The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-09-30 00:00:00

LAW AND CRIME.

THE ROUPELL FORGEIHEEL—The Retinal' case began
and ended on Thursday, and the public have been
deprived of freehand perhaps piquant revelations by the
prisoner having pleaded guilty. On being called up for
judgment he addressed the court in • cool and col-
lected manner. He asked for no mercy, and eas well
aware that his sentence would be a terrible one. lie,
however, denied all the reports that have been in
currency respecting his gambling and extravagance, and
described himself as • living paradox, to the solution of
which no pile has the clue. He was sentenced to penal
servitude for life, and on heaving his sentence he bowed
to the Omni and to some of his friends. It appears
that while in prison he had written his life, but he half
suppressed it, because, while it would give pain to
some it would do no good to anyone.
THE SENTENCE OF Jessie SPLACHLAH.—On the
of next month Jessie M'Llestlan is to be executed for
the murder of Jessie M'Pherson. For her, as far
as the law goes, there is no hope on earth. The
Glssgow jury have convicted her of a foul and brutal
murder • their verdict—rightly enough if the sentence
in itselewas just—was acoompanied by no recommenda-
tion te mercy. The judge has approved—nay, has
endorsed—the stern decision- went out of his way to
decry the notion of the prisouer's innocence; and
refused to bold out the slightest prospect of a reprieve.
The OEO9 chance for Jessie bri,aohlan lies in an appeal
. to the bar of popular opinieu—to , that tribunal of the I
publie conscience which overrides, as a supreme
authority, the letter of the law. It is an appeal which
can be made only through the Press. Iriterference
with the regular action of the law Is a power which, we
feel deeply, should not be exeradsed without grave
cause and deep consideration. But when there is a
prospect—a reasonable prospect—that the life of a
' fellow-creature is about to be sacrificed unjustly, then
Iwe are bound to speak out, frankly and fear-
toasty. The circumstances of the case is still level-tied
, in such a strange mystery, that those who have not
studied it would know almost as retch as those who
have, if they bear the following facts in mind, as the
only ones which have been proved without the shadow
of doubt. By sonie person or persons unknown the
servant woman, Jessie M'Pherson, was murdered
cruelly and wilfully; the one inmate of the house with
:the blundered woman was old Mr. Fleming; while
• some of her property was found in the possession of
Jesus M'Leohlan. The police failed to find the slightest
.due, whieli threw even a suspicion on any
• third party; , and therefore the burden of the
crime Ilse between Fleming and MM. hrLELOMEII
Upon the ehain of ;circumstantial evidence, bronght
forward by the pollee with great skill and ability,
Jessie M'Laehlan was proved to havebeen in possession
of the property Of the murdered woman immediately
after the crime , and from this conclusion the inference
was drawn that she had committed the deed. Even on
the evidence with the jury lied before them, we are
astonished how they could have found cause to pass a
verdictof guilty. The story to which, by that verdict,
they pledged their belief, presented a perfect tissue of
glaring improbabilities. They were bound to believe
that a woman of good character and hitherto unble-
mished life, • wife and a mother, with relations well-
to-do in the world, lied resolved deliberately on the
brutal murder of an old friend and fellow servant, aid
that the sole-motive of this awful crime was the desire
to get a few pounds in order to redeem some articles
from pawn. They were ealled on to believe further
that the prisoner, having resolved on this murder, told
a neighbour that she was going to the house other
victim, and should stop put late at night; that, after
the murder was committed, she rinained'•in the
house for hours, washed the 'floor, mule niPlite'fire, and
pnrletned a few 'ported's' Worth of plate and clothing,
tilt:4o4lM bile* tthe'verville time there was a man
sleeping in the next room, who might wake at any
moment and identify her as the murderess; sad, that,
finally, she pawned the stolen i 1 ita next day, and tent
off her own Uoodatained clothing iss her own name to
a place where she was known. We 'admit that the
jury would have to grapple with imprebabilitlea &sweat,
If not greater, on the bepqtbeeis that Fletnitig was the
' murderer, and that the Wane° of probability was
immensely In favetui of one of the two, M'Lachlan
or , rlemteg„ 'being the criminal, but it re-
Attires, artalnly, not a more balance of proba-
bilities and improbabilities to justify a sentence
of death. We do not envy the feelings of the Glasgow
jury when, after their verdict had been given, the pri-
soner's counsel read the, statement of the condemned
woman. Had her counsel been bold enough to defend
Jamie Ifilechlan as she wished, on the basis of bet own
, statement, no jury could possibly have convicted her
on the evidence before them. The story which was
laid before the court was wonderfully ample and
coherent. On the Friday night Mn. M'Laahlan went
up to the Flemings' house for the express purpose of
seeing Jessie bl'Elierson, though with what object she
does not state. There she found the old man sitting in
the kitohen *ith the servant. Some cross words
passed between the two, and at last Fleming asked her
to go and fetch tome drink, for which be gave her the
money. She wont out, fosind the public-houses closed,
and returned, after • short absence, without the drink.
On recntering the house she discovered that there had
been a quarrel between maid and master, and that
either in the heat of passion, er on putpe;e, Fleming
had struck Jessie with the cleaver, and seriously
wounded her on the head. According to the prisoner's
statement she will not much alarmed at the time, and
as neither Fleming nor Jessie herself wished a doctor
lobe sent for, she did not pries it. bet consented to
stop and watch during the night. Gradually the
wounded girl recovered from the stupor into which
she had been thrown by the blow, and complained that
her master had taken liberties with her, and bad then
quarrelled with her because she had threatened to ex-
pose him. The old Man meanwhile was in a terror of
alarm for fear of his character being injured, offered
both the women to make it up to them if they would
hold their tongues, got them to swear a solemn oath
on the Bible not to mention the matter, and busied
himself for hours in clearing away all traces of the
assault. Towards morning Jessie became much worse,
and the prisoner, seeing she was sinking, insisted on
fetching a doctor. Mr. Fleming positively refused to
hear of it, and at last Jessie Idlaohlen left the dying
girl's side to see if she could not leave the house and
call in medical assistance. While she was out of tho
room she heard screams, and on running back found
that the old man had killed Jessie by chopping her
with the cleaver. At first Mrs. bl'Lachlan was too
frightened for her own life to call out, and when she
had recovered her senses Fleming threatened to accuse
her of the murder if she said anything, and told her
that both of them would be suspected, and that the
best change for their escape was to make it appear that
the house had been robbed and the servant murdered
by the burglars. He thereupon gave her the plate and
the girl's clothing, and, induced by fear of being sus-
pected herself, she consented to dispose of the pro-
perty and keep silence about the crime. That the
story is strange and suspicious we grant at once. We
have little doubt it is not the whole truth about this
dark affair; hut we see absolutely no reason to stigma-
tise it without inquiry, as " a tissue of falsehoods."
The statement—the mere outline of which we have
given—is strangely detailed and circumstantial—
too much., an to have been invented by a
woman of such stupidity as Jessie M'Lachlan
must be if we are- to credit her guilt. At
any rate, it is a story which is capable of
corroboration by a rigid inquiry. Till such an inquiry
has been made, the guilt of the prisoner cannot be con-
sidered established; We ere aware, painfully aware,
that in questioning the criminality of Jessie bi'Lachlan
we are throwing suspicion on a man who, not being
tried, we are bound to consider innocent. But the
question before us, and before the public, is, not
whether Mr. Fleming is guilty, but whether the evi-
dence produced is sufficient to establish the culpability
of Mrs. hi'Lachlan. This is the one fact we have to
judge. With its possible consequences it is not ours
I to deal. "Not proven' is the only verdict which shoal
have been passed in the Di'Lachlan case; and even our
horror at a crime of almost unparalleled brutality Is no
excuse for confounding the innocent with the guilty.
ROBGED TweristoznaLs. On Wednesday Robert
Christy, who two years ago was schoolmaster at the
Fainbonrne Union House, was brought before Mr.
Darby, Mr. J. G. Dodson, M.P., Sir C. W. Blunt,
Bart., and Mr. Dunn, at the Hailsham petty sessions,
charged with uttering three forged twitimoniala by
which he had obtained the office in question. The im-
petition was discovered soon after his appolatment, and
he then absconded. He was taken into -custody on
Thursday when leaving Taunton gaol, whore he had
been eighteen months in custody on • similar charge.
Be had also, it appeared, been imprisoned for eighteen
months for the same offence, committed at Spalding, in
Lincolnshire, Mr, Barber, clerk to the guardians,
proved that he had received testimonials from the
prisoner perporting to be from the Rev. Hugh Hughes,
rector of St. John's, Clerken*ell ; the Rev. W. P.
Warburton, Winchester, one of her Majesty's inspec-
tors of schools; and the Rev. S. Clarke, principal of the
training college at Battersea. On Wednesday these
gentlemen were in attendance, and proved teat the
letters were forgeries. The prisoner made no defence,
and was committed for trial at the Sussex anise&

The "Rev." Thomas Aaron Freeman, who had
obtained several gums of money from different persons
orgthe pretense that he was about to build a new
°Sepal for himself, has been declared by the ninglistrake
at the Thames-street Polices-station to be a rogue and
vagabond according to the statute, and as such has
been awarded three months' imprisonment with hard
labour. At the police-court on Tuesday when this sen-
tence was passed a large number of tradesmen upon
whom Freeman had imposed were in attendance to
prefer charges against hiin.
POOR " PUSSEy" FALSELY AOCUSED.—On Monday,
'at the Westminster Police Court, Sarah Pressland was
charged with felony under the following circumstances,
Mr. • Thomas Ewins, wholesale wine-merchant, 54,
Bronipton-road, said the prisoner was in his employ-
ment, and during her term of service he had been con-
stantly missing bottles of spirits, eatables of various
kinds in large quantities, and numberless other things,
amongst which were four canaries, which had disappeared
one after the other, and whose loss had been attributed
to the eat, together with other things which if Was im-
possible to suppose a oat would have toaehed, On
Sunday morning, when prosecutor same down stairs,
prisoner called hum to her and said ;nether wiry had
gone, that she had just met the eat corning ont of the
kitchen with the bud in 10 mouth, while te ;upped
her statement the had broken the wires of then ago end
tia ON% IQ4). tht Am alt4fllUle

rt knit itp 15'a mit dolor-dote Wanner: She bad, how-
ever, tell day beforelhat the cat haring killed
he other IciMs this one would also disappear, upon
which, suspecting her intentions, he hail, unknown to
her, sent his cat into the country. Subseqnently be
found the bird at a neighbour's, whose little boy pri-
soner had promised it to for some time past. He then
traced other missing articles a woman of the pri-
soner's acquaintance, and ge76 the girl into custody.
She had been discharged from his service once before
for felony, but had been taken back again on her
promising to amend. Evidenoe having been given as
to °Cur robberies, prisoner, is answer to the magis-
trate, said she had nothing to say. She was then
sentential to prison for three months, with hard labour.