On being apprehended by the police on the following day, the bundle was taken possession of, and was found to contain a pair of corduroy trowsers. These trowsers were not very carefully examined at the time, but on a subsequent examination being made, they were found to present appearances of a very suspicious nature. The front part of each leg was completely saturated with blood, and though the outside had evidently been washed and scraped, the same care had not been exercised towards the inside, and the marks of blood were there plainly visible. We understand it can be proved that these were the trowsers which the prisoner wore at the time he was hired by Mr Richardson on the Saturday. They were forwarded along with the bloody clothes found in the house at Longdale to Professor Christison of Edinburgh, last week, and by him they were handed over to Dr Douglas Maclagan for examination. They have since been returned to the police, but although the report was expected on Tuesday, it had not then come to hand. It was rumoured a fortnight ago that one of the prisoners had been seen on the road late on the night of the murder, by Mr Parker, a commercial traveller from Carlisle. On enquiry it turned out that Mr Parker had seen the prisoner William Graham but it was in the afternoon.

The police are still pursuing their inquiries, but their progress is very slow. Much of their difficulty proceeds from the extraordinary character of the inhabitants of Longdales (where the prisoners resided), some of whom it is supposed know more about the affair than they are willing to disclose. It appears that the population of Longdales numbers about thirteen families who make up a total of about 70 persons. The whole of these are more or less nearly related, having sprung from a tinker named Hogarth, the grandfather of the prisoners. When old Hogarth and his wife first settled at Longdales, it was nothing but a piece of common. He built a sod hut, and gained his livelihood by making tins. Afterwards his sod hut was converted into a wooden hut; then a stone house was built, and a piece of the surrounding ground was converted into a garden, and another piece was cultivated as a field. When the common came to be apportioned into allotments and enclosed, the question arose whether Hogarth could not be ejected, as he paid no rent; but as no objection had ever been made as to his residence there, it was considered that he had gained a right, and accordingly a share of the allotments was given to him. Meanwhile his sons and daughters grew up and were married, and as it has been an invariable rule that none of them should leave the place of their nativity to settle elsewhere, they have become a very numerous family. Wm Graham went to Liverpool a year or two ago, and entered the police force, but he only continued there for three or four months. On his return home he brought with him a soldier’s uniform, in which he appeared at Ainstable Church on the following Sunday. He told his friends he had enlisted and had come home on furlough. When Clement Richardson left his situation, William Graham made application for the vacant place, but Mr Fetherstonhaugh gave it to the deceased, Thomas Simpson. Since his apprehension, William has become an assiduous Bible reader, and now sets himself twenty leaves a day.

Simpson was the son of highly respectable parents who resided at Bolton, Westmoreland, where they had a large farm. In former years he had done a little in the poaching line himself, but this seems to have been only occasionally, and at the time of the affray with Lord Lonsdale’s gamekeepers he was described as a man of good character, and his conduct subsequently was such at to entitle him to the respect of all who knew him. As the particulars of the unfortunate affair to which we have alluded may not be generally known we shall briefly narrate them.