MURDER IN CLARKE.

A true bill was found by the Grand Jury against Wm. McLean, for the murder of McElvery, in Clarke, but he was not tried owing to the want of a material witness who was not found. We have been furnished by a magistrate with the following synopsis of the evidence on which McLean was committed. On Thursday night, the 4th of this month, about 7 o’clock in the evening, McElvery was shot through the window of his own Shanty. At the time his eldest child was lying on his lap, resting her head against his breast. The ball entered the right breast of the deceased and killed him instantly. The wife, as soon as she recovered from the state of insensibility into which she was thrown by the dreadful scene, alarmed the neighbours, who rendered all the assistance in their power. On that evening an Orange Lodge was held within about three-quarters of a mile of the place of murder, and several of the members as they were going thither heard the shot. Three of them as they neared the Lodge saw Wm. McLean walking very fast in a direction from the house of the murdered man, towards the Lodge, of which he is a member, he got in before them and they asked him if he had heard a shot, he replied that he had not. A few minutes afterwards another member arrived and told the Lodge of the murder. Immediately an investigation took place of the parties about that time passing the house of the murdered man, and they all gave a satisfactory account of themselves except McLean, he could not give no proof of his whereabouts and exhibited considerable agitation and change of countenance on being questioned. He, however, joined his brethren on their proceeding to the house of the murdered man, and afterwards volunteered with another, to go and inform the woman’s relations, who lived at some distance. The next day he went to the Coroner, and then down to Hope for the friends of the deceased. He was not present at the Coroner’s inquest, on the day after the inquest suspicion was aroused against McLean from its becoming known that he had borrowed a pistol from one neighbour, and balls and caps from another a short time before; and from then being a current report that he had been in a criminal intimacy with the murdered man’s wife. Some of the Orangemen of the Lodge to which prisoner belongs, thinking there was evidence sufficient to warrant his arrest, procured a warrant and the next morning proceeded to his cousin’s, Thomas McLean house to take him. But they found that he had got wind of their intentions and had gone away, Thomas McLean, however told them where he was to be found, and they proceeded in their search. On arriving at the house to which they were directed by T. McLean, they found that he was there before them, and that prisoner had again escaped. They then accused him of aiding the escape, but he indignantly denied it, and said that he had come believing the young man innocent, to persuade him to return. He acknowledges that he had been prisoner, and that he had refused to return, alleging as a reason that he did not want the old stories about himself and the murdered man’s wife raked up again. The Orangemen then proceeded into Manvers, whither they thought Wm. McLean had gone, and roused all the brethren of their order in the Township, and after tracking the prisoner for some distance, at last captured him.

He was arrested by Mr. Alexander Preston. Mr. Preston when he discovered prisoner was proceeding along through a large wood to rouse the neighbours [in] another part of the Township. As soon as he saw prisoner he commanded him to stand, at which he immediately began running. Mr. Preston, who heard that he had firearms, pursued him cautiously for some time till he found him tired out, when he ran in and caught him. Prisoner denied his name said it was Johnson, and then said he was innocent of the murder. Mr. Preston then took him out to the persons from Clarke, who were watching at the edge of the wood. Prisoner has ever since resolutely denied his guilt. Much praise is due to the Orangemen for their efforts in bringing the supposed criminal to justice. Their conduct on this occasion proves (what those opposed to this Order would not hitherto believe.) that they are bound by their oaths their rules, and the spirit of their institutions, to take every means in their power to bring a brother charged with criminal offences, to public justice. Henceforth we hope to hear no more of the stale lies, that Orangemen shield one another from the consequence of crime.

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