Broadside entitled 'Trial and Sentence'

Transcription

TRIAL

                                  AND

SENTENCE.

A full and Particular Account of the
Trial and Sentence of ANDREW EWART,
who is to be Executed at Edinburgh,
on Wednesday the 19th March next,
for Murder, and his Body to be given
for Public Dissection.

At Edinburgh, on Monday the 11th February,
1828, came on, before the High Court of Justiciary,
the trial of Andrew Ewart, labourer, lately residing
at Broken Bridge, in the parish of Libberton, and
county of Edinburgh; accused of having," on the
night of the 4th of December, 1827, or, on the
morning of the 5th, wi thin or near the church-yard
of the parish of Libberton, and county of Edin-
burgh, wickedly and feloniously discharge a gun,
loaded with powder and swan shot or slugs at
Henry Pennycook, weaver, formerly residing at
Libbetton aforesaid,now deceased; and the shot or
slugs from the said gun did immediately enter the
right arm or right shoulder of the said Henry Pen-
nyeook, by which be was severely and mortally
wounded, and continued to languish until the 8th
day of the said month of December, or about that
time, when he died in consequence of the wounds
that inflicted, and was thereby murdered." To
which the pannel pled not guilty.         

The circumstances of the case were shortly these:
The prisoner, along with several others, happened
to be in the watch-house, on Tuesday evening, the
4th December, and went to take a turn round the
church-yard at Libberton, on the night libelled on,
from which a body had been attempted to be raised
the week before ,and some of his companions
thinking he had been rather long out, two of them
proceeded to look for him but,the one going be-
fore the other, they accidentally took opposite di-
rections. The night was cloudy, and windy,with
some lightning, and as Ewart was turning a cornor
at the church, the deceased Pennycuik approached
him. Ewart, believing the deceased to be a resur-
rectinest, called out to him three different times,
and, receiving no answer, fired at him; but, just
as the shot went off, Pennycook said, " Andrew,
you'll no shoot me, and fell.

There WAS no malice air ill-will, nor any pre-
meditated intention of injury, in any sense of the
word, alleged against the pannel, but the Solicitor-
General mantained, that it was illegal to use fire-
arms in watching a church-yard, consequently to
shoot a man, on the supposition he was a resurret-
rionest, was murder. This view of the law was
supported by the unanimous opinion of the court.
The Jury, therefore, by a large majority, found the
pannel guilty of murder, but unanimously recom-
mended him to mercy.

The preciding Judge, Lord Gillies, after a so-
lemn address, sentenced Ewart to Executed at
Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 19th March next,
at the usual place of execution, and his body to be
delivered for dissection.

The prisoner is a decent looking man, and ap-.
peared to be very much affected when the awful
sentence of death was pronounced against him.

WATCHING CHURCHYARDS?The melancholy acci-
dent which lately occurred in Libberton Church yard, when
a man was mortally wounded by one of the watchmen, who
took him for a resurrectionist will not, we trust, be allow

ed. to pass without a strict scrutiny into all the circumsatan-

ces connected with it. Much as we detest the practice of
raising dead bodies, and anxious as we are that proper
measures were adopted for putting an end to this gross and
constantly reiterated outrage against the best feeling, of our
nature, we cannot imagine a greater evil to flow from it than
that the people should take the law into their own hands,

and proceed without ceremony to would, maim, or kill

persons found trespassing at night within the en-
en-closures of a church-yard. This we strongly urged in
a late article on the violation of sepulchres, pre-
dicting that if, unchecked, it would soon lead to a state
of things repugnant to the very first principles upon which
society is founded. At the same time, it is evidently illegal
to put loaded fire-arms into the hands of persons employed
to watch church-yards, and thereby expose not merely re-
surrectionists, but innocent and unoffending individuals to
be shot, when the clown who is thus armed, causes to fancy
himself warranted in tiring. The practice we know has
been winked at with a view of deterring resurrection-

ists from prosecuting their nefarious trade; but the

remedy is worse than the evil it was meant to prevent;

and it is high time that a decisive check were given to
it. Suppose a resurrectionist is caught in the fact, we
know of no law or principle which will warrant his be-
ing shot dead or grievously wounded on the spot : and
we have a striking instance before us of the mischief
and danger that may ensue from entrusting fire-arms to
persons whom fear, folly, or drunkenness may preci-
pitate into the commission of acts lit le short of murder__

When the accident occurred at Libberton ail the parties
were, we understand, in a state of intoxication ; and the
unhappy man who met his death was frisking about among
the grave-stones, for the purpose of frightening the watch-
men. But this, so far from extenuating, aggravates the
criminality of the act by which that individual met his
death ; and justice will not be done If the person who fired
be not called before a jury of his country to answer to a
charge of culpable homicide.

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