The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-11-06 00:00:00

BL MIDFORD.

MUNICIPAL ELLCTIIIN.—Meisra. R. Eyers, J. Ball, T. H.
Bennett, and W. T. Elgar were re-eleeted mendters of the
To ern Council on Thursday, without opposition.

THE PENCE CASE.
OPINIONS OP THE PRESS.

Commenting on the sentences the Tiou; says —"A:
free pardon to Alice Rhodes c institutes no exculpation
whatever of her conduct, but simply an admission that,
in a legal point of view, she was not responsible for the
death of Mrs. Look Staunton. It is easy to understand
how the jury, impressed with the conviction, which the
whole loathsome hist cry had forced on them of the vital
iuterest felt by all the four prisoners` in getting rid of
Harriett Staunton. should have confused the various
degrees of guilt They did, indeed, recommend Alice
Rhodes strongly to mercy, and the if onie Secretary has
put a not unreasonable interpretation on a not very
logical recommendation. . . . . The prisoners being
practically held guilty of manslaughter, the Home Secre-
tary has treated their offence as coming within the
highest degree of manslaughter known to the law. The
only thing to be regretted is the irregular and mysterious
mode in which the decision has been arrived at. . . .
It would be in every way more satisfactory if there were
an independent Court for the review of criminal sentences
The grant of pardon must remain with the Crown; but
such a reviewal of a sentence as the substantial alteration
of a verdict of minder into one of manslaughter ought to
be in form, as it is in reality, a purely judicial act"
The Daily Teleyrapa sate:—" We do not expect that
Mr. Cries's final decision will command univepigt °pp,
val. But we believe it to he in accordance with the general
sense of the public. No doubt the problem was a peculiarly
difficult one. The condemned persons had been found
guilty of murder, and of nothing lees. Still the prevailing
feeling was that the ease of the Stauntons and Alice
Rhodes was not so simple that it could be disposed of in
this way. . . . . The admitted difficulty of linking
Alice Rhodes with the responsibility of tending Harriet
Staunton, save by the vitiated testimony of Clara Brown,
may have decided the Home Secretary to let her free.
There could, however, be no doubt as to the blame that
rested on the others, who appear to have been guilty of
that amount of mingled carelessness, callousness,
stupidity, and inhumanity but too often shown by people
who have a dull sense of their moral responsibility
towards helpleis and troublesome ersons, such as the
victim of the Stauntorus. Mr. Cross's decision will help
to sharpen that sense wherever it happens to be blunted.
The Stanilard say!, after generally approving the decision
of Mr. Cross t— • Immorality is one thing and man-
slaughter is another; hut that which renders adultery
more heinous does not in the least make manslaughter
more probable. Even the moral guilt, however, with each
knowledge as that suggested would have implied, was by
no means brought !Mine beyond reasonable doubt to
Alice Rhodes. Until her presence on the day when the
unfortunate woman wag recklessly and cruelly carried
away to Pence to die there, there is nothing to prove that
Alice Rhodes was at all aware of the condition in which
she was living in the house of Patrick Staunton, whatever
that condition may have been. The entire remission of
the sentence in her rase may be justified by law and
morality alike, and those who have joined in the outcry
, monist her as the cause of all Ithe misery which has re-
suited, may console themselves with the thought that
even now her punishment has been, and will still be, no
light one. That the hruilt of those with whom she has
hitherto been associated has been endued with the full
severity to which the crime of manslaughter is exposed by
the law, will scarcely be regretted by any, except, per-
haps, the convicts themselves, to whom death would very
possibly Lave been an infliction really less terrible.
The Daily News observes t—lt is said that • free paid n
Is the necessary corollary of the remission of the capital
sentence, and that the crime of the prisoners was either
murder or nothing. There is much to be said for this
view, though we are by no means surprised that the Home
Secretary has not acted upon it. He has, in fact, retried
the case, and done what be believes to be right, and what
we believe the public will regard as substantial justice.
We are not aware of anything which fetters the discre-
tion of the Crown or the Home Secretary in advising the
Crown. The Crown is free to grant • pardon, qualified by
any restriction or accompanied by any punishment it
phloem to affix. It may give what sentence it deems
proper, without regard to the finding of the jury, as a
glance at Blackstone will *bow.
The Morning Pat says :—There are few who will
challenge the propriety of a decision which may be said