Dorothy Hewitt, a very old woman, a widow, and sister to the deceased, said, After they removed from St. Giles's, I saw my sister in Bar-street; that was the last place where I saw her. It was about seventeen years ago: I have not heard from her since. I went to the prisoner's house afterwards, in King-street, and said, "I shall be very much obliged, Mr. Sheward, if you will tell me where my sister is." He said, "Mrs. Hewitt, she can write to you if she likes." He never came to ask me if I knew where my sister was or if I had heard from her. I had an aunt named Fisher; she is dead. She left some money, and I have had my share. My sister was a light-complexioned woman.

Cross-examined. I do not know that my sister went by any other name. I do not remember that she was living in Chancery-lane with a gentleman named Worseldine. I never went to Greenwich with my sister and Mr. Hill.

William Bunn, a labourer, living at Wymondham.-I knew the prisoner, having married his first wife's sister, Mary. They were twins. They stayed with me in St. James's, Norwich, in 1836, where I was then living. They afterwards moved to St. Martin's-at-Palace, opposite the Bishop's-walls. My wife was with me. She went in, and was there for a couple of hours. I did not go in. The last time my wife went was about a year before Mrs. Fisher died, which was seventeen or eighteen years ago. After her death we all had a little money. I did not speak to Mr. Sheward (the prisoner) about it. I was living at Hollyhouse, Wymondham. I have no recollection of seeing the letter addressed to me there, but I heard about it. I heard that the prisoner and his wife had separated, and that she had gone away to London. I went to his house in King-street to see him, and said, "Will you be so kind as to tell me the last words she said to you?" He said that she said to him when she was on the train, "I will not write to you or my sisters. Never." I told him I had come on purpose to inquire about her. Nothing more was then said. I stopped to dinner. He cut some meat for me, and I noticed that his hand shook so, that I said, " Dear Mr. Sheward, what is the matter?" I said it twice, so that he must have heard me; he made no answer-not a word. I heard no other conversation of any sort from him. He has never made any inquiries of me as to whether my wife and I have heard of Mrs. Sheward. My wife was a fair woman, she had golden hair; she was a very light-complexioned person; she had very small hands and feet; she was a kind of delicate woman, and very neat and clean in her person; her height was about 5 feet 1 inch.

Cross-examined.-He said he saw his wife go by the train to London. My wife had heard before that that she had gone. I have heard my wife mention the name of Worseldine. I know nothing about him. I can swear that I never heard that Mrs. Sheward went by the name of Worseldine. I don't recollect any thing about it. I never heard my wife say that Worseldine was transported. I have heard the name, but my wife never told me she mentioned the name years and years ago, long before this. Worseldine was a carpenter in London. She knew about him, I suspect, from the letters she got from Mrs. Sheward. Before she was married she was a very good friend to my wife-used to send her clothes, shoes, when she was single; that was about the time I heard of Worseldine.

Eva Elizabeth Hewitt.-I am a single woman, and live with my mother, Dorothy Hewitt. I know the prisoner, his first wife was my aunt. While they lived in King-street I visited the prisoner and his present wife constantly. The first time must be about fifteen years since. I went with my aunt. I heard my aunt ask him about the money left by Mrs. Fisher. I went to the house several

P

times after that. The present Mrs. Sheward was there. I went in 1849, the year he failed. A dark woman came into the shop. My uncle was in the shop at the time. I heard my uncle say to her he would not mind half-a-crown a week for the room. He went over the counter after the woman; she wore her hair low over the face, she was plain, and I have often fancied it was the present Mrs. Sheward. I believed at the time it was his present wife. Mr. Sheward visited me at St. Faith's about seven years since. I heard my aunt, Mrs. Nunn, say, "I have come to ask you what you have done with my sister." He said, "I have done nothing with your sister; she went away and left me penniless." She said, "You are a false man, my sister never went away and left you." He afterwards went to Mrs. Nunn's, but I did not hear any of the conversation. I never heard him ask after or about her.

Cross-examined. This witness, who was pressed very closely about the man Worseldine and Mrs. Sheward's going away according to the prisoner's statement above mentioned, showed great reluctance to answer the questions put to her, saying that she was too young at the time to know any thing about the matters referred to.

Hannah Hurn, a very old and infirm woman, one of the sisters of the deceased, said she visited the prisoner and his wife only once about twenty years ago. Had a relation named Fisher, who left some money; witness got her share from Mr. Cann, a solicitor of Wymondham. He was dead. Prisoner never came to make any inquiry about her sister.

Rachel Fox, a widow, and niece of the deceased, said she used to visit her when she and her husband were living at St. Giles's, but never saw her afterwards. She lost her husband in February, 1868, and had visited the prisoner several times since. He never made any allusions to her. About three years ago witness asked if he could tell her any thing about her aunt, but she could not remember what he said.

John Francis, an inmate of the Norwich Union, was married to a sister of the deceased. He went to the prisoner's house in King-street some time after the death of Mrs. Fisher. Sheward was there; and he said to him, Mr. Cann would settle to-morrow if Mrs. Sheward, his sister, would come. Prisoner said, “Very well, I'll tell her when I see her."

In cross-examination, he said he got 107. 4s. 6d. as his share of the legacy. Thomas Alfred Francis, a nephew of the late Mrs. Sheward, gave similar evidence to the other witnesses (relations), adding this, that the prisoner told him on one occasion he was sure his wife would not go to the funeral of his mother.

Mr. E. C. Bailey, solicitor, practising in Norwich, and Clerk of the Peace for the city, produced some papers from the office of the late Mr. Cann, his brotherin-law, among them a letter dated the 24th of March, 1853, from the prisoner to Mrs. Bunn, at Holly-house, Wymondham :

:

“Mrs. Bunn,—I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Fisher's death, but your sister not being in Norwich at this present, I shall not take any part in arranging of affairs; therefore you need not expect me, nor send to me any more.

"WILLIAM SHEWARD."

Sarah Batson.-I was married in March, 1850. After my marriage I went to live in a house in Tabernacle-street, St. Martin's-at-Palace. After my confinement in January, 1851, I found that the house next to ours, before that un

occupied, was taken by a man and woman. The woman was light-complexioned and had golden hair in ringlets. I saw her last on Whit-Sunday, the 8th of June, 1851, when I took into her part of some custard I had been making. I do not recollect seeing her afterwards, but I saw the man.

Potter Batson, husband of last witness, gave similar evidence, and added that he saw the house shut up after Whitsuntide.

Ruth Swan proved that she saw the prisoner at his house in St. Martin's-atPalace, where he was selling off his things about fifteen or sixteen years ago. The witness had known Mrs. Sheward and described her in precisely the same way that all the other witnesses did.

Mr. Smith, a surveyor, called to speak to a plan of the city of Norwich, and so much of the environs as embraces the different places where the remains were found, was asked about Tabernacle-street, and said there was a dead wall opposite that part of it in which Sheward's house is situated. That house was next door to the Old Man's Hospital.

Cross-examined.-He knew nothing about the street in 1851.

James Smith was recalled to fix the position of the Old Man's Hospital in 1851, and as to the "cockeys."

Mr. Simpson, Governor of the hospital mentioned, proved that in 1851 there were no houses on one side of Tabernacle-street. There was a lodge there, with a window looking into the street, and one window looking into Hospital-lane. There are houses in Hospital-square, about sixty yards distant from the house where the prisoner used to live.

Cross-examined.-Tabernacle-street is one of the public thoroughfares of the city, and is frequently crowded by persons going to Mousehold-heath. The house where Sheward lived was about the centre of Tabernacle-street. A person going from the house where the prisoner was supposed to have lived would have to pass four houses and the entrance of a yard, in which there are many houses, in going to Bishopgate-street. There is a church at one end and a chapel at the other end, and another church at a short distance, in Bishopgate-street.

Re-examined. The road through Tabernacle-street to Mousehold-heath was the chief thoroughfare from Norwich to the eastern parts.

John Bird said, In 1851 I resided in St. George's, Middle-street, in Norwich. At the half-quarter after Midsummer, 1851, prisoner hired of me three unfurnished rooms. I understood from him that he was then living at St. Martin's-atPalace-plain. At Michaelmas prisoner came to live in those rooms alone. Two women came to visit him, among others, about two or three months after he came there. The present Mrs. Sheward was one. I gave him notice to quit about February, 1853. I had observed something in prisoner's conduct and the woman's. A twelvemonth after I saw him occupying a house in King-street.

Cross-examined by Mr. Metcalfe. The present Mrs. Sheward was not the first person I saw there. Prisoner moved his bedding, &c., into the rooms and well furnished them.

Re-examined by Mr. O'Malley.-Had not seen prisoner.

Margaret Lince.-I worked for Mrs. Coley in 1851. She lived on St. Andrew'splain. Know the present Mrs. Sheward. She lived with Mr. Frank Coley, in King-street, as nursemaid. One Sunday afternoon I went with Mrs. Sheward to the Shakespeare Tavern, in St. George's. Had a meal there with Mr. Sheward and the present Mrs. Sheward.

Cross-examined. The present Mrs. Sheward came from Cringleford-hall.

Several other witnesses were called to speak to their knowledge of the present Mrs. Sheward and of the prisoner's acquaintance and intimacy with her since the year 1851.

Mary Leigh's depositions were then put in, that witness being disabled by illness from appearing in Court. She had known both the prisoner and his present wife for about thirteen years, having nursed her in two confinements. At those times in the years 1856 and 1859-the prisoner and his wife were not married, the marriage at which Mary Leigh was present having been solemnized at the Registrar's office in Norwich on the 13th of February, 1862. The certificate of that marriage and of the one on the 28th of October, 1836, between the prisoner and his first wife, Martha Francis (the subject of the present inquiry), were then put in and read, and on the close of the case for the prosecution,

Mr. Metcalfe addressed the jury for the prisoner. He reminded them that the confession made by the prisoner in London had been revoked, and that he now said it was untrue. He dwelt upon the improbability of the prisoner's making away with his wife in the manner supposed in a house situated in a row in a crowded suburb. There was not the least evidence of murder or of where the body could have been cut up. As for the discovery of the remains in the way alleged, what was more probable than that they might have formed portions of a subject used for dissection by an unskilful hand, secretly obtained and secretly got rid of, buried, after they had served their purpose, so hastily as to be easily found in the way described? He also pointed out the utter absence of any corroboration of the prisoner's statement against himself.

Mr. Baron Pigott then summed up, and the jury, after an hour and a quarter's deliberation, found the prisoner guilty, whereupon he was sentenced to death. Sheward shortly before his execution made a horrible confession of the way in which he had murdered his wife and disposed of her body.-(See CHRONICLE for April.)

III.

THE CASE OF ESTHER LYONS.

ONE of the most extraordinary cases which have ever arisen in the Principality of Wales was tried at the Glamorganshire Assizes at Cardiff in July, and occupied a whole week in its elucidation. The respectability of the persons involved, the curious incidents of the case, and the amount of religious feeling which it evoked, all contributed to make the case one of more than ordinary importance. On each of the six days which the trial occupied, the Cardiff Town Hall was besieged by crowds of respectably-dressed persons belonging to every religious community, only a portion of whom were enabled to gain admittance to the Assize Court. The 300 or 400 who were present daily included nearly all the clergy and ministers of the town and neighbourhood, and a large proportion of the local gentry-ladies and gentlemen.

The case took the form of a civil action for damages, and was tried by Baron Channell and a special jury. The plaintiff was Barnett Lyons, a Jew moneylender at Cardiff, and the defendants were the Rev. Nathaniel Thomas, a Welsh Dissenting minister, and his wife; Mr. John Sanderson Hollyer, an iron

merchant, and his wife, all of Cardiff; and Mrs. Keep and Dr. Charles A. Schwartz, editor of the Scattered Nation, both of London.

The counsel in the case were Mr. Hardinge S. Giffard, Q.C., and Mr. Michael for the plaintiff; and Mr. Grove, Q.C., Mr. R. E. Turner (of the Home Circuit, specially retained), and Mr. Hughes for the defendants, who, it was understood, were indemnified by the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews. The papers in the case were most voluminous, and included several hundred letters which had passed between the respective defendants and the young lady who was alleged to have been abducted.

As the respective leaders occupied five or six hours each in addressing the jury, and the witnesses took several days to examine, we will content ourselves with a general summary of the case as presented by both sides. The declaration consisted of two counts, in the first of which the defendants were charged with having "unlawfully enticed and procured Esther Lyons, unlawfully and without the consent of the plaintiff, to depart his service, she being at the time his servant," and in the second, that they "unlawfully received, harboured, and detained, the said Esther Lyons, his daughter." The defendants pleaded that they were not guilty, and that Esther Lyons was not the servant of the plaintiff. The evidence showed that in the beginning of 1868 the plaintiff had a pawn-shop at Roath, near Cardiff, as well as his loan-office at the Bute Docks, where the family resided-about a mile apart. Esther Lyons previously managed the pawn-shop, and slept at home; but in March, 1868, she was kept at home to assist in the household duties. On the 23rd of that month her father returned home about ten o'clock, and was surprised to find that Esther was not in. The family waited till half-past eleven, thinking she had gone out for a walk, and then dispersed about the town to seek for the missing girl. They failed to hear any thing about her, and could learn no trace of her on the 24th. An examination of her bed-room showed that she had not taken any thing with her except her every-day clothes. The distracted father went to Newport and other places, but failed to get the least clue of her whereabouts, but at last heard that she had been seen at the door of the Rev. N. Thomas on the 23rd. Mr. Lyons went to Mr. Thomas's house on Sunday, the 29th, and told him his business, but Mr. Thomas said he had only returned from the Monmouth assizes on the previous night, and knew nothing about the matter. In reply to the question, "Can you give me any information?" Mr. Thomas said, "I don't know; I don't know nothing." The plaintiff was satisfied by that denial, and went away; but the next day, gaining further information, he repeated his visit, and saw Mrs. Thomas. After expressing himself strongly that she knew something about his daughter's disappearance, Mrs. Thomas at last admitted that Esther Lyons had slept in her house on the Monday night, but on the father asking where she then was she replied, "You ask me too strong questions. I told you she was here one night. I cannot tell you more." The father threatened proceedings, but failed to elicit any further information from the Thomases, although he called almost daily for weeks afterwards, and sometimes four or five times a day. In the interval he received various bits of information which confirmed him in his suspicion that Mrs. Thomas had been and was cognizant of his daughter's disappearance and present abode. Eventually overtures were made for an interview, the father stating that if he was assured that his daughter wished to leave his house he would not pursue his inquiries. any more. The negotiations called forth the following extraordinary letter from Mrs. Thomas to Mr. Lyons: