An Italian named Pelizzoni was last week condemned to death
for stabbing Michael Harrington in a squabble in the Golden Anchor, Saffron Hill. The evidence seemed clear, the victim recognized and pardoned his murderer, and the judge, Baron Martin, declared that he had never felt more satisfied in his life. On Wednesday, however, one Gregorio, a cousin of the con- demned man, surrendered himself as the actual murderer. It appears that Mr. Negretti, the well-known optician, who acts as a sort of non-official consul for his countrymen, heard something which induced him to believe that Gregorio was the real murderer, went down to Birmingham, and induced him to surrender himself. Gregorio states that he slapped the landlord of the public-house in the face, that there was soon after a quarrel between the English and Italians, that he drew his knife and killed Harrington to save his own life. Pelizzoni was not in the room. The landlord con- firms the slapping, but states that Gregorio made all the disturbance. There is something odd about the affair, but the most probable theory seems to be that Gregorio is really guilty, that he lest Pelizzoni to be tried, hoping he might be acquitted, but that sentence of death being passed, he surrendered rather than send a relative to the scaffold. If this theory is correct, the opponents of circumstantial evidence will have a new case to quote, and Baron Martin, will not be quite so positive for the future.
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