. On Saturday, the morning after, he asked M'Cormack to meet him at the Reindeer and pawn his watch for him. M'Cormack did so, and gave the ticket to the prisoner. On the Monday after the prisoner was taken into custody, and on his person the pawn ticket for the watch was found. The watch was got out of pawn and shown to him, and he was asked if he had seen it before; his answer was that he had seen it eight months before.

It was probably true that he had so seen it in his late master's possession, but he said nothing about his having worn it a day or two before. When asked about the pawn ticket he said he had bought it from a man in West Street. That watch was identified by Mr. Barbour, of Doncaster, as the one worn by the deceased, and which he had given to him. On the Saturday after the murder, while sitting in his lodgings, a daughter of Mr. Pigot said, "There has been a murder in Sheffield, and the body is lying at the Royal Standard." Pigot said he should go and see it, and asked the prisoner to go with him. The prisoner declined, saying, "he did not like to see such sights." When Pigot got home he expressed great anxiety to know about the murdered man, and was told that "Robison was marked on the linen on the body. The prisoner then said he knew a little of him when he lived at Doncaster, and it was a pity he had come to an untimely end. Pigot did not see the body that night, as it was locked up, and the prisoner wished him very much to go and see it next morning, but refused to go with him. At this time the body had not been identified. When Pigot returned, he asked how the body looked, and how it was found; and when Pigot said that a bottle of laudanum had been found near it, he asked "if a coroner's jury would find that he had made away with himself?" He then said, he thought there must have been some woman in it. On Sunday he met police officer Aston in the street, and began talking about the deceased to him, saying his death was a mysterious affair," and he then told Aston that the deceased

66

was last seen in a cab at half-past six o'clock on Thursday night, with a Doncaster woman, at the Reindeer public-house. Mrs. Swann, the landlady, proved this to be untrue. Mr. Raynor, a police officer of Sheffield, having heard that the body was identified, and that the prisoner had been seen in the deceased's company, sent to the prisoner on Saturday to ask him what he knew of the deceased. He described correctly where they had dined together, and said that after that he parted from the deceased in Watson's Walk, when the deceased said he was going to Doncaster at six o'clock. The pri soner, on returning home after this, told Pigot that he had been giving evidence to Mr. Raynor about the deceased, and he then said, "Poor fellow! we were the best of friends; we ate and drank and slept together." Pigot said, "Why, you said this morning you only knew him slightly." The prisoner appeared to be much confused, threw his head back, and said, "he was in an awful state of mind, owing to M'Cormack being out, and being alone." On Monday, about two o'clock, the prisoner went to the Reindeer and saw Mrs. Swann, the landlady. She said to him, “What a shocking thing about this poor young man; have you seen the body?" The prisoner answered,

December 22.

Mr. Serjeant Wilkins proceeded to address the jury for the defence, and said that the evidence was entirely circumstantial; and so far from that being less likely to mislead than direct evidence, there was nothing from which men drew such different conclusions as from circumstantial evidence. What motive was there for the prisoner to commit the crime imputed to him? He and the deceased were friends and companions, and the prisoner was showing him good offices on the very day of the murder. It was suggested that robbery was the motive. But the little money the deceased had upon him could be no inducement to the prisoner for the commission of such a crime, because he was not without means. He was offering to sell his debts for 301., and was spending money freely before the murder. It was easy for him to have obliterated the private marks from the drapery goods in the pack if his object had been to steal them. For what purpose had the deceased gone into the field? The prisoner had said, "He thought there was a woman in the case." What did the jury think? The song-books found on the deceased contained immoral songs. The man who carried such books in his pocket would be capable of other immoralities, and he suggested that what the prisoner had said, that "the deceased had given him the pack to take care of for him," was true, as it was also with regard to the watch, while the deceased crossed from the pathway into the field with some woman for an immoral VOL. XCIV.

where the body was found showed that a violent struggle had taken place. Was it likely that the prisoner alone-he not having a scratch or a spot of blood upon him-could have been engaged in that struggle, the evidence being that the deceased "was able to do for two such as him?" He suggested that in attendance upon the woman there had been-what was common enough-men lurking near ready to commit violence, and that the murder had been committed by more than one man. The jury, with very short deliberation, found the prisoner "Guilty;" and he was sentenced to death.

After conviction Barbour made a statement to the chaplain of the gaol, of a most extraordinary character. He said that after he and Robison left Gray's eating-house, about one o'clock, they parted and he never saw him again. That about three o'clock he met M Cormack, who gave him a bundle - Robison's pack-which he asked him to take to the Royal Standard. That afterwards M'Cormack gave him the watch, which, in consequence of some trouble arising from it, he returned to him; and that M⭑Cormack afterwards pressed upon him the pawn-ticket, which he accepted and put in his pocket. On the Sunday morning he took a walk up the Glossop road, and while out met with M.Cormack. They slept together as usual on the Sunday night. When they got up and were dressing on Monday morning, M'Cormack produced a pistol, and said, "This has cooked Robison's goose. I shan't be troubled with seeing him any more with my girl." At the time he made this communication M Cormack swore him to secrecy in these words, "I swear D D

that I will not betray you, so help me God." M'Cormack then said he would "quit" the pistol that day. After breakfast he (Barbour) went out, and in the course of the morning met M Cormack in Westbar. M Cormack told him that he was then going to hide the pistol, and asked him to go with him. He did so. They walked up the Glossop road, along Clarkehouse Lane, past the front of the Botanical Gardens. They then turned to the left along the footpath leading through Tom Wood into Ecclesall Road. After following the footpath for about 100 yards, they came to a private cart-road turning to the left, and running parallel with the boundary wall on the south side of the Botanical Gardens. This road is covered with broken stone, and is very rarely used, being only the private road to the pasture field beyond. Across the further end of the road a wall was built. M'Cormack opened the gate and led the way into the field. He then walked towards the Botanical Gardens wall, and about midway between the gate and the wall of the gardens he took out a loose stone from the wall, deposited the pistol in the hole, and then replaced the stone. He further declares that M Cormack, after doing this, again swore him to secrecy. The execution of the convict was deferred until the police had made inquiries into this improbable tale.

The

result was to strengthen the proof that Barbour was the murderer. He had given a plan of the place of secretion so precise that the police had no difficulty in discovering the pistol hidden precisely as described, together with a paper of shot. It is a tolerable certainty that M'Cormack, who was

at liberty, would not (if guilty) have allowed such a damning piece of evidence to remain to corroborate any statement that Barbour would certainly make to exculpate himself from a crime of which he was innocent. The proceedings of M'Cormack on the day of the murder were minutely traced, and found to be as inconsistent with guilt as those of Barbour were irreconcilable with innocence. He was accordingly executed.

PARIS, December 27.

TRIAL OF ELLIOTT BOWER FOR THE MURDER OF SAVILLE MORTON. A tragedy, arising from circumstances of a most singular and disgraceful nature, in which the parties were all English, has occured at Paris, and has been the subject of a trial before the French tribunals.

In 1842, Mr. Elliott Bower, a gentleman of respectable connections and highly educated, married Fanny Vickery, a widow, aged 38; by whom he had five children, the last of whom was born at Paris on the 2nd Sept., 1852. In 1848 Bower, having received the appointment of Paris correspondent to the Morning Post, brought his family to that city. Here he renewed an ancient friendship with Mr. Saville Morton, a young man of good family, with whom he had been intimate while fellow students at Cambridge. Mr. Morton was a man of great literary acquirements; educated as an architect; but being in youth possessed of a good fortune, he had devoted himself to the fine arts, and was a proficient in painting, music, and had also studied medicine. He had visited several capitals as correspondent of English journals,