Opening of the Case for the Defence: Denial by Accused of knowledge of Crime the trial of Mrs. Judith Rowarth upon charges of being' concerned with aiding and abetting other persons unknown in an attempt to murder Bakhar Singh, a money lender, was continued at H. M. Suprema Court last Friday before Sir Skinner Turner, Chief Judge, and a jury of which Mr. E. Byrne. is foreman.
The Crown-Advocate (Mr. H.
Wilkinson) conducted—the ros and Mr. H. Lipson C. Mansel Reece were counsel for the defence.
Sucha Singh, Granthi of Sze-charge of complainants' s personal chuen Head Gurdwara, who took
possessions on the morning after the crime, stated that he found $90 and a promissory note in his pockets, Recalled and questioned by his Lordship. complainant looked over a batch of nine promissory notes and said that eight of them were in the name of Mrs. M. Davies, daughter of the accused.
In answer to the foreman of the jury, witness said that the Chinese amah carried a lamp when she called at his house in Miller Road with the accused, and she lighted it whew they alighted from the ricsha.
CASE FOR THE DEFENCE, Mr. Lipson Ward then opened the case for. the defence, first impressing upon the jury that they must give accused the benefit of the doubt, unless they were absolutely convinced that the case for the Crown had been proved. He submitted that on the case as it stood, when they considered it carefully they could not but he left ima state of doubt. A woman of 63° years of age alone was charged with this brutal anid callous attempt to murder, and it Was suggested this was done because members of her family owed complainant money; but could the jury imagine anything more improbable. There was no suggestion that there had been the slightest trouble between the accused and complainant, yet the case for the Crown was that accused deliberately entered into a plot with a number of other per sons to murder him. If the accused had been an English woman standing in the dock, a jury would surely reject a story of thig sort as being utterly improbable. It was suggested that the plot was entered into because complainant held promissory notes signed by accused's daughter, who was in financial difficulty, but if this were so, then the daughter should have been charged og well. The
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