Part 37 (1/2)

The woman and child therefore escaped, the person he had seen in the distance also pa.s.sed by, and then he waited in the lane alone. In a little time a poor woman came along.

The ruffian instantly seized her, cut her throat, and killed her on the spot.

No sooner had he accomplished his purpose than a young farmer drove along in his cart, and seeing the dead body in the road, and the murderer a little way off, jumped out of his cart and arrested him.

A little farther on the road there was a labouring man, who had not been visible up to this moment, breaking stones.

”Look after this man,” said the farmer; ”he has committed murder. Keep him safe while I go to the village and get a constable.”

”All right,” said the labourer; ”I'll keep un.”

As soon as the farmer was gone the labourer and the murderer got into conversation, for they had to while away the time until the farmer had procured the constable.

”Why,” asked the stone-breaker, ”what have you been a-doin' of?”

”Killin' a woman,” answered the murderer.

”Killin' a woman!” said the mason. ”Why, what did you want to kill a woman for? She warn't your wife, was she?”

”Nay,” answered the murderer, ”or I should ha' killed her afore.”

The want of motive is always a strong argument with humanitarians, who pity the murderer and not the victim. I heard no particle of sympathy expressed for the poor woman, but there was abundance of commiseration for the fiend who had perpetrated the terrible deed.

There never was any _adequate_ motive for murder, but there was never a deed committed or any act performed without motive.

Insanity on the ground of absence of motive was set up as a matter of course, but insanity should be based on proof apart from the cruelty of the act itself. It was a premeditated crime, a bloodthirsty desire to wreak his malice on some one; but beyond the act, beyond the malignant disposition of the man, there was no evidence whatever of insanity.

I refused to recommend him to the Royal clemency on that ground, or on any ground, for there was not the smallest pretence for saying it was not a deliberate cold-blooded murder. And the man was rightly hanged.

Society should be protected from murderers. This may be hard dealing with the enemies of society, but it is just to society itself. I was never hard on a prisoner. The least circ.u.mstance in mitigation found in me a hearty reception, but cruelty in man or woman an unflinching Judge.

Take another case. In Gloucesters.h.i.+re a man was convicted of killing a girl by stabbing her in no less than thirty-eight places.

Again the humanitarians besieged the Home Secretary. ”No man in his senses would have been so cruel; and there was his conduct in the dock: he was so wild, so incoherent. There was also his conduct in the field where he had committed the deed: he called the attention of the pa.s.sers-by to his having killed her.” And, last of all, ”there was the doctor whom the Home Secretary had consulted after the trial.”

I was appealed to, and stated my opinion honestly: that I had closely watched the man at the trial, and was satisfied that he was shamming insanity.

And he shammed it so awkwardly that there was no doubt whatever that he was sane.

Another Judge was asked about the case who saw only the evidence, and he came to the same conclusion; and I was compelled to report that the doctor who certified that he was insane did so _without having seen him_ as the doctors for the prosecution had at the trial and before.

He was hanged.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE ST. NEOTS CASE.

This is the last trial for murder that I presided over. The object is not to show the horrible details of the deed, but my mode of dealing with the facts, for it is in the elimination of the false from the true that the work of a Judge must consist, otherwise his office is a useless form. I shall give this case, therefore, more in detail than I otherwise should.

The case was that of Horsford, in the year 1898, at Huntingdon a.s.sizes. I say now, long after the event, the murderer was not improperly described by the _Daily News_ as the greatest monster of our criminal annals, and yet even in that case some kind-hearted people said I had gone quite _to the limits of a Judge's rights_ in summing up the case. Let me say a word about circ.u.mstantial evidence.

Some writers have spoken of it as a kind of ”dangerous innovation in our criminal procedure.” It is actually almost the only evidence that is obtainable in all great crimes, and it is the best and most reliable.