The trial, sentence and confessions of Bishop, Williams, and May, at the Old Bailey, London, on Friday, December 2, 1831, for the murder of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy ; respite of May; execution of Bishop and Williams; together with an account of many circumstances connected with the period of their early life.

  • Bishop, John, -1831
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The trial, sentence and confessions of Bishop, Williams, and May, at the Old Bailey, London, on Friday, December 2, 1831, for the murder of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy ; respite of May; execution of Bishop and Williams; together with an account of many circumstances connected with the period of their early life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    or Bishop and Williams were the criminals, and in such case they would find a verdict of acquittal for May ; or it might be, that they would find that all three were equally guilty; or that they were guilty, but not in an equal degree. Their verdict would be'according to their decision on this point, rendering it incumbent on them to cautiously weigh those parts of the evidence which bore particu- larly on Bishop and Williams, and on the other prisoner. He left it to their unbiassed judgment to find according to the evidence which had been submitted to them. At eight o'clock, the jury returned to consider their verdict, and the prisoners were removed from the bar, and tafcen out of court. The interval between that and the return of the jury was a period of intense anxiety to every one in the court; and, as usual on such oc- casions, there were various conjectures hazarded as to what would be the verdict as to all the prisoners. That a verdict oiguilty would be returned against two of the prisoners, namely. Bishop and Wil- liams, none who heard the evidence, and the summing up of the learned judge, could entertain any rational doubt -, but the same confident opinion by no means existed with respect to the fate of the prisoner May. The general opinion, as far as we could judge from what was passing around us, was, that the circumstantial proof not being in his case so strong as it was in that of his fellow-prisoners, the jury would acquit him ; but still there were many who thought the proof of a participation in the murder clear and perfect as to all the parties. These conjectures and speculations were put an end to by the re- turn of the jury at half-past eight o'clock. The most death-like silence now prevailed through the court, interrupted only by a slight buz on the re-introduction of the pri- soners. Every eye was now fixed upon them ; but though their appearance and manner had undergone a considerable change from what they exhibited at being first placed at the bar, and during the greater part of the trial, they did not seem conscious of the additional iu terest which their presence at this moment excited. They scarcely raised their eyes as they entered beyond a glance at the jury box. Bishop advanced to the bar with a heavy step, and with rather a slight bend of the body ; his arms hung closely down, and it seemed a kind of relief to him, when he took his place, to rest his hand on the board before him. His appearance, when he got in front, was that of a man who had been for some time labouring under the most intense mental agony, which had brought on a kind of lethargic stupor. His eye was sunk and glassy ; his nose drawn and pinched ; the jaw fallen, and, of course, the mouth open ; but occasionally the mouth closed, the lips became compressed, and the shoulders and chest raised, as if he was struggling to repress some violent emotion. After a few eftbrts of this kind, he became ajjparently calm, and frequently glanced his eye towards the bench and the jury box ; but this was done without once raising his head. His face had that pallid blueish appearance which so often accompanies and betokens great mental suffering.