DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70303#0089
THE HAMMERSMITH GHOSTS® ’ll
One of them cried as he came near, <£ There goes the
ghost 1” To which he replied, using a bad oath, <c I am
no more a ghost than yourself; do you want a punch o’ the
head ?” On this account she had advised him to put on a
o-reat coat to screen himself from danger ; but he would
not attend to the suggestions of the witness, observing there
was no danger.
Thomas Groom, servant to Mr. Burgess, a brewer al
Hammersmith, stated, that he heard a great talk about the
ghost; that one night he was passing through the church-
yard, when some person caught him fast by the throat,
and on his calling out for assistance to his fellow servant,
who was a short distance from him, the latter turned back,
but they could not see any thing.
Mr. George Stow, Mr. Hill, Mr. liult, Mr. Boswell,
Mr. Dowding, and several other very respectable persons,
were called; they all concurred in giving him the best of
characters.
Mr. Millwood, cousin to the deceased, spoke in the same
terms of the prisoner, and said that they had no quarrel
with each other as far as he knew.
The Lord Chief Baron then charged the Jury. The
prisoner, he observed, stood indicted for the murder of
Thomas Millwood, by shooting him wittka gun, so as to
bruise his head, injure the spinal marrow of Jus back, and
produce instant death. It would be necessary for him to
state, that although to constitute the crime of murder, it
was generally requisite that malice prepense should be
proved, yet it was not absolutely so in all cases. The law
did not of necessity imply, that where a person met with hi*
death from the hands of another, that malice, or what was
called in vulgar speaking, spite, should be proved. 'The disc-
position of a person's mind to kill was sufficient, in the eye of
the law to adjudge him guilty of murder. For instance, if
one person should have taken it into his head to fire into
- the
One of them cried as he came near, <£ There goes the
ghost 1” To which he replied, using a bad oath, <c I am
no more a ghost than yourself; do you want a punch o’ the
head ?” On this account she had advised him to put on a
o-reat coat to screen himself from danger ; but he would
not attend to the suggestions of the witness, observing there
was no danger.
Thomas Groom, servant to Mr. Burgess, a brewer al
Hammersmith, stated, that he heard a great talk about the
ghost; that one night he was passing through the church-
yard, when some person caught him fast by the throat,
and on his calling out for assistance to his fellow servant,
who was a short distance from him, the latter turned back,
but they could not see any thing.
Mr. George Stow, Mr. Hill, Mr. liult, Mr. Boswell,
Mr. Dowding, and several other very respectable persons,
were called; they all concurred in giving him the best of
characters.
Mr. Millwood, cousin to the deceased, spoke in the same
terms of the prisoner, and said that they had no quarrel
with each other as far as he knew.
The Lord Chief Baron then charged the Jury. The
prisoner, he observed, stood indicted for the murder of
Thomas Millwood, by shooting him wittka gun, so as to
bruise his head, injure the spinal marrow of Jus back, and
produce instant death. It would be necessary for him to
state, that although to constitute the crime of murder, it
was generally requisite that malice prepense should be
proved, yet it was not absolutely so in all cases. The law
did not of necessity imply, that where a person met with hi*
death from the hands of another, that malice, or what was
called in vulgar speaking, spite, should be proved. 'The disc-
position of a person's mind to kill was sufficient, in the eye of
the law to adjudge him guilty of murder. For instance, if
one person should have taken it into his head to fire into
- the