On Christmas Day 1856, Mr Michael George Harrison was ‘turned out of the dock’ in court, as there was ‘not a particle of evidence’ to link him to a murder that had been headline news in the Dublin papers for weeks. The cashier at the Broadstone terminus of the Midland Great Western Railway had been cruelly murdered in his office and a great deal of money stolen.
There had been all kinds of speculation about the circumstances of the killing, as it had all the ingredients of a classic ‘locked room’ whodunit – except that this was for real. Mr Samuel Little had been a very orderly and well regulated worker, staying late in the office to finish the day’s accounts when other employees had left for home at five in the evening. On 13 November 1856 he was working late when someone entered his room, which was locked from the inside, and brutally battered him to death, then cut his throat and damaged his spine to ensure that he would not come round and incriminate them.
Little was a model worker, keeping his mother and sister from his income, and being extremely conscientious. He was described by one associate as ‘a quiet, amiable, pleasing man and as unassuming a creature as ever breathed’. He had been promoted to cashier just a few months before this attack and was universally liked. It was his duty to receive and process all incomes, including cash from a docket system, in operation because there were different journeys and fares involved in the railway system – some travellers going on to cross the Irish Sea and go to London for instance. Then there were fees involve in transporting cattle. He also received ‘surplus money’ which was the profit from business transactions rather than from fares.