A handy-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by W. Bathurst Woodman and Charles Meymott Tidy.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handy-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by W. Bathurst Woodman and Charles Meymott Tidy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    1202/1268 (page 1166)
    again there was a considerable bruise, showing the violence with which he had been struck. There 'is no doubt that but for the watch the sh/it vjould have 'proved fatal, as it luould have penetrated the bowels .’ “ A gunmaker’s assistant deposed to the prisoner trying to buy a cheap revolver, but objecting to pay seventeen shillings. “ Mr. Venables, a gunmaker at Oxford, deposed to selling the prisoner a revolver for eighteen shillings, and fifty cartridges for two shillings. “ Mrs. Tarry deposed to seeing the prisoner fire, and hearing the pistol fired five times. She also saw the prisoner struggle with Mr. Beesley. Another witness deposed to hearing five shots. There was some reason to believe the prisoner to be insane. On the next hearing, however, his conduct was rational. Superintendent Hedges proved finding a bullet in the piano, one which had struck a case of stuffed birds, and a bullet mark in a glazed advertisement in the shop, though that bullet could not be found. This, with the one in Miss Beesley’s body, and the bullet found by the fire- place (probably the one which glanced off Mr. Beesley), accounted for five shots. Examination of the weapon showed that only five chambers had been loaded, and this agreed with the number of cartridges missing from the box -which had held fifty. “ The prisoner was formally committed for trial.” In the Pimlico Murder, for which Frederick Treadaway was condemned to death, the prisoner first fired at John Collins in the neck, who died instantly, the bullet penetrating the spine. He then fired at Mrs. Collins, the wife, and the bullet struck her behind the ear [it could not be found for a few days, but was afterwards extracted, and she gave evi- dence at the trial, less than two months after]. Failing to kill her, he struggled with her, and beat hpr head on the ground. In this case the gunsmith deposed to making special cartridges for the revolver which a pawnbroker sold the prisoner. The ball produced was the same size as those in the cartridges given to the prisoner. For the defence it was alleged that the prisoner’s grandmother was paralyzed, and quite childish several years before she died. One of her daughters died in Hanwell Asylum. Another relation was confined in an asylum, and he twice attempted suicide. Another sister of the grandmother was also quite imbecile. Several other members of the family had died in lunatic asylums, and one of them fell into the fire in an epileptic fit. The prisoner himself had a kind of epileptic fit during the trial. His father said that once before he had had something like a fit.* [“ Lloyd’s Nows,” Feb. 11, 1877 ; and “Daily Telegraph,” Feb. 7 and 8, 1S77.] Case VII.—Death from a Telegraph Wire. “ In March, 1876, Dr. Hardwicke opened an inquest at the Coroner’s Court, Islington, on the death of William Stevens, aged thirty-nine, who was mortally wounded during the severe gale of Sunday last (March 5th). It appeared that the deceased was driving an empty omnibus to change the horses. He was noticed to be sitting on the box with his head hanging down. One of the witnesses climbed the box, and found him dead, with his throat cut from ear to ear ! A policeman proved to finding the broken telegraph wire, which had caught deceased by the neck. Dr. Sausom found the head nearly * Alter tlie trial he had other fits of undoubted epileptic character, and the sentence of death was not executed.