Hay and district
Crime and punishment
  They were stolen, not borrowed !  
 

William Magness tried to claim that one of the men at the Swan Hotel had lent him the axe and the billhook. The first paper shown below was his answer to the charge of stealing the items...

Witness heading
  Quarter Sessions paper
"The man Llewellyn Howell lent me the axe and I didn't ask him for it".
  But Mr Howell (who was Henry Lewis, not Llewellyn !) had a very different version of this story...
Mr Howell's statement said -
Part of
court
statement

1878
Quarter Sessions paper
"I am a Servant in the employ of John Howells the Prosecutor.
On the 20th April instant [this month] I employed the Prisoner [William Magness] at the Swan Hotel. He was there from about 1 o'clock to 6 o'clock... ".
Drawing by
Rob Davies

"... I did not lend the Prisoner the Axe and Hacker now produced. No conversation took place between us on the subject".
.........................................................................H L Howell

So the statement from Henry Lewis Howell, who had asked William Magness to sweep the yard at the Swan Hotel in Hay in April 1878, stated quite definitely that he had not let him borrow the items.
Things were looking bad for William Magness - see what became of him on the next page...

The verdict on the axe thief...

 

Drawing of tools
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