A Book of Remarkable CriminalsIrving, H. B. (Henry Brodribb)
History
A Book of Remarkable Criminals
Irving, H. B. (Henry Brodribb)
Criminals -- Biography
Evidence was then given as to threats uttered by Peace against the
Dysons in the July of 1876, and as to his arrest at Blackheath in the
October of 1878. The revolver taken from Peace that night was produced,
and it was shown that the rifling of the bullet extracted from Dyson's
head was the same as that of the bullet fired from the revolver carried
by Peace at the time of his capture.
Mr. Campbell Foster wanted to put in as evidence the card that Dyson
had flung into Peace's garden at Darnall requesting him not to interfere
with his family. This card had been found among the bundle of letters
dropped by Peace near the scene of the murder. Mr. Lockwood objected to
the admission of the card unless all the letters were admitted at the
same time. The Judge ruled that both the card and the letters were
inadmissible, as irrelevant to the issue; Mr. Lockwood had, he said,
very properly cross-examined Mrs. Dyson on these letters to test her
credibility, but he was bound by her answers and could not contradict
her by introducing them as evidence in the case.
Mr. Lockwood in his address to the jury did his best to persuade them
that the death of Dyson was the accidental result of a struggle between
Peace and himself. He suggested that Mrs. Dyson had left her house that
night for the purpose of meeting Peace, and that Dyson, who was jealous
of his wife's intimacy with him, had gone out to find her; that Dyson,
seeing Peace, had caught hold of him; and that the revolver had gone
off accidentally as Dyson tried to wrest it from his adversary.
He repudiated the suggestion of Mr. Foster that the persons he had
confronted with Mrs. Dyson in the course of his cross-examination had
been hired for a paltry sum to come into court and lie.
Twice, both at the beginning and the end of his speech, Mr. Lockwood
urged as a reason for the jury being tender in taking Peace's life that
he was in such a state of wickedness as to be quite unprepared to meet
death. Both times that his counsel put forward this curious plea, Peace
raised his eyes to heaven and exclaimed "I am not fit to die."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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