The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton)

by Baron Henry Hawkins Brampton

Some of the company were a little disconcerted.

"I'll tell you," said the Judge. "There was in our Gracious Majesty's reign a coinage of half a farthing. It was soon discountenanced as useless, but while it was current as coin of the realm I had the honour of obtaining a verdict for that amount, and need not say, had it been paid in specie and preserved, it would in value more than equal at the present time any verdict the jury might have given in that case.">[

One of the most remarkable trials in which as a Judge I have presided was what was known as the Muswell Hill tragedy. It was a brutal, commonplace affair, and with its sordid details might make a respectable society novel. I should have liked Sherlock Holmes to have been in the case, because he would have saved me a great deal of sensational development, as well as much anxiety and observation.

Burglars are usually crafty and faithless to one another. They never act alone—that is, the real professionals—and invariably, while in danger of being convicted, betray one another. Such, at all events, is my experience. Each fears the treachery of his companion in guilt, and endeavours to be first in disclosing it. In the case I am now speaking of, this experience was never more verified than in the attempt on the part of these two murderers each to shift the guilt on to the other.

The ruffians, Milsome and Fowler, resolved to commit a burglary in the house of an old man who led a lonely life at the suburb known as Muswell Hill, near Hornsey.

The sole occupant of the cottage slept in a bedroom on the first floor. In his room was an iron safe, in which he kept a considerable sum of money, close by the side of his bed.

In the dead of night the two robbers found their way into the kitchen, which was below the bedroom. They made, however, so much noise as to arouse the sleeper in the room above. The old man rose, and went down into the kitchen, where he found the two prisoners preparing to search for whatever property they might carry away. Instantly they fell upon their victim, threw him on to the floor, and with a tablecloth, which they found in the room, and which they cut into strips for the purpose, bound the poor old man hand and foot, and struck him so violently about the head that he was killed on the spot, where he was found the following morning. The prisoners failed to obtain the booty they were in search of, and made off with some trifling plunder, the only reward for a most cruel murder. They escaped for a time, but were at last traced by a singular accident—one of the prisoners having taken a boy's toy lamp on the night of the burglary from his mother's cottage and left it in the kitchen of the murdered man. The boy identified one of the prisoners as the man who had been at his mother's and taken the lamp.

The men were jointly charged with the murder before me. Each tried to fix the guilt on the other, knowing—or, at all events, believing—that he himself would escape the consequences of wilful murder if he succeeded in hanging his friend. I knew well enough that, unless it could be proved that both were implicated in the murder, or if it should be left uncertain which was the man who actually committed it, or that they both went to the place with the joint intention of perpetrating it if necessary for their object, they might both avoid the gallows. I therefore directed my attention closely to every circumstance in the case, and after a considerable amount of evidence had been given without much result, so far as implicating both prisoners in the actual murder was concerned, an accidental discovery revealed the whole of the facts of the tragedy as plainly as if I had seen it committed.

I have said that the tablecover had been cut into strips to accomplish their purpose; and it was clear that a penknife had been used, for one was found on the floor. Suddenly my attention was called to the fact that two penknives, which no one had hitherto noticed, were produced. They belonged, not to the prisoners, but to the deceased man, and were usually placed on the shelf in the kitchen. But it came out in evidence, quite, as it seemed, accidentally, that they had been taken from that place, and were found on the floor where the cutting up of the tablecover had been performed, at some little distance from one another; but each knife by the side of and not far from the deceased man. They were at my wish handed to me; I also asked for some of the shreds which had bound the dead man. Upon examination it seemed that these were the knives that had been used to cut the tablecloth into shreds, and if so, the jury might well assume that each prisoner had used one of the knives for that purpose, for one man could not at the same time use two.

The tablecloth had jagged or hacked edges, which satisfied the jury that the knives had been used hurriedly, and that each man had been doing his share of the cutting. It was thus clearly established that both the men were engaged in the murder and equally guilty, and so the jury found by their verdict.