Two men, both young, had burglariously entered
the house of a very old gentleman living in the
suburbs of Hereford, and had ruthlessly murdered
him. The cowardice of such a crime, and at the
same time the daring of it, painfully affected
local opinion and caused a great sensation. The
two prisoners were strikingly unlike each other, and
were separately defended and tried. One of them,
Jones, who was defended by my friend Morton
Brown, the present Recorder of Gloucester, had a
rather prepossessing appearance. The other, Scan-
dreth, for whom I was concerned, was a short, thick-
set man, partially deformed, and with a very ill-
favoured countenance. Lord Coleridge, with kindly
forethought, had asked my friend and myself to
undertake the defence two or three weeks before
the case could be heard, so we had ample time for
preparation ; but as each of the prisoners had made
a written confession sufficient to hang the pair of
them, very little thought was in fact required. There

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was some reason to think that the fatal blow which
had killed the old man was inflicted by Jones, and on
this fact (though it made no legal difference) and
by exciting the sympathy of the jury for the unhappy
deformity of my client, I was so far successful as
to produce an impression on them which, had there
been no summing up to follow, might have given him
a bare chance of acquittal. The Court was very
crowded, and a wave of emotion seemed to find its
way into the jury-box as I sat down, but it was only
temporary. A few sentences from the Chief Justice,
delivered with his usual impressiveness, were sufficient
to steady the position, and both prisoners were duly
convicted and sentenced to death. Then ensued a
terrible scene. Scandreth, after raising his hands
aloft as if to implore the Divine mercy, made a sudden
spring at Jones, and would probably have strangled
him then and there but for the warders, who threw
themselves upon him and with great difficulty
succeeded in mastering him. He struggled and
fought like a wild beast, and showed superhuman
strength.
