COUNTY OBSERVER, 1875

1875 County Observer

JANUARY 2. 1875

Hunting Appointments

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MONMOUTHSHIRE HOUNDS

Meet at 10.30

Monday, Jan. 4 … … Llanarth Court.

Thursday, Jan. 7 … … The Hendre

 SUDDEN DEATH.—Mr E.D. Batt, coroner, held an inquest on Monday last, at the Horse and Jockey Inn, Llanvihangel Pontymoil, touching the death of William Jacobs, a roadman in the employ of the Panteg Local Board. On the 22^nd instant, he went to work, under the instructions of Mr Joseph Goodenough, to cleanse the roads, &c., and, feeling violent pains internally, returned home. Medical aid was sent for; but Jacobs died before Dr. Williams could arrive. On examination of the body, Dr. Williams found that one of the intestines had penetrated another, and caused inflammation and death; and a verdict to that effect was returned by the jury.

March 6th 1875

AFFILIATION.

David Moseley, was charged with being the father of the illegitimate child of Sarah Ann Pritchard.- Mr. Greenway appeared for complainant, and Mr Dixon for defendant.- This was a long and wearisome case.

Mr Greenway, in stating the case, said the law required that the evidence of the mother should be corroborated in some material point by the evidence of other persons; it was very difficult to get such evidence in these cases, but here they had to deal with a virtuous girl, and he thought that her evidence and the surrounding circumstances would be sufficient to induce the bench to give credence in her behalf. He asked Mr Dixon for certain letters which he had given him notice to produce.

Mr Dixon: No, thank you.

Mr Greenway said that at the last court he said that defendant had received six letters from the girl, whereupon defendant replied that he only had five, and that he (Mr Greenway) then gave him notice to produce the five.

Mr Dixon said his client had destroyed all the letters but one- had thrown them into the fire with disgust.

Complainant deposed that she was a single woman living at the Upper Race with her father and mother; in 1873, she lived as servant at Trostrey, with Mr Moseley, grandfather of the defendant; she remained some months there, and then went into the service of Mr Jenkins at Pontrhydyrun; she made the acquaintance of defendant on the first Sunday that he visited his grandfather after she went there to live; while she was at Mr Jenkins’ defendant used to go to see her; she used to visit his mother’s house, and he used to take her home from there; on one of these occasions, on the first Sunday in April, 1873, he succeeded in seducing her, and this was repeated twice afterwards up to the last week in July; she remained in the country about four months, and then went to service in Gloucester, and while there wrote to defendant; she remained there until the end of December; finding that she was about to be confined, she wrote three letters to defendant from Gloucester, as to the paternity of the child, asking him what she was to do, as she could not return home; she returned to her mother’s house, and was confined there on the 5th of January, of a boy, of which defendant was the father; she wrote to him three other letters after she returned home, and one of these was written while she was in bed; in one of the letters she told him she must be confined at the union or his mother’s house, as she could not return home; she had no answer to either of those letters; in the last letter she asked him to meet her; after the child was born, she and her mother went to his mother’s house; his mother said that if they wanted to see David they must please go into the house; they did so, and saw him; he said they must say what they had to say before his father and mother; she told him he knew what she wanted; he replied that provided the thing had been kept quiet, he would not have minded coming to anything reasonable, but now it was all Pontnewydd works, and those --- girls from Penyrheol had come down and spread it, and it was in every one’s mouth; she then referred to the letters she had written to him, and his mother asked why he did not answer them, and he gave no reason.- In cross-examination, complainant said she would be nineteen years old next May; she was at Trostrey in August, and then our friendship commenced on the first Sunday night that he came there; nothing improper occurred at Trostrey. (Mr Dixon: Seven months and nothing improper.- Mr Greenway: That speaks for the respectability of the girl.- Mr Phillips: I think it speaks for the responsibility of both parties.) Defendant’s mother got her the place at Mr Jenkins; she used to go to defendant’s, visiting, nearly every Sunday evening, and frequently took tea there; he had paid her money. (Mr Dixon: I wonder Mr Greenway did not ask you that question.- Mr Greenway: I knew you would.) He had given her 3s. as a present, while she was at Mr Jenkins’, and she received a brooch from his sister as a birthday present; his mother gave the brooch to his sister to give complainant; she never received presents from other young men; the parents were aware that he escorted her home. (Mr Parks: Did he live with his parents I- Witness: Yes, sir. Mr Parkes: Then they must have known.) On the first Sunday in April they were coming along the road at, night, when an improper intimacy took place for the first time; it is a parish road, and people were passing to and fro; from that time till August, when she went to Gloucester, they were only so intimate twice, but she saw him perhaps twenty times when she was at his mother’s; the last week in July, he was in Mr Jenkins’ house, and there improper intimacy took place, Mr Jenkins being from home at the time; when she and her mother went to his mother’s house, the words he used were not, “If the child were mine I would do anything to keep it quiet;” the words he used were those which she has mentioned in her evidence; she and her mother did not sit nearly an hour in his mother’s house without speaking a word about the child; her mother, when they were going away, asked him if he denied being the father of the child, and he said he did; she never saw a young man named Elias Bush, or a young man called “The Fitter” from the Race; no fitter from the Race ever made her a present of a brooch; his mother gave his sister the brooch, and the sister gave it to a witness; while at Jenkins’, she knew a young man named Rowlands, who lived at the Waterloo Inn, close by; Rowlands never came to see her; she had written to her master, Mr Jenkins, about this, and this letter was the one now produced; in it she used the expression, “You remember seeing him running away from your house.” (The bench, having read the letter, said that it tended against the defendant.) Did not know any men named Wilks; near Mr Jenkins’ house there was a gate leading into a field, but never stood there with Wilks’ arm round her.- In re-examination, complainant said that defendant, on the first Sunday in April, walked with her through the fields above Mr Brew’s, but he overcame her on the road, and no one passed; she had never been improperly intimate with any other young man; she had stood at the gate with defendant many times.

Henry Pritchard, a lad, deposed that he was formerly in the employ of Mr Moseley, at Trostrey, at the same time that Sarah Ann Pritchard was there; he went there in August, 1873, and remained there about fifteen months; while there he frequently saw David Moseley and Sarah go out together, on Sunday evenings, and he did not come in till ten o’clock sometimes; had seen them by the stile for a quarter of an hour sometimes; they were side by side, as close as they could be; had known them to be along together in the back-kitchen, at Trostrey, for a considerable time, but saw nothing improper.

Ann Pritchard, wife of Wm. Pritchard, and mother of complainant, corroborated the account of what took place.

The cross-examination did not affect the testimony of these witnesses.

Mr Greenway said he would not take up the time of the court with further evidence.

Mr Dixon then, on behalf of defendant, addressed the bench, and asked them if they had any doubt in the matter to dismiss the case, as the girl could come again if she could get better evidence, but the young man could not afford to appeal.

Elizabeth Moseley, mother of the defendant, deposed that she never saw her son in company with the girl; when the girl and her mother came to her house, since the birth of the child, half-an-hour passed in conversation, without a word being said about the child, until they were going away, when the girl wished to speak with defendant outside; he told her that if she had anything to say she was to go inside; her mother said, “Yes you had no need to deny it, the child is enough like you;” defendant said, “I know nothing about it- if I am guilty of the deed of being with you, I would have come to you and tried to make some arrangement,” she said she had written him a deal of letters, and given him enough of a chance; she had given her daughter a brooch to give to the complainant on her birthday, in return for a brooch which complainant had given to witness’s daughter as a birthday gift; complainant had shown her three of four brooches, and said that one of them was given to her by a fitter from the Race, who used to go after her, and who had gone to America – in cross-examination witness said she …

… (one or two lines missing – not photographed correctly – sorry) …

… old man, and Mr Phillips caused some amusement by asking if this was the single man whom Mr Dixon thought so dangerous a character. – Mr Dixon replied that he did not insinuate that, but that this witness being a bachelor, gave the girl more liberties than other people would. – The witness then deposed that while the girl lived in service at his house he never saw defendant in company with her, and had never seen him running away (referring to a passage in her letter). – In cross examination, he said he never saw her but as a good virtuous girl.

Tom Harding, a millwright, formerly working at Pontrhydyrhun, and a companion of defendant, deposed that he, almost every evening between August 1873, and August 1874, used to frequent the Waterloo Inn; he had to pass and repass Mr Jenkins, and had frequently seen the girl standing at the gate with a young man, shorter than defendant; he had his arm round her waist; saw that in the week after Good Friday, and particularly recollected that week because on Good Friday he would not go to work, and the men brought a wheelbarrow and candle and lantern to fetch him; never saw defendant with her.- In cross examination, he said he came to give his evidence voluntarily; Mrs Moseley had met him in Newport and asked him to come, but did not know what he was going to say, nor had he told any one else; sometimes at the Waterloo a pint of beer would last him three hours.

Jacob Bessell deposted that he had never seen defendant with the girl.

Defendant was then examined, and swore that he had never kept company with the girl, never was improperly intimate with her, and never used the words mentioned by complainant. He did not answer her letters, but threw them into the fire. Her mother asked him if he denied the child, and he replied “certainly I do;” she said, “You had no need to deny it, it is enough like you;” and with that he began to laugh. Here defendant’s power of remembrance failed him, and when asked what next too placed, he said to Mr Dixon, “You just draw it to my memory,” a course which Mr Greenway and the Bench objected to. Mr Greenway begged him to remember that he was upon his oath. Defendant afterwards said that the words he used were, “If the child was only mine, I should only be too glad to come and settle it quietly, and not have all this bother;” her mother said it had been kept quiet; he replied that he knew better, as it were all about Pontnewynydd the day after the child was born; he never took her home from his mother’s to Jenkins’.

Mr Greenway caused the child to be shown near the defendant, and said: It is very much like you.- Defendant: I should not wonder at that.- Mr Greenway: What do you mean by that? – Defendant said that all human beings were something like each other.- In cross-examination, he admitted that he once walked with the girl by Dr Brew’s “to show her the way” He threw all the letters into the fire the days after he received them.

Mr Parkes could not understand why defendant, if innocent, did not meet these letters with indignant denial.

In answer to Mr Phillips, defendant said he never saw the girl at tea at his mother’s.

Mr Greenway wished to call the girl to deny the imputation made by the witness Harding, but the bench did not think it necessary.

Mr Dixon then made a speech of some length, to which Mr Greenway considered a reply unnecessary.

The Bench consulted, and ordered defendant to pay 3s. a week with costs.

SATURDAY MAY 22nd 1875

PONTYPOOL & USK HIGHWAY DISTRICT

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TENDERS are invited for the Hauling of the Stones for repair of roads in the parish of Glascoed.- Particulars may be had by applying to Mr WILLIAM REECE, Bryn Farm, or the surveyor, HENRY WILLIAMS.

Usk, May 17th, 1875.