The following is the description given of Peace in the daily papers at the time of the occurrence:—
“The prisoner is a repulsive-looking man, with protruding jaws and thick lips, of the negro cast, with receding forehead; in height he is about 5 ft. 6 in., but he is not a powerfully-built man. He still doggedly refuses to give his name and address, or any account of himself, but from a knife, which bears a name, being found in his possession when captured, it is thought the police will be able to connect him with a burglary committed in December last. Burglaries have been frequent in the neighbourhood of Blackheath during the past three months, the houses selected being generally those with a garden in the rear, and, although detectives have been specially employed to discover the burglars, they have hitherto failed; but it is thought the man who shot the constable is the principal actor in these burglaries, and from his mode of procedure, and the housebreaking tools found upon him, it is evident he was no novice at his work.”
EXAMINATION OF THE PRISONER.
At the Greenwich Police-court, John Ward, aged sixty—(we quote the newspaper reports; Peace, however was not fifty, although he certainly looked ten years older at the time of his capture)—who had previously refused to give his name, was brought up on remand, before Mr. Flowers, charged with burglariously entering the house of Mr. Burness, 2, St. John’s-park, Blackheath, and stealing several plated articles; and on a second charge of shooting and wounding Police-constable Robinson, 202 R.
The prisoner, who had his head and face bandaged on the first examination, was now divested of such bandages; and Edward Robinson, the constable, who had his right arm in a sling, was examined.
He stated that at two o’clock on the morning of Thursday last he was on duty in the avenue at the side of No. 2, St. John’s-park, leading to Blackheath, when he saw a flickering light in the dining-room at the rear of the house.
Thinking this was suspicious, he went to the next beat and obtained the assistance of Constable Girling, and returned to the avenue, Girling assisting him over the garden wall 6 ft. high, and they kept watch till the arrival of Sergeant Brown, 32 R, who lifted Girling over the wall, and told them to remain there while he went to the front of the house to rouse the occupiers.
On the door-bell ringing, the light used inside the house was immediately extinguished, and he jumped from the wall into the garden, breaking some glass, and Girling got off the wall and went down the avenue to the rear of the garden wall.
The prisoner came out from the dining-room window on to the lawn, and ran along the garden to the back.
He followed the prisoner, who turned round and faced him, and presented a revolver at him.