The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) Part 37

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 Gloucestershire 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.

You may draw wrong impressions from it, I grant, but so you may from the evidence of witnesses where it is _doubtful_; but you cannot fail to draw the right ones where the facts are not doubtful. If it is capable of a wrong inference, a Judge should be absolutely positive in his direction to the jury not to draw it.

I have witnessed many great trials for murder, but do not remember one where there was an eye-witness to the deed. How is it possible, then, to bring home the charge to the culprit unless you rely on circ.u.mstantial evidence? Circ.u.mstantial evidence is the evidence of circ.u.mstances--facts that speak for themselves and that cannot be contradicted. Circ.u.mstances have no motive to deceive, while human testimony is too often the product of every kind of motive.

The history of this case is extremely simple. The accused, Walter Horsford, aged thirty-six, was a farmer of Spaldwick. The person murdered, Annie Holmes, was a widow whose age was thirty-eight years.

She had resided for several months at St. Neots, where she died on the night of January 7. She had been married, and lost her husband thirteen years ago. On his death he left two children, Annie and Percy. The latter was sixteen years of age and the girl fourteen.

The prisoner was a cousin of the deceased woman. While she lived at Stonely the man had been in the habit of visiting her, and had become an intimate member of the family.

In the month of October the prisoner was married to a young woman named Bessie ----. The widow with her two children, and a third, which it would be idle affectation to suggest was the offspring of her late husband, went to reside at St. Neots in a cottage rented at about 8 a year. The prisoner wrote to Annie Holmes on at least two occasions.

Towards the close of the year Annie Holmes suspected herself to be pregnant. She was anxious not to bring another child into the world, and had some communication with the prisoner on the subject.

On January 5 he wrote to her that he would come and make some arrangement. The woman was deceived as to her condition, but that made no difference with regard to the crime. The letter went on to state: "You must remember I paid you for what I done.... Don't write any more letters, for I don't want Bessie to know."

On December 28 he purchased from a chemist to whom he was a stranger, and who lived at Thrapston, a quant.i.ty of poison, alleging that he wanted to poison rats. Prisoner called in a gentleman as a reference to his respectability, as the chemist had refused to sell him the poison without. At last a small parcel was supplied. It was entered in a book with the prisoner's name, and he signed the book, as did also the gentleman who was his introducer. The poison was strychnine, a.r.s.enic, prussic acid, and carbolic acid. No less than 90 grains of strychnine were supplied. He had written to say he would come over on the Friday which followed January 5. There is no reason to suppose he did not fulfil his promise. On the Friday the woman was suffering from neuralgia. In the evening, however, she was in her usual health and spirits, and did her ironing up to eight o'clock. She went to bed between half-past nine and ten, and took with her a tumbler of water.

In ten minutes the little girl and her brother went upstairs. They went to the mother, who was in bed with her child. The tumbler was nearly empty. The mother asked for a "sweet," which the little girl gave. After this Annie got into bed; the mother began to twitch her arms and legs, and seemed in great pain. Dr. Turner was sent for, as she got worse. His a.s.sistant, Dr. Anderson, came, and, watching the patient, noticed that the symptoms were those of strychnine poisoning.

She was dying. Before he could get to the surgery and return with an antidote the woman was dead. She who had been well at half-past nine was dead before eleven!

The police were communicated with, and a constable searched the house.

Turning up the valances of the bed, he found a piece of paper crumpled up; this was sent to an a.n.a.lyst on the following day. An inquest was held and a post-mortem directed.

Horsford at the inquest swore that he had never written to the deceased or visited her.

On the evening of Sat.u.r.day the 8th, after the post-mortem, Mrs.

Hensman and another woman found between the mattress and the bed a packet of papers. These were also submitted for a.n.a.lysis. One of them contained 35 grains of strychnine; another had crystals of strychnine upon it. There was writing on one of the packets, and it was the handwriting of the prisoner; it said, "Take in a little water; it is quite harmless. Will come over in a day or two." On another packet was written: "One dose; take as told," also in the prisoner's handwriting.

The body had been buried and was exhumed. Three grains of strychnine were found by the county a.n.a.lyst in such parts of the stomach as were submitted to him. Dr. Stevenson took other parts to London, and the conclusion he came to was that at least 10 grains must have been in the body at the time of death, while 1/2 grain has been known to be fatal.

There was a singular circ.u.mstance in the defence of this case, one which I have never heard before or since, and that was a complaint that the counsel for the prisoner was "twitted" by the Crown because he had not called _evidence for the defence_. The jury were solemnly asked to remember that if one jot or t.i.ttle of evidence had been put forward, or a single doc.u.ment put in by him, the prisoner's counsel, he would _lose the last word on behalf of the prisoner_! Of course, counsel's last word may be of more value than some evidence; but the smallest "jot or t.i.ttle" of evidence, or any doc.u.ment whatever that even _tends_ to prove the innocence of the accused, is of more value than a thousand last words of the most powerful speaker I have ever listened to. And I would go further and say that evidence in favour of a prisoner should never be kept back for the sake of the last word.

It is the bounden duty of counsel to produce it, especially where evidence is so strong that no speech could save the prisoner. Neither side should keep back evidence in a prisoner's favour. I said to the jury,--

"We are a.s.sembled in the presence of G.o.d to fulfil one of the most solemn obligations it is possible to fulfil, and I will to the best of my ability a.s.sist you to arrive at an honest and just conclusion.

"The law is that if a man deliberately or designedly administers, or causes to be administered, a fatal poison to procure abortion, whether the woman be pregnant or not, and she dies of it, the crime is wilful murder.

"You have been asked to form a bad opinion of this deceased woman, but she had brought up her children respectably on her slender means, and there was no evidence that she was a loose woman. It more than pained me when I heard the learned counsel--_instructed by the prisoner_--cross-examine that poor little girl, left an orphan by the death of the mother, with a view to creating an impression that the poor dead creature was a person of shameless character.

"Again, counsel has commented in unkind terms on the deceased woman, and said the prisoner _had no motive_ in committing this crime on a woman whom he valued at half a crown.

"He might not, it is true, care half a crown for her. It is not a question as to what he valued the woman at; we are not trying that at all; but it showed there _was_ a motive.

"I have not admitted a statement which the woman made while in her dying state, because she may not fully have realized her condition.