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PROMOTIONS.

Rev. Marshall Wild to be Diocesan Inspector of Schools in the Second Division of the Newark Deanery.

NOVEMBER.

DECEMBER.

Mr. George S. Bourne, R. N., to be Head Master of the National School at Greenwich.

Rev. F. W. Foster to be an Assistant Master in Leeds Grammar School, Yorkshire.

Rev. J. Ridgway, of Lincoln College,

Rev. E. A. Abbott to be a Master in Oxford, to be Principal of the Training Birmingham Grammar School.

College at Culham, Oxfordshire.

LAW CASES.

THE MURDER OF ELIZABETH GARDNER IN THE CITY.

ON Oct. 30, Samuel Gardner, a sweep, aged 38, and Elizabeth Humbler, a married woman, aged 19, were jointly charged at the Central Criminal Court upon an indictment, and also upon the Coroner's inquisition, for the murder of Elizabeth Gardner, the wife of the first-named prisoner. Public attention had been strongly directed to this case from the peculiar relationship in which the victim and the prisoners had been living together, from the apparent absence of any sufficient motive for the commission of the crime, and from the impossibility which was found to exist of obtaining any direct evidence as to the actual perpetrator of the deed.

From the preliminary investigations which had taken place before the coroner and the magistrates these facts had been elicited:-Gardner, with his wife and the woman Humbler, lived together at No. 5, Northumberland Alley, Fenchurch-street. Gardner in his domestic relations was a man of low and brutal character. He was married to his brother's widow; and, though, according to our law, the marriage was not a legal one, yet both husband and wife regarded it as binding. The

match had proved a very wretched one. Gardner had seduced a maidof all-work under his own roof, and then installed her in his own house as half servant, half mistress. This continued for some time, but at last, owing to quarrels in the family, the girl left and married a man of the name of Humbler. Immediately after her marriage, however, she renewed her connection with Gardner, in a few weeks deserted her husband, and finally returned to her old position in her former master's house. Constant quarrels arose between Gardner and his wife on the subject of Humbler's return, and with the coarse brutality not uncommon in a low rank of society, ill-natured neighbours were in the habit of irritating the unfortunate Mrs. Gardner by constant allusions to the wretched circumstances of her life. Such, in brief, appeared to he the condition of this strange household in the month of September. Ou Sunday night, the 14th of September, Mrs. Gardner was last seen in good health and apparently in her usual spirits. On the following morning, about 8 o'clock, she was found dead in her bedroom with her throat cut; the only other people who had passed the night

in the house being her husband and Humbler. Under these circumstances suspicion naturally fell upon these two individuals, and after repeated and lengthened in quiries before the coroner and the police magistrates, Gardner and Humbler were fully committed for trial. Both were arraigned at the Central Criminal Court; but as the counsel for the prosecution stated in his opening address that he had only a very slight case against the female prisoner, and had no expectation of convicting her, it was suggested by the Judge (the Chief Baron) that in that case the proper course to be pursued would be to offer no evidence against her, but to take a verdict of Not Guilty as regarded her; in which case she might, if necessary, be called as a witness. The counsel at first hesitated to adopt this course, but as the Chief Baron, after retiring to consult other Judges upon the point, renewed the recommendation, and distinctly stated that the other Judges of the Court concurred with him in regarding it as the most proper course to pursue, the counsel yielded to the suggestion, and a verdict of Not Guilty was at once taken in the case of the woman, who was instantly removed from the bar. The trial of Gardner then proceeded. It is to be observed, that from the moment that the murder was discovered this man had endeavoured to fasten the crime upon Humbler. She did not retort by accusing him, nor did the evidence which she subse

quently gave in the case tend to incriminate him more than that of other witnesses. Her own first thought was that Mrs. Gardner had committed suicide, and it will be seen that steps had been taken

by the murderer to produce such an impression.

The facts of the case as they came out in evidence were these: Gardner, being a sweep and necessarily obliged to pursue his avocations at a very early hour of the morning, was in the habit of being called by the police. On the morning of the 15th of September, a policeman roused him at a quarter past 3 o'clock; and between 4 and 5 o'clock saw him in the street, going to work, and carrying his soot-bag and machine. Other witnesses saw him in the street about the same time, and there was a general concurrence amongst them that he was absent from his house between the hours of 4 and 8 o'clock, when he returned. One witness deposed that on passing the prisoner's house about 6 o'clock he heard a scream repeated twice, which appeared to come from the front floor; but he could not say whether it was the scream of a child or grown-up person.

The murder was discovered by the woman Humbler at about halfpast 7 o'clock, and a medical man was immediately sent for. "About 8 o'clock," said this gentleman, in his evidence," Humbler came to me in an agitated state, and said that Mrs. Gardner had cut her throat. I went to the house immediately, and saw the body of the deceased lying on the ground in the first-floor bedroom. She had nothing on but a flannel vest and a chemise. In my opinion she had been dead about four

hours. The left hand was placed across the chest. The right hand was also across the chest, and contained a knife. I noticed at this time that there was a sooty impression on the left elbow and left

wrist, and that the latter was such as would be made by a finger-mark. I also saw that the throat was cut, and that there was a pool of blood on both sides of the throat, but there was no blood below the collarbone. The wound was about two inches and a quarter in depth, and it was deepest near the shoulder on the left side. It could not have been inflicted by the deceased with her right hand. The prisoner came into the room while I was there, and the first thing he said was, 'What is this?' and he inimediately stooped down and took the knife from the deceased's hand. The knife came out of the hand quite easily. If the deceased had died with the knife in her hand, the instrument would have been grasped or clutched tightly. The prisoner shortly afterwards looked towards the woman Humbler, and said, 'You wretch! you have done this!' She fell upon her knees, and called God to witness that she knew nothing about it. I observed at this time that there were a wed ding ring, a brooch, a likeness, some valentines, and some other letters unopened, and everything in the room was quite orderly. I saw no marks of blood on the woman Humbler, but I noticed that her hands were very dirty, and did not appear to have been washed for some time. Some marks of blood were pointed out to me upon the wall of the room, which I am quite sure were not on the wall when I examined it on the morning of the murder. I examined the hands of the deceased, and found several cuts across the fingers of the left hand. There were two on the middle finger, one of which had gone completely through the bone. These wounds appeared to me to be such as would have been caused

by grasping a knife. There were several cuts on the right hand, but they were of a slight character. The backs of both hands were very bloody. On the inside of the right thigh there was the impress of the palm of a bloody hand, and pointing downwards. It was the mark of a full-sized hand, larger than my own. The deceased was a thin, spare woman. She was six or seven months gone in the family-way." In cross-examination the witness expressed a positive opinion (in which he was confirmed by another medical witness) that when he saw the body at 8 o'clock it had been dead probably more than four hours, but not less than three.

Elizabeth Humbler, having been brought from the gaol, was now examined as a witness. She said: "I am the wife of John Humbler, and I am 19 years old. I have known the prisoner since I was 11 years of age, and I used to live in his house with the deceased. There was an intimacy between me and the prisoner of an im proper kind ever since I was 15 years old. My mother took me away from the prisoner's house, and 12 months ago I married my present husband. I left my husband, and went again to live in the prisoner's house. That was about three months before this occurrence happened. Mrs. Gardner was agreeable to my going to live there. I acted as servant, and did all there was to do. While I was living in the house on this second occasion, I renewed my intimacy with the prisoner. I did not know that I was going to leave on the Monday the affair happened till the prisoner told me so after the murder, and he had accused me of it. On the Sunday before the murder I went to bed at 7 o'clock

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at night, and wished the deceased good night. I got up on the following morning at half-past 7, and between those hours I never left my bedroom. I went to a room on the ground floor to light a fire, but I had only one lucifer match, and it did not seem to catch, and I went up to the deceased's bedroom to get some more matches, and saw her lying on the floor. I had taken up the box of lucifers before I saw the body, and the moment I did so I dropped them on the ground. Soon after this Mr. Gardner came home. I had not seen him before on that morning. When I saw him come in, I said, Good God! Sam, come upstairs!' and when he saw his wife lying dead, he said to me, 'You wretch! you have done this; if you don't move from here I will give you in charge.' When he said this I dropped on my knees, and said, 'Good God; show mercy down on my innocence.' Mrs. Gardner was in very good health when I saw her on Sunday, the 14th September. The police went into my room, and searched my clothes and everything I had. The prisoner said I should not stop in his house. I left, and never went back again; but I asked the prisoner to give me some money to enable me to go to my mother at Gravesend. He gave me three shillings." In cross-examination the witness said: My usual time of going to bed was 9 or 10, but on this Sunday night I went to bed two hours earlier than usual on account of the prisoner being angry and ill tempered with me. I did not go to bed immediately, but sat up for an hour, thinking of the sufferings that Mr. Gardner had caused me. I got up at my usual time on the Monday morning, and went down

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stairs with only my stockings on, and I found that I had trodden on blood. The deceased had received a good many letters, such as valentines, before she died. She could not read or write." The valentines were subsequently shown to have been of a very offensive cha racter, having reference to the connection that existed between the prisoner and Humbler. From the mass of evidence given by the police and the detective officers, it appeared that some days after the murder the prisoner very industriously directed their attention to marks of blood upon the sides of the bed, the walls of the staircase, and the shutters of a down-stairs room, which he said had been opened by Humbler on the morning of the 15th. These marks they all swore (and upon this point their testimony was unhesitatingly supported by that of the medical witnesses) did not exist when they examined the house on the day of the murder. It further appeared that the prisoner had, from the first, rejected the idea that his wife had committed suicide-" she was too weak-nerved," he said, "for that; and had persistently endeavoured to fasten the murder upon Humbler.

In a deposition

which, after due warning, he had made before the coroner, and which was now employed as evidence against him, he said, that "on the Sunday evening before his wife died, the girl Humbler was annoying and insulting her, and he determined that she should leave on the following day. He and his wife slept together on the Sunday night, and were very friendly. He got up as usual and went to his work in the morning, leaving his wife in bed." He then enumerated the places to which he

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