The Brisbane Courier 11th December, 1869 (abridged)
Photo: Andreas F. Borchert
Wikimedia Commons
The trial of the man for shooting at Captain Lambert near Athenry, on the 12th of July, has ended very unsatisfactorily. The jury were not able to agree and he will have to be tried again. A large sum of money has been subscribed for the defence, and one of the jurors, who was understood to have been in favor of a conviction, was pelted by the mob. The window’s of the judges carriage, also, were broken by stones.
On the evening of the day of the attempted murder a young man was found apparently asleep in the train that runs from Galway to Dublin. In reply to the police, he said that he had got into the carriage at Galway, but two fellow passengers corrected him, and insisted it was at Athenry. Suspicion was aroused, and he was taken into custody.
He was then discovered to be the son of a tenant whom Captain Lambert had ejected, and a recently-discharged pistol was found in his possession. He had left London on the 11th of July, ” for a trip into the country,” as he told his landlady, and the pistol was traced to a shop in Tottenham Court Road, where he had bought it. In addition to this Captain Lambert positively swore that, he was the person who had fired at him, Yet the jury were unable to agree upon a verdict!
He will be tried again on the 14th of October.
