Emma Smith, thirty-six, and Samuel Stammers, twenty eight, were placed at the bar before Mr. Bernardiston and a full bench of magistrates, sitting in petty sessions at Castle Hedingham, charged by Superintendent Elsey with having unlawfully assaulted an old Frenchman, commonly called “Dummy,” on the night of the 3rd of August, and thereby caused his death on the 4th inst.
From the extraordinary circumstances connected with the case the greatest interest was manifested in the proceedings, and the court was crowded. The female prisoner was the wife of a beershop keeper in the village of Ridgewell, about six miles from Hedingham, and Stammers was a master carpenter in a small way of business. It is a somewhat singular fact that nearly all of the sixty or seventy persons concerned in the outrage which resulted in the death of the deceased were of the small tradesman class, and that none of the agricultural labourers were mixed up in the affair. It was also stated that none of those engaged were in any way under the influence of liquor. The whole disgraceful transaction arose out of a deep belief in witchcraft which possesses to a lamentable extent the tradespeople and the lower orders of the district.
The victim of this superstition was a deaf and dumb French man, whose age was about eighty - some persons suppose him to have been about eighty-six years. Being unable to express himself, and being of a somewhat vivacious disposition, he was accustomed to make use of energetic and somewhat grotesque gestures, which were taken by the rustics generally as cabalistic and diabolical signs, and he was consequently regarded with considerable awe. He lived alone in a wretched hut. Who the unfortunate Frenchman was, or whence he came, could not be ascertained. For the last seven or eight years he resided in Sible Hedingham, and previous to that he lived in Braintree. There is little doubt that he gained his living, to a great extent, by telling fortunes, if not by pretences to witchcraft. Some hundreds of scraps of paper were found by the police in his hut after his death, and upon most of them were written questions which, neither in their style nor their subject-matter, say much for the enlightenment of the district. The following are fair samples:–“Her husband have left her manny yrs, and she want to know weather he is dead or alive.” “What was the reesen my son do not right?−i meen that solger.” “Do you charge any more ?” The answer to this query was doubtless satisfactory, for this momentous question was then put, “Shall I ever marry?’’ Love-letters from girls to their sweethearts were also found, with “Shall I marry,” and “How many children shall I have?’ written in pencil on them. The most business-like of all the notes was the curt one, “Did you say we kild your dog? If you did, I will send for the policeman.” Nor were his patrons altogether confined to the lower orders. One letter states that the lady was “comen herself on Mundy to see yoo, and she gave you oll them things and the shillen.”
In the hovel were found, besides, between 400 and 500 walking sticks, a quantity of umbrellas, some French books, a number of tin boxes, some foreign coins, chiefly of the French empire, and about a ton of rubbish, which it was found impossible to classify in the inventory that was taken. The most definite ideas about the man have been suggested by the following questions which were found written, seriatim, on a scrap of paper:-‘‘Were you born at Paris?” “The name of the town where you were born ?” “Where was your tongue cut out?” “Le nom de votre ville?’’ The answers were no doubt made by signs.
It appeared from the evidence, that the prisoner Smith took it into her head that she had been bewitched by this poor Dummy; sought him in his dwelling, and offered him three sovereigns if he would accompany her home and heal her. The old man refused by signs both offers. She then followed him to the tap-room of a public-house called the Swan, and repeated her offers, which he again refused; a mob collected, and at length the woman Smith struck the poor old man on the head with a stick. This not satisfying her and the mob, it was proposed, as in days of old, to submit him to the ordeal of water. Thereupon the poor old Frenchman was thrust into a ditch, but that not being deep enough, he was dragged up to the mill-head, and dragged through it again and again, until his tormentors began to be frightened at the possible results, and allowed him to crawl on shore, where he lay on the bank exhausted. The old man at length managed to crawl towards the Swan, and leant against the wall for support, and asked for shelter of a butcher named Ames, who refused to let him in. At last two women, and a man named Neville, took compassion on him, and helped him to his own hut, and recommended him to change his wet clothes. The poor old Dummy kissed their hands to express his gratitude. Two days afterwards he was found to be so ill as to be obliged to be removed to the workhouse, where he died from the effects of his ill-usage.
Evidence having been given that the cause of death was clearly traceable to the cruel treatment sustained by the deceased, and as to the part taken by the two prisoners in the ill-usage, they were asked what they had to say in their defence.
Smith replied in a peculiar voice, and evidently under the influence of some superstitious fear, that she would tell the truth. Deceased came to her house first. He spat upon her, and told her that after a time she should be ill, and she was ill. A doctor came to her twice in one night, but could not cure her. The man (Dummy) came to her shop ten months ago, and asked leave to sleep in her shed. She let him, but in a few days when she wanted him to leave, he made signs and wrote upon a door that she should be ill in ten days. He made her ill and bewitched her, and she went everywhere, but no one could set her right again, she was afraid, for no medicine could do her any good.
The Chairman. - Are you aware of the nature of the charge against you - that you caused the death of the old man by your conduct on the 3rd of August?
The prisoner. - That night? I will tell you the truth. That night I went to the Swan very bad. I went up to the old gentleman and asked him to go home with me to do me good. He said he would not go. Gibson took him up, and put him in my face, to kiss me, but I did not want to do that, as I had a husband of my own. A number of plaiters (of straw for bonnets) came in, and said “How bad this woman is!” There were forty or fifty people there, few of them men. They got him out. Some stoned him, some shoved him into mud, and did more to him than I did. I begged and prayed that he would go home with me, but he said he would not unless he liked. I do not deny that I put my hand to his head, but I was so bad I could not lift a dog, and this man here (Stammers) took him by the heels and threw him in the water, and then he (Stammers) jumped in and got him out. I may die any moment. There was one there who did not touch him, and that was Mrs. Bruty, who said she was afraid of him. That is the truth.
Stammers simply said he was not guilty.
The Chairman said it was a fearful and a disgraceful fact that at the present day an old and mutilated man should meet with such a fate, and that no one of all the crowd of men and women present should have interfered to save him, or even have told the police of what was going forward. The prisoners stood committed to Chelmsford Gaol for trial at the next spring assizes.
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