Crime and Punishment 2: A second case of Manslaughter.
10.30 pm, 15th July 1839. Two young men, in their early twenties, emerge from the King's Arms, having spent the evening at a meeting of a tradesmen's club. They set off to walk home, completely unaware that the evening would end in tragedy. Suddenly, a cry behind them: "Which is he? Stop him!" The person raising the hue and cry has a dog with him and runs up to them, punching one of them in the face. A chase ensues: running footsteps, the dog being urged on. Witnesses assume it is all a "lark" and take no steps to intervene. Soon afterwards the sound of a heavy blow is heard and the pursuer falls to the ground, bleeding heavily from a head wound. After a time he is able to stagger home where a local surgeon attends him. He survives the next day or so but the wound proves fatal. Michael Cook, the landlord of the Black Boy Inn, Church Street, had been drinking in the King's Arms and in fact was so drunk that th...
