LITTLE MATTER LEADS TO SENSATION.
NEIGHBOURS QUARREL : A FATAL BLOW
A shocking tragedy took place late on Saturday night, at Mixenden. It was the outcome of a quarrel between William Aspinal and Calvert Moore, both natives of the village, and it resulted in Moore being struck down by Apsinal with a chopper, killing him. The men had lived neighbours in Clough Lane for some years, Moore being a grocer, while Aspinal was a spinning onlooker. For a week or more it is stated unpleasantries had existed between them in respect of some poultry.
They met on Saturday evening, shortly after 10.30, in the Talbot Inn Illingworth. Aspinal on entering, found Moore there, and he addressed to him some offensive remark. To this Moore replied. The landlady with a view of avoiding trouble in the house, told Aspinal that he had better go, and he did so without demur. Moore remained till shortly before closing time.
THE GRIM BATTLE
The two men, it appears afterwards encounted one another near Shaw Mill whilst crossing the fields (via the public footpath there) on the way home. There they got to blows, but without any serious injury being sustained by either, and from that point they proceeded home separately. How the quarrel came to be revived is not clear. Both men, it is certain, got inside their respective houses, and each got sat down. One story stated that Moore, going to Aspinal’s door, challenged him into the street to have “another go” whilst another account attributes the giving of the challenge to Aspinal. Be this as it may, the two men met again in the street. Moore it is said armed with a poker, and Aspinal with a chopper. There are different versions as to what followed. Aspinal, we understand, alleged that he was struck by Moore with the poker, and that he retaliated by dealing him a blow with the hatchet. The blow whether given in retaliation or not, must have been a fierce one, for it felled Moore to the ground, and death ensued within a few minutes. Moore’s wife had in vain, endeavoured to separate the two men. There was a change from the tragic to the pathetic after the delivery of the fatal blow, as Mrs Aspinal, who had then gone out, obtained her husband’s return to the house with the remark, “Willie come in, the baby’s crying”. Aspinal shortly afterwards, left the house as a prisoner of Constable Mullen, charged with having caused his neighbours death. The neighbours, at the time of the tragedy, were most of them in bed. Aroused by the commotion, however, many got up, and Aspinal’s brother and a man named Crabtree assisted in carrying Moore’s dead body into the house.
Both men we are assured were quite sober when they left the Talbot Inn.
WOMAN WHO SAW IT ALL
Mrs Moore, wife of the victim, stated that when her husband arrived home she noticed that his coat was muddy, as if he had been on the ground and that his face was scratched. She asked him how it happened, and he told her that whilst passing Shay Mill on his way home, Aspinal sprang out at him, knocking him down and kicked him. Aspinal having done that, made off home. Her husband sat down to the supper awaiting him, and he had nearly finished, when Aspinal presented himself outside the house, and called out “Here, come out, and I’ll give thee something to go on with”. Thereupon her husband jumped up and went out. She followed, and then, she says, saw Aspinal flourishing a hatchet over his head. She got between them, and shouted “Nay, William, don’t use the chopper. I think your fists are enough at a time like this.” Aspinal, she asserts, threatened her. He then swinging the hatchet round, hit her husband on the head and felled him.
ANOTHER VERSION
Against this, as we have intimated, a version is given more favourably to the man in custody. He was sitting at home, it is stated, preparing for bed, when the deceased man went to his door and “Challenged him to have another go”. It was in response to this challenge that he did so.
The probabilities seem to give colour to this version. Aspinal, according to the story told by Moore to his wife, had punished him at Shay Mill, and then hastened home. He would appear to have had the best of that encounter, and would have no reason, one would suppose, to desire another meeting. Moore, on the other hand, would be smarting under defeat, and might before entering his own home have shouted out his challenge to Aspinal. This so far from contradicting Mrs Moore’s story, would fit in with it as a preliminary. As to her husband, however, being armed with a poker, she denies all knowledge of it, and the police, we understand, have no evidence to any poker being picked up in the roadway.
THE BEREAVED FAMILY
The tragedy, naturally, has caused the greatest excitement in Mixenden. Not since the Varley riots of some years ago has the district been so aroused. Both men, have lived in the village all their lives, were known to everybody, and sympathy is expressed on all hands for the two families. The deceased man was 57 years of age, and leaves a widow, with eight children, to mourn his loss. Since the tragedy the widow has almost been beside herself with grief. The man in custody is younger than the victim of the quarrel, being 38 years of age, and he has a wife and two children. During yesterday, and also today, the scene of the tragedy has been visited by some hundreds of people from Halifax and surrounding districts. Clough Lane is on the hill top, just beyond the board school and the residences if the two families are divided by simply a passage and outbuildings.
The facts have been reported to Mr EH Hill, the coroner, and he has fixed the inquest for Wednesday morning, at 10 o’clock.
AT THE BOROUGH COURT
The Borough Court justices sat on Monday at 12 o’clock. But long before that hour there was a crowd of the public at the entrance for spectators in Fergusson St. Many more were assembled than could possibly get in. When the doors were flung open, the rush was checked by constables, and the public area was just comfortably filled when the inflow was stopped. A minute more of the inrush and the place would have been uncomfortably packed. The accused was not in the dock five minutes. He was only a short, slight man, with a palish face, light hair, straggling moustache, and blue eyes. He wore a black suit, turned down combination front and collar, fastened with two crystal studs which in the absence of necktie, sparkled in the sunlight. In his hands, which he held behind him, he toyed with a check cap. He looked wistfully towards the magistrate (Messrs B.W. Jackson, Alderman Coe, T. Collinson, R Kerr, and T. Whitaker) on being ordered to the front of the dock, and listened without the least trace of emotion to the accusation that he was charged with having caused the death of Calvert Moore, and later to the application for the remand. His reply, that he had nothing to say in opposition to a remand was so mumbled that few could hear the words, and he immediately stepped back and went down the steps out of view. The prisoner’s mother a pleasant featured woman with a sprinkling of silver in her hair, sat with her daughter in a side bench facing the dock. The mother quietly ejaculated “Oh my poor lad,” as Aspinal was ushered below, then broke down; her daughter burying her face in a handkerchief, also sobbed aloud. They quitted the court before the public, the daughter crying piteously as she passed into the street.
REMANDED UNTIL THURSDAY
Chief constable Richardson, is applying for a remand, said: The prisoner William Aspinal, who is an overlooker of 33 Clough Lane, is charged with causing the death of Calvert Moore, until recently a grocer of 40 Clough Lane. The facts briefly, are that the deceased man and the prisoner were neighbours and they have not lived on very friendly terms for the last week or to. They were at the Talbot Inn, Illingworth, on Saturday night at about 10.30. They had a few words there and it appears they adjourned and eventually had a fight in the neighbourhood. They separated and went home. After they returned home, it appears that the quarrel was renewed. They were calling one another names so it is alleged, and it is alleged that prisoner came out of the house with a small chopper that he had got in a stable. It is alleged, on the other hand that the deceased man hit prisoner with a poker. It is not quite clear what afterwards took place but the allegation is that prisoner struck Moore somewhere about the face with a chopper, which caused his death. A post mortem examination of the body is to be made at 3 O’clock this afternoon and the inquest is fixed for Wednesday next, so with your worships permission, I would ask for prisoner to be remanded until Thursday to see what course the inquest takes.
The magistrate’s clerk (to prisoner): Have you anything to say why you should not be remanded?
Prisoner: Well I have nothing to say to day
The Chairman: Then you are remanded until Thursday next.
Mr H. K. Smith, we may add, has been retained for the prisoners defence. He was prevented, however, being present at the court today, wing to an engagement at Bradford in arbitration case the prisoner when charged on his apprehension, made no reply.