ARSON

Gilpin Reynolds was capitally indicted for setting fire to a stack of straw, the property of Thomas Hase.

Mr Austin (with whom was Mr Gurdon) stated the case for the prosecution.

The prosecutor is a farmer, living in the parish of Corpustye, and the prisoner was a labourer at the same place.  
At a quarter of a mile from the house of the prosecutor in a place called Eke's corner, between which place and the 
prosecutor's is the main street of the parish.  The prisoner lives ? nearly opposite one Fox, and next to Mr Blomfield 
and Mr Eke.  Between Eke's corner Hase's is a rising-ground and several houses, which obstruct the view of Hase's 
homestead to a person standing near Eke's.  

At a third of a mile in another direction is a place called Ireland's Hill, and further still is a farm called 
Folly-heath.  On the night of the 4th November last, about half-past 10 o'clock, a fire was discovered in the 
homestead of the prosecutor, and a straw stack was eventually consumed.

The evidence to connect the prisoner with the authorship of the fire was of two kinds - the one consisting of 
contradicting statements made by him respecting it, the other of certain footmarks about the premises of the prosecutor.

The prisoner and others were drinking at a public house, between which and his own house was the homestead of 
Hase, this place he left at 20 minutes past 10 at night.  Eke who lives at the place called Eke's corner, had 
been out with another man on the night in question, watching at Ireland's Hill for poachers, and returned home 
at half-past 10.  This place commands a view of the prosecutor's premises, and at that time he saw no fire.  

He had scarcely been a minute in bed, when an alarm of "fire!" called him up again, and on looking out of his 
window he saw the prisoner and Mr Blomfield, the latter of whom desired he should get up immediately.  The prisoner 
told Eke that he did not like to go round calling "Fire" for fear the job would be laid at his door, but upon Eke 
telling him to "go and halloo as loud as he could, and he would bear him harmless from that time," he went and 
raised the whole town.

Subsequent to this, the prisoner went to one Fox, and called him up telling him there was a fire.  "Where?" said Fox.  
"I think its at Folly-heath," said the prisoner.  As soon as Fox was out of doors, he asked the prisoner where the 
fire was.  "Don't you see it?" answered the other.  Fox replied "No" and the prisoner said that he saw it when he 
was at Eke's corner, a place from which he could not have seen the prosecutor's premises.

At the fire, the prisoner was one of the most active of the persons exerting themselves to extinguish it, and to 
save the cattle.  After the fire, the parties met at the Wheatsheaf, to have some beer, and there the prisoner 
stated that he was at Ireland's Hill when he first discovered the fire, but that could not be so, as he had so 
lately left the other public house, and Eke was at Ireland's Hill at the time the prisoner spoke of, and did not 
see anything of him or of the fire.  

In addition to this circumstantial evidence, several persons traced footsteps over meadows and the back of the 
prisoner's house to the premises of the prosecutor, and into the stack-yard, and some steps were also traced 
out of the yard again.  The shoes of the prisoner were compared and patterned with these marks and sworn by 
several persons to correspond.

Mr Cooper cross-examined the witnesses for the prosecution with considerable ingenuity, and the learned Judge 
having minutely summed up the evidence, the jury found the prisoner GUILTY.

The learned Judge immediately pronounced on the unhappy man the sentence of death, exhorting him to banish all 
hopes of any revocation of his doom.