After a trial lasting nine days, Stinie Morrison was con-
victed on Wednesday of the murder of Um:. Beron and sentenced to death. The evidence for the prosecution showed that Morrison, a journeyman baker out of employment, was constantly in the company of Beron, a middle-aged Jew, who owned some house property in the East End and was known to carry about a good deal of money with him. They frequented the same restaurant, and a number of witnesses swore to seeing them together on the night of December 31st. Beron's body was discovered next morning on Clapham Common, covered with wounds and with the head battered in ; and a cabdriver swore to having driven two men, one of whom he identified as Morrison, to Clapham at 2 a.m. on new year's day. It was further shown that £30 in gold which Beron had with him when he went out was missing, and that Morrison, who disappeared from his old haunts until he was arrested on January 8th, had spent money freely in the interval. Morrison, who went into the witness-box, pleaded an alibi, and swore that he had won £30 at a gambling house, and received English banknotes from his mother in Russia; but his defence rested in the main on his own uncorroborated statements. It should be added that the action of the counsel for the defence in attempting to discredit the character of the Crown witnesses laid the prisoner open to an exposure by the counsel for the prosecution of the record of his previous convictions for theft and burglary. It only remains to say that the prosecuting counsel conducted the case with scrupulous regard for any point which could fairly be urged on behalf of the prisoner.
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