On the next day, said Harding, the conversation was resumed. “I asked him did he always have a screen up in that cubicle. He said: ‘No; I used the one in the parlour—the red screen.’” Ross also said (according to the witness) that there was a good deal of blood about, and on being asked by the Crown Prosecutor: “Did he say anything about the old man again?” Harding replied: “He passed the remark that this old bloke, about 70 years of age, was there, and if they put that over on him he said: ‘I will ask what he was doing there, and that he is just the sort of fellow they would pick for that sort of crime, and that they would never think a young fellow like me would do it.’” In cross-examination, Harding was asked by Mr. Maxwell: “Did Ross tell you that, on that night, he had had hard luck in that he was seen by so many people?” “He did not,” said Harding. “Did he not tell you that, when he was in the Arcade, a man had come up and asked him whether he could lend him a pencil?”—No. Mr. Maxwell was slightly in error there, for what Alberts had said was that Ross came to him and asked him for a pencil. “Did he not tell you that, while he was preparing the body for removal, a man pushed his way into the wine cafe, and that he (Ross) went out with his hand covered with blood, and served him with a bloody bottle?”—“No.” “Did he not tell you that he had told about the tragedy to Ivy Matthews?”—“No; each time he mentioned Ivy Matthews it was with some execration.” Asked as to his record, Harding said he was 30 years of age, had been convicted “about nine or ten times—it might be eleven.” His offences included housebreaking, larceny, assault, wounding, escaping from custody, and a fourteen days’ “solitary” while in prison for making false statements against two warders. The confession, he said, was made on Monday, January 23rd, and that same evening he sent for the governor and asked him to send for Detective Walsh, and when Walsh came he communicated it to them. The inquest was on the 25th and 26th, and it finished about midday on the latter date. He thought he saw a report of his evidence in the “Age” of the next day, and Dunstan might have seen that report. When asked how long he remained in gaol after making his statement to the Governor, he answered: “Until the 27th of January—no, it was more than that, I think the 30th January.” DUNSTAN’S CORROBORATION.