CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 



33 



borne a child to the prisoner, and was taken by him from her father's 

 house, under the pretence of taking her to Ipswich to be married. 

 The prisoner having represented that the parish officers meant to ap- 

 prehend the deceased, she left the house, on the 18th of May, in dis- 

 guise, a bag containing her own clothes having been taken by the 

 prisoner to a barn belonging to his mother, where it was agreed that 

 she should change her dress. The deceased was never heard of after- 

 wards ; and the various and contradictory accounts given of her by 

 the prisoner having excited suspicions, which were confirmed by other 

 circumstances, it was ultimately determined to search the barn, where, 

 on the 19th of April, a distance of nearly twelve months, the body of 

 a female was found, which was clearly identified as that of the de- 

 ceased, A handkerchief was drawn tight round the neck ; a 

 wound from a pistol ball was traced through the left cheek, passing 

 out at the right orbit ; and three other wounds were found (one of 

 which had entered the heart) made by a sharp instrument. The pri- 

 soner, who, in the interval, had removed from the neighbourhood, 

 upon his apprehension denied all knowledge of the deceased ; but in 

 his defence he admitted the identity of the remains, and alleged that an 

 altercation had taken place between them at the barn, in consequence 

 of which, and of the violence of temper exhibited by the deceased, he 

 expressed to her his determination not to marry her, and left the 

 bam ; but that immediately afterwards he heard the report of a pistol, 

 and, going back, found the deceased on the ground, apparently dead ; 

 and that, alarmed by the situation in which he found himself, he 

 formed the determination of burying the corpse and accounting for 

 her absence as well as he could. But the variety of the means and 

 instruments employed to produce death, some of them unusual with 

 females, were considered important in connection with the contradic- 

 tory statements made by the prisoner to account for the absence of 

 the deceased and the general moral circumstances, to discredit the ac- 

 count ultimately set up by him. He afterwards made a full con- 

 fession, and was executed pursuant to his sentence.* 



At the Durham autumn assizes for 1824, Mr. Hodgson, a surgeon, 

 was tried for attempting to poison his wife. It was proved that pills 

 containing corrosive sublimate, and compounded by the prisoner, 

 were given by him to her in place of pills of calomel and opium, which 

 had been ordered by her physicians. But it was alleged by him that, 

 being at the time intoxicated, he had mistaken for the shop bottle 



• Printed report of the trial. 

 VOL. VII., NO. XXI. ^ 



