The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-10-16 00:00:00

LIFE OR DEATH.

" A Lancashire Magistrate" writes to the Times as
follows :—The Home Secretary, in addition to his
ordinary very onerous duties, has one responsibility
imposed upon him of so painful and serious a nature
that the fulfilment fit must materially increase the
great care and anxieties incidental to his high official
position. The responsibility I allude to is that ot
deciding whether when sentence of death has been
passed upon • criminal,it is hisduty to recommend Her
Gracious Majesty to remit that sentence to one of
penal servitude, or to allow the extreme penalty of the
law to be carried into effect. The present time, when
the c .untry has good fortune to possess in Mr. Cross
a Home Secretary who has, as it were been born and
bred a lawyer, and who knows so well how to temper
justice with mercy, seems convenient for doubting
the wisdom of an arrangement the carrying out of
which is now in such excellent hands. The confidence
which is universally felt in Mr. Cross would obviously
render any change far more easy of accomplishment
than if the office of the Secretary of State for the
Home Department happened to be under less trust-
worthy control. The change which I submit would be
advantageous is that each recommendation for mercy
should be considered by five of Her Majesty's Judges,
including, when practicable, the Lord Chief Justice
of England and the Lord Chief Baron, but always
corbeling the Judge by whom sentence of death has
been pronounced. The questl.n would, of course, be
settled by a majority of these Judges, and no
individual responsibility such as is now entailed upon
the Home Secretary would be incurred. The best-
trained judicil intellects in the world will be thus
brought to bear upon each case, and a decision arrived
at probably with far greater ease, and certainly with
far less personal anxiety, than must at present be
incurred. Many other more feasible solutions of the
difficulty may be forthcoming ; but everyone, I think,
must allow that the existing state of things is most
unsatisfactory, and may some day lead to singularly
unfortunate results.

confidence

Lord Shaftesbury in to be offered the freedom of the
City of Edinburgh.
There have been heavy snowstorm in Scotland during
the last two days.
A mauhas died near Dover from hydrophobia, and the
Mayor has ordered that dogs found at large in the town
are to be destroyed.
At the Guildhall. London, on Thursday. the publishers
of two weekly papers were each fined .E2O and the costs
for having inserted racing advertisements.
AN Anat.:A HOON.O.—At the City Police Court,
Joseph Smith, a miserably dressed man, was charged
under the Vagrant Act with being at large in an unsound
mind. and also with begging—Prisoner: The truth is, I
have been very unfortunate; I have Pied to succeed in
several capacities, but failed in all. If they would give
me . mn. and let me hang all Gime four people at Penge.
I would do it for five shilling each, and that young man
t m (pointing to P.C. Morris) —Mr. ReadLarn remanded the
prisoner for a week, in order that his mental condition
might be ascertained by the gaol surgeon.
On Thursday night, as Mr. Alfred Bellringer, rattle
dealer, of North Petherton, was returning from Bridg-
water, after attending Glastonbury Fair, where he had
sold some stock, he was attacked by three men, who
knocked him down, filled his mouth with grass and dirt.,
and lobbed his. of more than £lOO in notes and gold
Mr. Bellringer is unable to identify any of the men, and
no clue hm yet been obtained of the perpetrators of the
crime.
At Sheffield John Harris a shoemaker, was charged
with having brutally assaulted his wife. The prosecute-ix
said that on Sunday sight her husband came home pulled
her downstairs, and stripping her naked tried to put her
into the oven. Failing that he held her close to the fire
and turned her round and round "like a piece of beef,"
Her heartrending arms= at length brought a policeman.
Her daughter fully corroborated her ataxy, and the
prisoner was bound over for six months.