on the
part of these two murderers each to shift the guilt on to the other.

The ruffians, Milsome and Fowler, resolved to commit a burglary in
the house of an old man who led a lonely life at the suburb known as
Muswell Hill, near Hornsey.

The sole occupant of the cottage slept in a bedroom on the first
floor. In his room was an iron safe, in which he kept a considerable
sum of money, close by the side of his bed.

In the dead of night the two robbers found their way into the kitchen,
which was below the bedroom. They made, however, so much noise as to
arouse the sleeper in the room above. The old man rose, and went down
into the kitchen, where he found the two prisoners preparing to search
for whatever property they might carry away. Instantly they fell upon
their victim, threw him on to the floor, and with a tablecloth,
which they found in the room, and which they cut into strips for the
purpose, bound the poor old man hand and foot, and struck him so
violently about the head that he was killed on the spot, where he was
found the following morning. The prisoners failed to obtain the booty
they were in search of, and made off with some trifling plunder, the
only reward for a most cruel murder. They escaped for a time, but were
at last traced by a singular accident--one of the prisoners having
taken a boy's toy lamp on the night of the burglary from his mother's
cottage and left it in the kitchen of the murdered man. The boy
identified one of the prisoners as the man who had been at his
mother's and taken the lamp.

The men were jointly charged with the murder before me. Each tried
to fix the guilt on the other, knowing--or, at all events,
believing--that he himself would escape the consequences of wilful
murder if he succeeded in hanging his friend. I knew well enough that,
unless it could be proved that _both_ were implicated in the murder,
or if it should be left uncertain which was the man who actually
committed it, or that they both went to the place with the joint
intention of perpetrating it if necessary for their object, they might
both avoid the gallows. I therefore directed my attention closely to
every circumstance in the case, and after a considerable amount of
evidence had been given without much result, so far as implicating
both prisoners in the actual murder was concerned, an accidental
discovery revealed the whole of the facts of the tragedy as plainly as
if I had seen it committed.

I have sa