court sat in one of the
corridors of the Town Hall. The scene is described as dismal, dark and
cheerless. The proceedings took place by candlelight, and Peace, who was
seated in an armchair, complained frequently of the cold. At other times
he moaned and groaned and protested against the injustice with which
he was being treated. But the absence of any audience rather dashed the
effect of his laments.

The most interesting part of the proceedings was the cross-examination
of Mrs. Dyson by Mr. Clegg, the prisoner's solicitor.

Its purpose was to show that Mrs. Dyson had been on more intimate terms
with Peace than she was ready to admit, and that Dyson had been shot
by Peace in the course of a struggle, in which the former had been the
aggressor.

In the first part of his task Mr. Clegg met with some success. Mrs.
Dyson, whose memory was certainly eccentric--she could not, she said,
remember the year in which she had been married--was obliged to admit
that she had been in the habit of going to Peace's house, that she had
been alone with him to public-houses and places of entertainment, and
that she and Peace had been photographed together during the summer fair
at Sheffield. She could not "to her knowledge" recollect having told the
landlord of a public-house to charge her drink to Peace.

A great deal of Mrs. Dyson's cross-examination turned on a bundle of
letters that had been found near the scene of Dyson's murder on the
morning following the crime. These letters consisted for the most part
of notes, written in pencil on scraps of paper, purporting to have been
sent from Mrs. Dyson to Peace. In many of them she asks for money to get
drink, others refer to opportunities for their meetings in the absence
of Dyson; there are kind messages to members of Peace's family, his wife
and daughter, and urgent directions to Peace to hold his tongue and not
give ground for suspicion as to their relations. This bundle of letters
contained also the card which Dyson had thrown into Peace's garden
requesting him not to interfere with his family. According to the theory
of the defence, these letters had been written by Mrs. Dyson to Peace,
and went to prove the intimacy of their relations. At the inquest after
her husband's murder, Mrs. Dyson had been questioned by the coroner
about these letters. She denied that she had ever written to Peace; in
fact, she said, she "never did write." It was stated that Dyson himself
had seen the le