The convict replied that he had four revolvers—a little one that had five chambers, one that had six, one that had seven, and one that had ten chambers. The six-chambered one taken from him at Blackheath carried the same size bullet as the seven chamber. He did not attach much importance to evidence of that sort.
The convict then expressed the hope that Mr. Bolsover would take warning by what had befallen him; told them that he did not care who came forward against him if they only spoke the truth, and then asked to be allowed to shake hands with them. He was told that that could not be allowed; his friends withdrew, and the interview terminated.
Peace is said to have made an extraordinary statement respecting the murder. He stated that on the night Mr. Dyson was shot he was at Bannercross at the request of Mrs. Dyson, with whom he had an appointment. On reaching the house, he saw her go upstairs, and he alleged that she made signs to him signifying that Mr. Dyson was within, and that he (Peace) was not to enter the house. In consequence of these signs he remained outside, and, presently, Mrs. Dyson came into the yard with a lighted candle. She went into the closet and he followed her and remained talking to her for some time. At the time there was a warrant out against Peace, at the instance of the Dysons, and he asked Mrs. Dyson to get her husband to withdraw it. She replied, “I can’t do it; you know what an old devil he is for cash; he wants £40 to square the matter.” At this moment Mr. Dyson came out in the yard, and, according to Peace, a struggle took place between the deceased and his wife, in the course of which a pistol which Mrs. Dyson had in her hand went off. Peace then ran away.
PEACE’S EARLY CRIMES.
We now give some authentic particulars of Peace’s childhood and youth. It is said that when, having recovered from two years’ illness caused by an accident at Kelham Rolling Mills, he had been in the service of Mr. Edward Smith, and had after that become, under the tuition of one Bethley, a player on the violin at public-houses. There is a tradition that soon after this, having had a quarrel with his sister, he slept out, in an empty house, was caught, and got a month’s imprisonment therefor. Whether this be so or not, the next glimpse we get of him is making a highly promising commencement in his future profession. He was charged at the Sheffield Sessions on Saturday, Dec. 13, 1851, along with George Campbell, with breaking into the house of Mrs. Catherine Ward, Mount View, and stealing two pistols, a mahogany box, a bullet mould, and other articles. An entrance apparently had been effected by climbing upon the balcony and opening the bedroom window. The only property missed was a case containing Mrs. Ward’s jewels, a case containing a brace of rifle pistols, and a silk dress. The jewel case was found unopened on the balcony. The prisoners were afterwards found dealing with the pistols; Campbell was discharged, while Peace, who received a good character for honesty from his employer, got one month’s imprisonment. This robbery shows how closely Peace adhered through life to the modus operandi adopted thus early, and it fixes his then age (19).
A CROP OF BURGLARIES IN 1854.
During the subsequent years 1852-3-4, he continued his musical services at public-houses, and became familiar with company no better than it should be. In the autumn of 1854 he carried on a daring game of house robbery, and it appeared, that on the 13th of October, 1854, Charles Peace, Mary Ann Niel, his sister, and Emma James were placed in the dock of the Town Hall to answer several charges of felony. James had offered a pair of boots in pledge at the shop of Messrs. Wright, Westbar, and on her being detained on suspicion, Peace came forward and claimed the boots, and was given into custody. In Peace’s mother’s house in Bailey-field, there were found a large quantity of jewellery and wearing apparel (including crape shawls, silk dresses, &c.), the proceeds of robberies effected at the residences of H. E. Hoole, Esq., Crookes Moor House; R. Stuart, Esq., Brincliffe Edge; Mr. G. F. Platt, Priory Villa, Sharrow-lane; and Mr. Brown, Broomhall-street. The houses of all these parties had been robbed by effecting an entrance through the bedroom windows in the evening before the windows were closed and fastened for the night. At Mr. Hoole’s the thief had climbed the portico, and from Mr. Stuart’s a good deal of jewellery had been stolen. The prisoners were clearly proved to have been in possession of this property. The defence raised did not place in a very amiable light the affection subsisting between the sister and that brother who used to avenge the wrongs she sustained at her husband’s hands. Each accused the other of being the culprit. At the sessions at Doncaster (October, 20, 1854), Peace (who was undefended) said that a watchmaker named Bethley, in Division-street, had kept his sister (Neil) for some years, and she had had three children by him. Bethley, not having given her any money lately, sent the jewellery and a bundle of wearing apparel by him to her, instead of money. Peace was sentenced to four years’ penal servitude, and the female prisoners each to six months’ imprisonment.
Peace was described in the calendar at that time as being 22 years of age. The mention of Bethley’s name will remind our readers that he was the person who instructed Peace in the art of violin-playing, and Mrs. Neil’s connection with the case does not shed much lustre on the family annals. She died we may add by way of completing her history, on the 2nd April, 1859, aged 33.
MARRIAGE AND SIX YEARS’ PENAL SERVITUDE.
The matrimonial alliance with Miss James was, of course, rudely interrupted by the sentence pronounced at Doncaster. The tender passion does not seem to have survived his four years of penal servitude. It is believed that Peace served his whole term of four years. This brings us to the October of 1858, and the term of imprisonment conflicts with Mrs. Peace’s statement, that she was married to him in July, 1858. On his liberation he resumed his strolling vocation of fiddling at public-houses and feasts. It was at one of these that he met Hannah Ward, a widow, with one son Willie, and she became his wife. He was then earning a fair livelihood, partly in the way mentioned and partly by hawking cutlery, but his ingrained fondness for entering the houses of others, and for appropriating goods that did not belong to him, had not been eradicated by his prison discipline, and it was not many months after her marriage that Mrs. Peace’s eyes were enlightened as to the extra-professional avocation of her husband by a police visit to her house. The police at Manchester, having discovered a quantity of stolen property in a place of concealment, set a watch, and caught, but not without a violent resistance, two men who came to remove the goods. One of the prisoners gave the name of George Parker, and they both hailed from Sheffield. Parker was really Charles Peace, the other being the keeper of a beershop in Spring-street. They were tried at Liverpool Assizes, August, 1859, when Parker (Peace) was sentenced to six years’ penal servitude, and his companion to fifteen months’ hard labour.