On Wednesday, Mowbray and Nicholl were committed for trial at
Bow Street by Mr. Vaughan on the charge of " soliciting and inciting," in the Commonweal, certain persons unknown to murder Mr. Matthews, Sir Henry Hawkins, and Inspector William Melville. The article on which the charge was brought was read in Court. It deals with the condemna- tion of the Walsall Anarchists. After referring to Felton, the man who killed the Duke of Buckingham, it proceeds:— "Are there no tyrants now P What of the Jesuitical monster at the Home Office who murders men for taking a few head of game P What of the hyena who preys upon bodies of hanged men and whose love of gallows a few years ago won him the title of Hangman Hawkins'? This barbarous brute who, prating of his humanity,' sends our comrades to ten years in the hell of the prisons. What of the spy Melville, who sets his agents on to concoct the plots which he discovers '? Are these men fit to live ?" The same issue also contained an article approving of the Paris outrages, and a reprint of a pamphlet. " Our Anarchist Feast at the Opera." Mowbray appears to rely on the defence that he is opposed to violence, and not responsible for the articles. Nicholl admitted writing the article, but denied that it was any more an incitement to murder than the expression that a man "ought to be shot " for such-and-such an act. Mowbray was readmitted to bail, but Nicholl's application was refused. Nicholl was also com- mitted for his speech in the Park.
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