The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-05-02 00:00:00

Spieit of tbe Pres.

Tel ROAD MURDSll.—T—be—Standord greatly doubts
the absolute authenticity of Miss Kent's confession,
and says :—Who knows, or may ever hope to know,
how Constance Kent has been racked by questions and
remonstrances? Who can guess what her thoughts
have been about her father and her mother? The
circumstances were so utterly mysterious, although the
fact of a murder having been perpetrated was so clearly
beyond a doubt, that it is difficult to understand how
Constance Kent, without the knowledge of other
persons, oould have been guilty. Why was the little
boy taken from his cot, suffocated, carried into the
garden, and thence to the hiding-place of the tragedy,
with a piece of flannel not belonging to or worn by
Constance, but fitting the person of another individual,
wrapped around it? What proof is there of any dis-
like or jealousy on her part against her half-brother?
The series of incidents brought forward in support of
this theory were absolutely childish. There were re-
peated examinations, and not a tittle of connected
evidence could be produced. We are aware that other
persons underwent a painful scrutiny, and were not
Indicted; but with whom lay the only imaginable motive?
We are under no necessity of answering that ques-
tion. Constance Kent, at all events, had none. That
a girl of fifteen, unless mad, should so hate a child
four years old as to murder it, elaborately and horribly,
is not to be believed—should smother it first and stab it
afterwards, and fling it away as a lamp of carrion—
thia Is indeed incredible. Is it within the compass of
rational belief that a girl, herself almost a child, should
have slaughtered another child so coolly, skilfully, and
deliberately, and obliterated the traces of her wicked-
ness with similar tact and system? Where was the
weapon? Whose where the boot-prints? Whose were
the hob-nail soles sworn to at the inquest? We fear—
or, perhaps, we should not fear—that poor Constance
Kent has become a monomaniac of sorrow, and that she,
brooding over the dark story of guilt in her house, has
been excited to under-burden her soul of an imaginary
guilt, and that we ate as far as ever from penetrating
the mystery of the Road-hill murder —murder it was,
horrible and unpardonable; but the alternatives appear
to be, that if Constance Emilie Kent, against all pro-
bability, was guilty, she was mad; and that if she be
innocent, as all must hope, she may have been
sane then, but has since been maddened by her
own thoughts of the past, and by the pesterings
of her pions friends at Brighton and elsewhere.
—The Daily Telegraph says :—We must carefully
guard our expressions, even in the face of a confession
so methodical and matter-of-fact, and even though the
alternative for this hapless girl be only between mad-
ness and murder. Better a hundred times that she
should prove a maniac than • murderess. And be it
remembered that, if anguish, shame, mystery, and
suspicion can madden, her life has been lived for five
years in an atmosphere of tliese things. Time out of
mind there have been instances when long brooding
upon a dismal subject has at length overturned the
reason; and iii. a common phenomenon, when a great
murder takes place, that some one perfectly 'innocent
should, in a foolish frenzy, momentarily assume its
guilt. Miss Kent comes from& religious house attached
to St. Mary's Church at Brighton—that is to say, from
seclusion, and the silence of a strict and pietistic
regimen. Under such circumstances, every charitable
person must pause a little while before taking, even
from her own lips, the damning admission of fratricide.
Her shattered home, her branded name, her miserable
memories, the slight but perpetual suspicion in which
the Devizes gaol involved her family as well as herself ;
all these may have taken five years of slow agony to
deprive her of her senses, although others would have
auccnusbed more quickly. No one can pretend to decide
arbitrarily upon this point because so long a time has
elapsed; no man of science has plumbed the depths of
that wonderful abyss of joy ard suffering, the human
mind. So Constance Emilie Kent may be—es we would
almost hope—s maniac); mad, but with method in her
madnees, and using it to denounce herself with are-
sedateness, a consistency, and a terrible coorage, which
do not look at all like insanity. Nor does her inde-
pendent action, her clear recollection of dates, or her
lucid and almost legal accuracy of diction, bear out the
hope that the reason of the poor young lady -has given
way. We are bound to say that the theory which we
anxiously reserve as possibly explaining the present
apparition—for an apparition it is, and as ghastly and
ghostly as • midnight spectre—does not accord with
some of the facts. And we must equally perceive that
there are circumstances in the original case which, as it
were, leap out again into the light of such a confession
—the suspected animosity of the half-sister against the
half-brother; the night-gown which was missing, and
which belonged to Miss Kent; the familiarity with the
house which was shown by the slayer of the little
victim; and other pieces of circumstantial evidence,
apparently trivial enough at the time, but very weighty
now. We cannot forget that the first person arrested
was this young lady, that she was actually committed
to Devises gaol, and appeared upon examination; to be
acquitted indeed, and then to present herself—quiet,
pale, Fad, but in all opinions perfectly guiltless, and
deeply injured—as a witness at the trial of the nursery-
maid, Elisabeth Gough.
THI ASSASSINATION Or PetERDSN'T LINOOLN.—AR
the London papers express profound regret and Indic-
nation at the assassination of President Lincoln. The
Times says :—"Unjust as we believe it to be, the Con-
federate cause *ill not escape the dishonour cast upon
it by the wanton murders of Mr Lincoln and the
Secretary. The admiration won by the long and gallant
defence of Richmond will be lessened; the memory of
Lee's lofty bearing and Jackson's deep religious feeling
will be obscured by the Atrocities committed in the
name and on behalf of the South. Arson in New York,
theft under the pretence of war in Vermont, and assas-
sination in the capital dim the lustre of a ,four years'
resistance to superior forces, and of many a weal-fought
field in Virginia. What may be the actual destiny of
the United States without the guiding hand of Mr.
Lincoln, and of the experience of Mr. Seward, no one
would venture to foretell. As regards the new Presi-
dent, the best solution of the difficulty would be a
voluntary resignation by Mr. Johnson of an office which
no one ever seriously intended him to fill; and if his
own sense of decency does not Auggest this course to
him, it may be hoped that such a pressure of public
opinion will be brought to bear upon him that he may
be led to adopt it. The influences by which the in-
coming President is surrounded cannot be favourable to
his retention of office. General Grant and General
Sherman are both in or near Washington : the one the
commander-in-chief, captor of Richmond, the other the
man who first demonstrated the hollowness of the Con-
federate resources. Neither they nor Mr. Stanton, the
Secretary of War, can wish to see the work on which
they have been engaged no long, and on which eci much
life and treasure has been spent, wasted, because it has
fallen to a hand which is incompetent to carry it
through."—The Daily News says —"We: will not,
without overwhelming proof, let the horrible conspiracy
or the phrases of its actors lead us to lay it to the
charge of abettors in the South."—The Herald remarks
that his country is left to toss in the sea of dismal
anarchy and revolution, of which no man can preaume
to foretell the issue—The Star says —"We: trust and
feel assured that even in this hour of just indignation
and national excitement the North may still bear itself
with that magnanimous clemency which thus far has
illumined it. triumph, but it may be the conquered
South has yet to learn that it too must mourn over the
bloody grave to which Abraham Lincoln has been con-
signed by a Southern assassin's hand."