The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

We learn from the evidence for the defence that some two years ago Miss SMITH first became acquainted with her supposed victim. He was about ten years her senior, and he appears to have made various attempts to obtain an introduction to her before he effected his object. He employed for this purpose a lad of seventeen who happened to be ac quainted with the family of the prisoner. The introduction obtained in this irregular way was followed by a clandestine correspondence, commenced, we may assume, by L'ANGELIER. Miss SMITH'S letters at this time show clearly she felt the impropriety of this proceeding, and that she wished to put an end to it. But she had thoughtlessly placed herself in the power of her experienced and designing lover. It was an object for the penniless adventurer to gain the affections of a girl in the position of Miss SMITH. and he contrived to retain them. After a twelvemonth's acquaintance he finally seduces her, by what arts and under what cir cumstances we do not know. But this we do know, that from that time forth her letters betray a degree of licence and a disregard for decency which, in one so young, it is truly painful to contemplate. Was this inherent depravity, or was her mind as well as her per son debauched by her seducer? We cannot tell, but the natural inference is obvious. The clandestine meetings continue, and one passionate note after another is despatched by the unhappy girl to her lover. But she soon awakes from her guilty dream. She probably begins to penetrate the weak points of her lover's character. She wearies of his selfish and exacting temper. Another person appears upon the scene—a rival for her hand, more eligible in every point of view than the foreign adventurer who had first won her affections. To excuse, or even to extenuate, her conduct at this point of the case, is impossible ; but bad though it was, it was innocence itself when compared with the baseness of her lover. His refusal to deliver up the letters which contained the damning evi dence of their intimacy, and his repeated threats to make them public, show such an utter want of all manly feeling that we can feel neither interest nor sympathy for one so worthless and designing. According to the theory of the prosecution, it was this obstinacy upon the part of L'ArnmEs which led to his murder. It was necessary for MADELEINE SMITH to get rid of him in order that she might marry his rival. But to this theory there occurs a very grave objection. The great object of Miss SMITH in the latter months of their correspondence was to get back her letters, for she well knew that their publication would be fatal to her reputation. Could she hope to attain this object simply by making away with her lover? Clearly not. Nay, on the contrary, she must have known that in the event of his sudden death the fatal letters were morally certain to come to light. The motive suggested by the prosecution is thus weakened in a material point, which, we doubt not, had its weight with the jury in in ducing them to pronounce a verdict of acquittal. We cannot close these remarks without adverting to the tone of the Lord Advocate's speech in summing up the case for the prose cution. It was unfair to the prisoner through out. He assumed her guilt from first to last. He put forward his own inferences as estab lished facts ; nor did he, as he was from his position bound to do, state a single circum stance in favour of the prisoner. He would not admit the possibility of her innocence. He spoke throughout, not as a responsible officer of the Crown, but as a zealous partisan. Fortunately for the interests of justice, both the Court and Jury took a more unprejudiced view of the case ; and no one, we believe, on this side of the Tweed will dispute the pro priety of the conclusion at which they eventually arrived. THE - THE ELECTION PETITIONS. THE great number of disputed elections which takes place on an appeal to the country is a heavy drawback on the working of our con stitutional system. The rivalry of candidates ou the hustings is adjourned to commit ee-rooms in the Palace at Westminster- PRESS, JUTS 11, 1857: hall, and a Parliamentary tribunal of five select gentlemen sit day after day healing the allegations of one side and the refutations of the other, who are assisted by counsel in the great art of mystification. From our own recollection we candidly admit that there has been a decided improvement in the constitu tion of the committees. The proceedings before them are conducted in a more orderly manner, and they are generally presided over by a chairman experienced in Parliamentary business. It is rather unfortunate that in Election Petitions there cannot be an appeal. In all serious cases where grave rights are in dispute the law allows an appeal. A motion for a new trial can be got at Westminster-hall on an appeal from the decision of judge and jury upon circuit. In the Equity Courts there is an appeal from one judge to his superior, and lastly there is an appeal to the House of Lords. But in Election Petitions there is, practically, no appellate jurisdiction. In the Wareham case, to say the least, it would be very desirable that there should be a re-adju dication. We are aware that this point has been often considered, and the House of Commons would dread the expenditure in volved in a second hearing, yet we must call attention to the anomaly of a court (for a committee is one of high rank and authority) which sits with absolute power. The cut and dry answer "Oh ! you must take things as " they are ; it works as well for one party as " for the other; take your chance, life is full of lottery, &c. etc.," sounds badly in our ears. In clubs, on the turf, in light amusements, we can allow much to solving things by chance, but we do not like to hear of the word in judicial affairs, and we must say that the result in the Wareham case has caused much animadversion. One thing upon which we must specially ob serve, is that the choice of a chairman should be regulated by more stringent rules than are now in force. An able chairman gives force and tone to a committee, keeps the counsel in order with a mere nod, and saves the public time. In the Maidstone Committee, the tact, shrewdness, and experience of Mr. G. A. HAMILTON made him an admirable chairman. No doubt it would be very difficult to find chairmen so experienced as that Right Hon. Gentleman, who, of all members now in the House of Commons, has gone through the most prolonged electioneering struggles. Mr. HAMILTON, besides, is a capital man of busi ness, completely versed iu political detail, and possessing a vigorous understanding that can rapidly discern principles, and apply them with judicial precision. In the Maidstone case we do not see at what other decision the Committee could have arrived. Without an ex post facto stretching of the law, the Committee could not have acted on the information given it of 3,5001. spent on a p►ior election. Some playful gossip which had been artfully put in c►rculation about the unfair use of influences by canvassers who are amongst " the fair of Mayfair," gave some anticipated piquancy to the Maidstone Com mittee, which was not realised by its prosaical proceedings. The Oxford Committee (pre sided over by a Queen's Counsel of the Irish Bar) unseated Mr. NEATE, on account of the excessive number of paid canvassers who voted for him. This latter electioneering abuse is peculiar to large constituencies, where few candidates can hope to be successful, unless they have either a democratic popularity, or unless they are ready to " bleed'' most co piously. Mr. NEATE is excluded from represent. ing Oxford in the present Parliament, just as Lord BELPER (when Mr. Strutt) was incapa citated by a decision of a similar kind some years ago. If the rule was inflexible, it would operate to prevent the abuses complained of ; but in the Wareham case, the Committee required that guilty knowledge should be brought home to the candidate. Could this ever be done? Or what could be more easily managed than technical avoidance of respon sibility? The " Mayo case " is the hardest battle of all the committees, and the disputants on both sides are well matched. In listening to the proceedings one gets a sensation like that of reading an Irish novel, full of fun and fury. But on this and other committee cases we must reserve our remarks to another day. REFORMATORIES AND REFUGES. IN dealing with our juvenile criminals, either actual or potential, two formidable difficulties have always been supposed to impede us. The one consisting in the fact that, for a body of individuals to step forward and interfere between the children of the lower classes and the temptations with which they are sur rounded, is to offer a premium on parental negligence ; the other, that the teaching of trades to youthful criminals was an unjust interference with the claims of honest labour. The patient experiments of able and energetic reformers have, however, been gradually bring ing to light results which in the one case materially modify, in the other almost entirely remove, the objections we have alluded to. One of the institutions whose managers have industriously aided in this useful work is " The Reformatory and Ragged Factory," in Belvedere•crescent, Lambeth. At the annual meeting of this institution, on Wednesday last, some valuable truths were made public. One result of long and careful investigation of the vagrant's habits will, perhaps, rather surprise our readers. It is, that of the whole number of juvenile pickpockets in the metropolis, but very few, if any, are driven into crime by want. Hence at once arises a distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary vagrant. The first will pro bably be a boy, who is not without a home, but has got tired of its restraints—who is not without parents, but who neglects and is neglected by them. He wanders into the streets for the mere pleasure of vagrancy, falls into bad company, with whom he enjoys the delights of the gaff and the ginshop, and find ing the necessity of money to continue this course of life, takes to thieving as naturally as a duck takes to water. It is of course highly desirable that these unfortunate lads should be reclaimed from a career of vice ; but that appears to be a work better fitted for great public institu• tions than for private reformatories, and has been rejected by the Belvedere Reformatory from the commencement of its existence. But there is another class of street vagrants, a class of which comparatively little is heard, who endure with passive stoicism a vast amount of cold, hunger, and fatigue, before they succumb to the temptations of the pick pocket's career ; and who, even after repeated convictions, will still make repeated efforts to replace themselves in an honest position. This class usually consists of orphans with whom vagrancy has been a hard necessity, who had their parents lived would probably have turned out respectable members of society, and who have not, at all events, voluntarily left their homes through a love of vicious excitement. It is this latter class to which the conductors of the Belvedere•crescent Reformatory believe that the efforts of such in stitutions should be principally directed. In stitutions which confine their attention to this class of vagrants get rid at the threshhold of the first difficulty we have mentioned—that, namely, of rewarding the neglect of parents. Nor, on the other hand, are their serviccs to the community so much less valuable than the reclaiming of actual thieves, as might at first sight be imagined. The involuntary vagrant acts as a conductor to the voluntary one. When the latter is in clined to quit his home, it is among the home less, parentless tenants of dry-arches and market-shambles that he first finds com panionship. They initiate him into the vagrant life, and prepare him for his future profession. When other resources fail, and the hardships suffered by his associates become 1 hateful to him, he flies to thieving, as afore.