A correspondent of the Times, who was present at the
trial of Cornelius Spillane, declares that the Judge was right, and that the man's wife was killed almost by accident. Spillane was angry with her for drinking, but only struck her what an eye-witness declared to be two " little tips," and pushed her from him. She fell, and in her condition the fall brought on haemorrhage, of which she died. The doctor deposed that there were no marks of violence, except a redness on one cheek, and the woman herself ascribed her death to the fall. Of course, our correspondent, Miss Cobbe, whose sympathy was so excited by the case, was dependent, as she stated, on the accuracy of the report in the Cork Examiner ; and the writer " who was present at the trial," says nothing of Spillane's subsequent ex- pression of a hope that his wife was dead. Under any view of the case, the Judge's sentence, a week's imprisonment, was strangely lenient.
Previous page
