streets of evening cities, sends rushing through the veins a tide of national feeling which, says Burns, shall boil on till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.' It has left, too, a literature of its own-for to what else are we to trace Macpherson's unequal, but often superb, forgeries; some of Burns's and Campbell's noblest poetry; much of Wilson's finest prose; and the best of the best fictions in the world-need we name the Waverley,' the Antiquary,' the Rob Roy,' and others of Sir Walter Scott? Let no one, then, tread contemptuously on the grave of Clanship; and no humane spirit will seek to do it.

'Men are we, and must grieve when e'en the shade
Of aught which once was great has passed away.'*

ART. VI.-Reports of the Trial and Execution of William Ross, at York, for the alleged Murder of his Wife. York Herald, and Daily News, August 15th and 17th, 1850.

THE city of York has just been made the scene of one of those unutterably horrible and depraving exhibitions, the violent destruction of human life by the hands of a public executioner; and this particular instance of capital punishment has been rendered more than commonly frightful by the fact that there is good reason to believe that the poor victim of our barbarous law was perfectly innocent of the crime for which he suffered. The following narrative will, we fear, substantiate this statement, only, alas! too clearly.

In the spring of 1849, a young man named William Ross, then only eighteen years of age, married, at Ashton-under-Lyne, a woman named Mary Bottomley. This youth was of decent family, and of perfectly good character. His wife's relations, however, were persons of very bad reputation. The mother was a woman of most abandoned habits, the father given to drink; and more than once several members of the family had been convicted and punished for felony. So depraved, indeed, were these people found to be, that Ross's family refused to associate with them, and even declined all intimacy with Ross himself on their account. After a while, Ross and his wife went to live with the Bottomleys at Roughtown, a village about three miles from Ashton, where he and his wife, and several members of his wife's family, procured employment at a cotton-mill. The

Since writing this review, we understand that a copy of the volume was sent lately to Prince Albert, and has been acknowledged in the most gracious and flattering manner.

Bottomley family at this time consisted of the father and mother, two daughters and a son; and a married daughter, named Martha Buckley, resided within a few hundred yards of their house. The household lived very much in common; their meals seem to have been generally taken together, and were prepared in the same vessels. From all that appears in evidence, and from inquiries that have been made since the event of which we write, Ross and his wife lived as happily together as is usual with persons of their class. There was one occasion, it is true, when in a fit of anger, produced by the misconduct of his wife, Ross was heard to say to her, You would be worth more dead than alive, but his whole conduct to her, and especially in times of illness, is admitted to have been of the most affectionate kind. The father, the mother, and indeed every witness who testified on the subject, unhesitatingly acknowledged this fact.

In such a wretched household, quarrels were, of course, frequent; and it mostly happened that Ross and his wife were on one side, and the whole Bottomley family on the other. The married daughter above alluded to, Martha Buckley, was particularly bitter against Ross, and is shown to have often spoken of him in contemptuous and threatening terms. Ill-will, to a distressing extent, thus sprang up between the parties; and this angry feeling rose to a climax when on one morning in May last, William Ross gave information to the police of a robbery which his mother-in-law, and one of her sons, had perpetrated upon a neighbour. At this point of the story the tragedy begins.

In was on Monday, the 27th of May last, that Betty Bottomley and John Bottomley, were taken into custody on the charge above alluded to, and which, it is important to repeat, William Ross was to prove by his evidence. It seems, indeed it is distinctly shown, that Martha Buckley, the Bottomleys' married daughter, was very much incensed to find that Ross should have accused her relations of the offence which they had committed; and she was heard to say that she would do that to Bill' (meaning Ross) which should prevent his appearing against them.' Too faithfully was the dreadful promise kept!

At the time of the Bottomleys' arrest, Mary Ross was slightly out of health. On the preceding Saturday, Ross had taken her to Ashton, and had there consulted an apothecary about her health, purchased medicine for her, and said that he did not mind what the expense was, so as he could have her well.' Well, on this fatal Monday, and shortly after the Bottomleys were in the hands of the police, Martha Buckley went to see Mary Ross. Be it remarked, that she had not been to her sister's house for many weeks before, not having been on good terms with her; and that on being asked the question, she acknowledged that

'she had never attended on her sister before in her life.' On Tuesday afternoon, Mary Ross grew worse, and Martha Buckley had been to see her again. On the Wednesday, Martha Buckley called many times at her sister's house, and took several opportunities to prepare the victuals which the invalid was to eat. She made her some tea, peeled some potatoes for her, and was in the house alone with her for several hours. We find that she was constantly at the bedside of Mary Ross, and we also find that once, during the Wednesday evening, she was heard by more than one witness to say she wished Mary was dead, for she knew she would die;' for which expression, and for the manner of it, she was at the time seriously rebuked by those who heard it. During this time Ross also was in constant attendance on his wife, and was especially careful that she should take her medicine as directed. On the Thursday morning, Mary Ross became much worse, and died after some hours of severe suffering. It should be mentioned that when his wife grew decidedly worse, Ross went again for medical assistance, fetched a doctor in their immediate neighbourhood, described to him accurately the symptoms of her illness (although they showed at once that she was suffering from poison), and exhibited the utmost anxiety for her recovery. It should also be stated that Ross's demeanour after the death of his wife was of a character to prove how deeply he felt his loss. He is shown by several witnesses to have exhibited great grief, and from his entire conduct, there is no reason to suppose that this sorrow was assumed. Bitter tears are not at a hypocrite's command; and poor Ross shed these in sad abundance.

On the night of Mary Ross's death, the young man was taken into custody on suspicion of having poisoned her. What gave rise to the suspicion has not transpired; but it is more than probable that it grew out of malicious reports set afoot by the relatives of the deceased. Be that as it may, the first consequence of the incarceration of Ross was the discharge of the Bottomleys from prison, there being no evidence to go before the grand jury; and thus the expressed object of Martha Buckley was accomplished.

Ross stoutly asserted his innocence on his apprehension, and expressed his perfect readiness to answer any charge against him. So incomplete, indeed, was the evidence in support of the accusation, that Martha Buckley was arrested also; although by the way this person appears to have found favour in the eyes of her goaler, for she was permitted to act as domestic servant at the prison, while Ross was immured as closely and gloomily as if he had been already proved guilty of the murder.

When questioned on the subject of his wife's death, Ross made

the following statement. He said that while his wife lay ill on the Thursday morning, Martha Buckley administered a white powder to her in some treacle, mistaking it for cream of tartar; and that when she found out her error, she was frightened, and gave him the rest of the powder to put out of the way, offering him at the same time a shilling if he would say nothing about it. This story doubtless seems a strange one; but Ross, be it borne in mind, was a young man of extremely simple character, which brings the statement within the bounds of probability; and certain it is that when he was arrested he was actually parleying with Martha Buckley, and had a shilling in his hand, which she had apparently been forcing upon him. So incredible did the tale appear to the police, however, that after the coroner's inquest (at which an open verdict was returned), Martha Buckley was set at liberty, and William Ross kept in gaol to await a trial. So matters rested till the assizes.

The day of trial came; and there was great excitement at York upon the subject. The only witnesses against Ross who testified materially against him were the Bottomleys-those infamous people, of whom it was said by a magistrate who knew them well, that he would not believe them on their oath. The following facts, however, were deposed:-That Ross had purchased arsenic at Ashton some time before the death of his wife -that his wife had clearly died of the particular poison in question that he had made use of the words to his wife, Thou art worth more dead than alive-and that he became entitled to £4 club-money on her decease. It was further stated in evidence, that a quantity of arsenic had been found in the prisoner's fob, some days after his apprehension-that some arsenic had also been discovered in a mattress belonging to him—and that, when he went for a doctor, he only pretended to go, and returned saying that Mr. Schofield was not at home. These facts appeared so plainly to prove the case against the accused, that the jury found him "Guilty," after a very brief consultation; and the presiding judge (Mr. Justice Cresswell) immediately sentenced him to death.

Subsequent to the trial, however, certain circumstances came to light which tended to create very serious doubts as to the prisoner's guilt; and his solicitor, aided by Mr. A. H. Dymond, Mr. Gilpin, and Mr. Barry, of Plough-court (to whose exertions in such cases we beg to offer our humble, but sincere, expressions of respect), set to work to investigate more closely than was done at the arraignment, the whole circumstances connected with the melancholy story.

The evidence which these humane gentlemen were enabled to collect established beyond question the following important

facts:-That although Ross made use of the unhappy expression above alluded to, it was in a momentary fit of anger, caused by the intemperance of his wife, and at least two months before her death-that he had been habitually kind to his wife, both before and since this little quarrel, and had been discussing plans for taking her, when she grew well, with her sister, to America;that when he bought the arsenic, he did so at Martha Buckley's request, and said so at the time to the druggist of whom he purchased it that he affected no concealment on the occasion, but took a witness with him-that Martha Buckley had been heard to say, by more than one witness, that when Bill (the prisoner) went to Ashton again, she should get him to buy some mark'ry (arsenic) for her and that he was seen to give her a small packet on his return from Ashton ;-that although the servant of Dr. Schofield asserted in evidence that Ross did not go, as he said he did, to her master on the day described, she had stated that he had done so to one of the witnesses;-that the bed in which it had been insinuated that Ross had concealed some of the arsenic had been last slept in by two of the Bottomleys, and subsequently purchased by the man named Dyer, whose character was most infamous;-that although Ross was certainly entitled to £4 club-money on the death of his wife, he was making from 10s. to 12s. a-week by her labour, and therefore could have had no pecuniary motive for destroying her;-that the father was commissioned to see after this club-money, and did so, and got it, and spent it in drink;-that William Bottomley and his wife had been heard to say repeatedly after the conviction, that Will (the prisoner) was certainly innocent, but that 'revenge was sweet,' and that it was hard to go against one's own '-alluding expressly to Martha Buckley;-that whether Ross called on Dr. Schofield, or not, he certainly went to Dr. Halkyard, who came to see his wife, and attended her to the last: a fact which completely ignores the supposition, that the accused had an objection to fetching a doctor-a point which told much against him on his trial;-that Ross's poverty alone prevented him from bringing forward witnesses for the defence;-that his wife, when dying, called him to her bedside, and, after expressing perfect satisfaction with him, said, ' William, for what my sister Martha has given and done to me, she will wither away like a leaf on a tree;'-that, just before the murder, Martha Buckley applied for arsenic to two different druggists in Mossley, who refused to let her have it, and that she subsequently told a witness she had got some, nevertheless ;-that immediately after Mary Ross's death, the impression of the whole neighbourhood was, that Martha Buckley had caused it ;-that since the trial, several of the chief witnesses against Ross had attempted various crimes,