saw any Miss M'Trevors at our house. These letters from 1 to 10 are not in Lord Ferrers' handwriting. I remember at the latter end of 1843 going from Chartley to our seat in Wales. I remember the fact. My husband and Lord Ferrers were with me. Austrey is thirty-two miles from Chartley. We lunched at Welshpool, and then went on to our own seat. It was quite impossible that Lord Ferrers could that morning have gone over to Austrey.

Mr. H. Tracey.-I am the husband of the last witness. I have often had communication with Lord Ferrers. We have visited each other's seats. I have seen many of his letters to my wife, and I have seen him write. These letters are decidedly not his lordship's handwriting. The writing is not a bit like his. I remember that we left Chartley on the 9th of December, soon after breakfast. The Earl accompanied us. This witness then went on to corroborate the statement of Mrs. Tracey, but he was, he said, unable to say that his lordship had breakfasted with them on that morning. From Chartley to Welshpool is about fifty-eight miles.

Walter M'Loughlin, clerk to Mr. Mivart, who keeps an hotel in Brook Street.-I know who come to the hotel. I do not know Lord Ferrers. His lordship never stopped at that hotel.

Cross-examined.-I keep the books of the hotel. It is a very large hotel, with several entrances. We can accommodate 200 or 300 in the hotel. I do not think I have ever seen Lord Ferrers. There are sometimes dinners there, and many gentlemen of course attend whom I do not know.

Devereux Shirley.-I am the

66

only brother of Lord Ferrers. In 1844 I was with my regiment in Scotland. I joined it in 1843, at the end of March. I had not leave of absence at any time. I remained with my regiment in Scotland till 1845. I never quitted Scotland during that time. I do not know Miss Smith, the plaintiff. I never saw her to my knowledge. In February 1844 I did not see Miss Smith, nor did I write to her. I had never seen her at all. I was not at Brighton in 1843 or 1844. I have never been at Brighton. I never could draw in my life. I should not be able to sketch the naked shoulders of these Scotch ladies." I am not acquainted with Lord Claude Hamilton. He never called for me at my brother's rooms. I never wrote these two letters. I never wrote any letter in my life to Miss Smith. I never met Miss Smith at Ashby in June 1844. I never had any conversation with her respecting a bonnet, nor did I give her a note written by myself to be put into a bonnet-box. I never received any letter from my brother signed "Washington Ferrers." In a letter, purporting to come from me, I am represented to have sent a ring from my brother to Miss Smith. I never sent any such ring. I never saw this ring before. I did not see my brother between March 1843 and March 1845. These letters (those put in by the plaintiff) are not in my brother's handwriting. My brother was never in the habit of gambling. I never knew him lose any money in gambling. There is not the slightest resemblance in the letters now produced to my brother's handwriting. There is no attempt at imitation. I never left my regiment for a day. I have

not seen Miss Smith even within the last few days.

Francis Jessop.-I am an attorney at Yarmouth. I was concerned for the late Lord Ferrers. I was attorney for the guardians of the present Earl, but not for the Earl himself. I have become acquainted with the handwriting of the present Earl.

The Solicitor-General then rose, and said I have to solicit your lordship's attention for one moment. Owing to my unavoidable absence from this Court, it was not until last night that I could be made at all acquainted with the contents of four of these letters, which I understand have been laid before this Court in evidence, by my learned friend the AttorneyGeneral, as counsel for the defendant. It was not until this morning, and since your lordship has taken your seat in this Court, that I have had an opportunity of seeing those letters themselves. They have come entirely by surprise upon me; they have come by like surprise upon the respectable gentleman, Mr. Hammill, who sits below me, the attorney for the plaintiff in this cause, whose wellknown honour and integrity were never more amply evinced than they have been throughout the conduct and preparation for trial of this most singular and com

plicated case. My lord, I may not unreasonably suppose that they have come also by surprise upon the members of the family of this young lady, as I understand, that so far from any suspicion being entertained that any letters of such a character in the plaintiff's handwriting were in existence, they have been made evidence in this court by the testimony of her own mother. My lord, under these circumstances, I have felt it my duty, in the first place, to confer anxiously and seriously with Mr. Hammill, the attorney, whose assistance I have had in preparing the cause for trial, and with my learned friends beside and behind me, whose assistance I have had throughout the trial, and the result is, that as there could be no time while this trial was going on to institute any inquiry or to ascertain any facts tending to throw light upon this the most mysterious part of this most mysterious case, I have felt it my duty, in concurrence with the opinion of my learned friends-I have felt it due to myself-I have felt it due to the young lady I represent-I have felt it due to the interests of truth and justice, being unable, at the present moment, to meet or explain, or inquire into the facts of these letters, to withdraw from the present contest. Under these circumstances the plaintiff will be nonsuited.

THE YARMOUTH MURDER.

Norwich, Friday, March 27.

Samuel Yarham, aged twentynine, was placed at the bar, and pleaded "Not guilty" in a firm voice and unembarrassed air to an

indictment charging him with the wilful murder of Harriet Candler, at Yarmouth, on the 18th of November, 1844, by inflicting divers mortal blows on her head with a hammer, and cutting her throat with a knife.

Mr. Palmer and Mr. O'Malley were counsel for the prosecution; Mr. Dasent defended the prisoner. It being announced that this extraordinary case, about which the whole country had been for many months agitated from end to end, would be taken this morning, the Crown Court and all the avenues leading to it and the County Court generally were thickly thronged with men, women, and children, all eager to hear the trial and to witness the expected conviction of one whom they one and all firmly believed to have been mainly, if not entirely, concerned in the atrocious murder in question. As the evidence given on the trial was of great length and intricacy, it will be more useful to give a narrative of the circumstances attending the murder, and of the trial and acquittal of the supposed murderers, and to add thereto the extraordinary evidence which led immediately to the conviction of the man now indicted. The unfortunate deceased occupied the lower part of a house in Yarmouth, the residue and upper floors of which were tenanted by an attorney named Catchpole, the prisoner's wife being his servant, and the prisoner allowed, as her husband, to live on the premises, where he carried on his trade of a shoemaker. From her penurious habits Mrs. Candler was generally known to be possessed of money, and perhaps that knowledge was shared by the prisoner, who, as she sold grocery

and tobacco, was, as well as his wife, a frequent visitor in her shop. Behind her shop was a parlour, and then a bedroom, which opened on to a yard, divided from the yard of Mr. Catchpole by a low wall, there being a higher outer wall which formed the line of the adjoining "row," or street. This being the situation of the premises and of these persons, it seems that Mrs. Candler received a parcel from Norwich not long before her murder, which contained a large sum of money. This fact was known to many persons, and to one friend she stated her intention of paying it over to some gentleman at Beccles. This design she never lived to carry into execution, for the police, on going their rounds at two o'clock, discovered that her street door was open, and behind the counter they found the dead body of the poor old woman, crouched under the place where the till ought to have been. On her head were several frightful wounds, which appeared to have been inflicted by some instrument like a hammer, while her throat was cut in a manner quite sufficient to cause death. Underneath her body was a half-ounce paper of tobacco, which indicated that the murderer had distracted her attention in all probability by pretending to buy that article, and had given the first blow while she was in the act of serving him. A further search led to the discovery of a candle on a tub, which appeared to have been " nipped out by the fingers, and the till, which stood in a corner against the drawers. On the table was the half-finished supper of the deceased, and her bed presented the appearance as if some one had sat down on the end of it. There

In

being no immediate clue to the murderer, the police made a noise with their truncheons, but without effect, and it was not till the superintendent came and rang Mr. Catchpole's bell with great violence that any notice was taken of them by any one in the house or neighbourhood; as soon, however, as the bell rang, Yarham put his head out of the window of his bedroom, where his wife was lying sick, leeches having been applied to her head on that night, and on inquiring what was the matter was informed, and asked to come down. He then called his master, and they both went down stairs, and learned all the police knew. answer to several questions put to him by the police and Mr. Catchpole, Yarham, who had sat up for his master, and had let him in at half-past one o'clock, stoutly insisted that he had not heard any noise during the night, though the partition between the passage which separated the shop and the room in which she sat was very thin indeed; so much so, that his wife said she had heard a conversation between her husband and Mrs. Candler on that very night about nine o'clock, when he had gone to buy some rushlights. Though no suspicion alighted at first on any particular individual, yet the observation of all Yarmouth was on the qui vive, and the anxiety of the town was shared by the wife and daughter of an old artilleryman named Dick, who was stationed at one of the batteries on the "Denes," a large sandy tract stretching out to the sea and the mouth of the Yar from the town. It being well known that thieves were in the habit of secreting stolen property in the sandhills which abound on this

plain, the attention of Mrs. and Miss Dick was keenly excited on the day after the murder, as they were going homewards, and they on their way noted a hill which had recently been disturbed, and was approached and surrounded by the foot prints of two men. On looking down, Mrs. Dick saw a piece of string sticking up through the sand, and pulling at it she discovered three bags, which on being examined were found to contain gold, silver, and copper money to some little extent, and no doubt formed part of the "old woman's money,' for one of the bags bore an address to her, and was afterwards identified as one which had recently been despatched to her, with canary seed, from Norwich. While Mrs. Dick and her daughter were so engaged, Mr. Dick, Mr. Tooley, a miller, and a man named Royal, came up. Without going more minutely into the circumstances of that interview, or those which afterwards came to the knowledge of the authorities, it may suffice to state that they were deemed sufficient to warrant the arrest of Yarham and the man Royal, together with two others named Mapes and Hall. These parties were all brought up frequently before the Mayor on the charge of murder, and the Dicks were most prominent witnesses, their testimony going to identify the foot-prints on the sands with those of two of them. Eventually the four men were all committed for trial, and just before the spring assizes for 1845 it was announced that Yarham had made a statement which implicated the other three men, and that he would be allowed to give evidence against them. them. This he accordingly did, denying all participation in the

offence, and stating in substance that he had by accident seen the three men come from the shop on the night in question, and that Royal had, in the presence of the two others, admitted to him that he had killed the old woman. After this, he added that he went into the shop, saw the body, and then repaired to his own home, where, after having admitted his master, he retired to bed. The effect produced on the public and the Court by this statement was by no means so unfavourable to the prisoners then on their trial as it was to the witness himself. The former called several parties who proved alibis for them, and they were acquitted, while the latter was discharged and met on the hill by the taunts and hootings of an enraged populace, who pursued him to a public-house, and so beset him that he was smuggled away, and crossed the river secretly at night near the railroad station, whence on the following day he returned to Yarmouth in company with the Dicks and some other witnesses. His situation at Yarmouth was not more free from public odium than at Norwich. The police were frequently called out to protect him, and at last he applied to the Poor Law Guardians for funds to facilitate his departure from a scene so oppressive to him. This aid he applied for on the 18th of April, the trial having terminated on the 9th, and on the 22nd he received 31., with which he departed. In about three months after this a communication was made to Captain Love, the superintendent of the borough police, to the effect that Mrs. Dick was in the possession of a full confession made by Yarham since the trial and before his

departure; and, the matter being inquired into, it was deemed proper to act on the communications of that person. The result was, that Yarham was apprehended in Gloucestershire, and fully committed to take his trial for the murder of the deceased.

Sarah Dick, the wife of John Dick, of the Town Battery.-On the morning of Tuesday, November 19th, 1844, I went to get some linen. At half-past two I carried some linen to Mr. Shipley's, and on returning home I said to my daughter, who was with

me,

"Let us see, the boys have been hiding something here." I put my hand there, and there was nothing, and followed the feet a little further, when the feet stopped. I said "There is something here, let us see; perhaps it is the old woman's money. I went down on my knees and began to poke the sand away, and I found a bag buried, and which jinked as though there were coppers in it. Mr. Tooley's men came over from their mill; my husband also came up. I was far from the battery. Royal came up last. My husband pulled the bag out of the hole, and said it was the woman's money, because the ticket was on it. Royal said there ought to be more yet, and he put his hand in and pulled out a small bag with some gold and silver, and he wanted to count it. My husband said it should not be counted; my husband said he would carry all; but Royal would not let him. We all then went to the inquest together, and gave them to Sergeant Williamet. There was a broken bottle and mug near the place, as if for a mark. I was at the battery in the afternoon after I came from the Court; a man came up to me,