The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-10-31 00:00:00

THE STEPNEY MURDER.

THE murder of old MARY EMSLEY, the lonely
and penurious widow in Stepney, in its manner,
or in the motive that led to its perpetration, had
nothing tending to attract more than the ordinary
amount of attention, common to coarse and brutal
murders for the sake of plunder. The secluded
life maintained by the deceased, and her well-
knoWn unsocial, if not also unamiable, character,
were not calculated to elicit any extraordinary
amount of public sympathy for her cruel fate.
In the absence of all romance in the process of
her death, and of immediate relatives, either to
mourn her loss or profit by her demise, the catas-
trophe might have passed comparatively unnoticed,
had her murderer been at once seized, tried, con-
victed, and condmned in the ordinary course of
justice. Such is, unhappily, the present state of
society, that, if old women will lead such isolated
lives as MARY EMSLEY did, Moving in a low
sphere, and associating only with such characters
as JAMES MULLINS, the plasterer, we may ex-
pect occasionally to hear of the occurrence of
tragedies like that of the Stepney murder. The
celebrity attained by this too common-place event
has arisen mainly from the fact that from Mon-
day, the 13th August last, when the woman was
murdered, until Sunday, the 9th September, not
the slightest trace of the murderer had been
detected, notwithstanding the most unremitting
and painstaking efforts of the police, stimulated
by a promised reward of £3OO for the discovery
of any person implicated in the crime. The
public had begun to despair of any clue being
found leading to the brutal author of the
capital offence. The probability of this
outrage on life and property being added
to the already frightfully-distracting catalogue of
undetected crime, committed in the very centre
of a densely-populated district, lent a painful
and perplexing interest to the atrocious slaughter
of the aged solitaire far beyond what it might
otherwise have possessed. In this high state of
public excitement and indignation, the strange
and unparalleled circumstances which led to the
apprehension of the murderer, have surrounded
the fatal history with a halo of the marvellous,
and at the same time they have, in some degree,
tended to re-assure the popular mind of the
general truth of the old saying, that " murder
will out," thus aiding to dispel the growing idea,
fostered by too many recent escapes, that the
highest crimes might, in these latter times, be
committed with iMpunity,
Perhaps not the least noticeable fact connected
with the condemnation of MULLINS, is that of a
verdict of guilty having been secured upon such
purely circumstantial evidence; and that even of
a kind by no means strikingly convincing to the
superficial reader. It is scarcely possible to deny
that there is considerable force in the argument
for the defence, that the evidence against
MULLINS was not of such a kind as to render
it wholly impossible that seine other person than
he was the criminal. Nor is it to be overlooked
that many points in the string of circumstances
by which it was thought to establish MULLINS'
guilt are quite compatible with his innocence,
and merely help to strengthen suspicion against
him. Suspicion, however, is not proof. Then,
again, the success of the prosecution depended
greatly upon the accuracy of the witnesses who
identified MULLINS as the man seen going to and
returning from the house on and after the night
of the murder. History records so many grave
errors touching the question of identity, that we
can never help experiencing a feeling of uneasi-
ness in reviewing a conviction which mainly, or
in any high degree, depends upon it. A careful
consideration of the whole case, conducted,
as it was, so judiciously, so moderately, and
so calmly on both sides and that even
according to the convict's own confession
may lead to a safe and certain assurance of
the justice of the verdict against MuLLINs ; but
we are very much mistaken if we have not re-
peatedly seen a far stronger, and much more con-
vincing, chain of circumstantial evidence set at
nought by juries as insufficient to warrant a con-
viction. How far the minds of the jury were
influenced by the popular clamour for a victim, is
not for us to say. They may have been so
influenced, without prejudice to their oath, to
deal justly towards the prisoner. If, however,

there be any room for believing that the convic-
tion obtained in this case presents an exception
to the usual conduct of juries in such trials gene-
rally, we cannot avoid the conclusion that there
is something wanting in the process of trial by
jury, as commonly conducted, to secure our per-
fect confidence in its adequacy and efficiency as a
judicial institution.

As to the conduct of the police in this, as well
as in too many recent cases of capital crime, there
seems to be but one universal feeling of dis-
satisfaction. They have shown too frequently a
reluctance to move with energy and zeal until the
announcement of a large reward, in the shape of
blood-money ; and even then they seem to have
acquired an unfortunate facility of getting into
any track but the right one. Nay more, in this
case of the Stepney murder, even when they had
got unquestionably upon the right scent, they
would have failed to secure the evidence ultimately
in their possession, but for the most astonishing
and unprecedented infatuation of their informer
—himself the assassin. We are told that they
all along suspected MuLLINs ; but they found
nothing against him till after he had volunteered
to point out the place in which part of the
plunder had been secreted, as he said, by another.
They searched the very shed where the booty lay
concealed, and yet they failed to find it ; and had
MULLINS not been determined that they should
find it, they would in all probability have been
without the discovery to this day. There was all
the haste and bustle of an immediate and tho-
rough search of the premises by the police, even
upon a Sunday. The place was dug up, and the
walls closely examined. But not one of them
had the sharp cunning of MULLINS himself.
He v;a: 6cervtly watching their unavailing and
fruitless toil, and when they had given it up in
despair, he became so impatient and infatuated as
to step suddenly forward and tell them they had
not half searched the place. " There, pull down
that slab," were the fatal words which at once
exposed official incompetency and sealed his own
doom. The evidence subsequently procured was
scarcely avoidable, and is not such as to reflect
much credit on the professional acumen of the
detective police. Surely these facts deserve the
most serious attention. The safety of our lives
"nd nroperty, in a great measure, depends upon
the vigilance
and skill of these officers, and
;
effective measures
it is high time that UMW
'nen as
were taken to seCiire the settiteg snot.
Shall drove themselves more Worthy of the triist
reposed ha4* bf late years bestowed
much talk and spent large sums Of fithney to
secure a sufficiently numerous and well equipped
police organisation all over the country, but what
does it all avail when viewed in the light of
recent revelations of inadequacy ? Who will
undertake the herculean task of reforming and
reinvigorating a body whose effective performance
of duty is so essential to the welfare and
happiness of the community ?

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

FRANCE.
(FROM ottit OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, Oct. 29.
Nothing is yet iteOwn here,--and perhaps little
will ever be known—of the conference at War-
saw: According to some correspondence front
Berlin, the qUestion of an European congress was
not 'only mooted, biii received with a great deal
of favour ; but in other aet:binits, it is stated that
Austria finds herself in a kind of isolation; it
marked coldness being especially observable bee
tween the Austrian and Russian officers. It is
alleged that a feeling of antipathy against Austria
pervades, with few exceptions, all ranks of society
in Russia, from the highest to the lowest, and
especially the army and the personages by whom
the Czar is surrounded. It is even said that hie
Majesty, when on the point of setting out from
St. Petersburg for Warsaw, said to his aide-de-
camps who accompanied him, with a view to
counteract the bad effect which the news of the
interview had produced—.' Gentlemen : It is said
that it was I who, of my own accord, invited his
Majesty the Emperor of Austria to come to War-
saw. That is not so. The Emperor Joseph asked
to come and visit me in that city. I merely re-
sponded to an invitation which I had received.
This story may not be true, but the Russian
officers, who, by the way, are said to sympathise
immensely With the Hungarians, hope it is.
A letter from gaples, dated the 22nd, describes
the arrangements under which the annexation
vote was taken on the previous day :
Order was rigorously and wonderfully maintained by
the National Guard. On the facade of the church cof
St. Francis de Paulo might still be seen the inscriptions
in Latin, by which King Ferdinand dedicated this fine
place to the saint of this name. A little lower, between
the columns, one could read, in Italian, " Comizi del
P 0.1401.6." On the other side of the square stands the
King's Palace; which has retained its.fleur de lie, To
the left, the Fothstera.; the great palace of the Pro-
Dictator. Above, the fort of St: Elmo and its grins.
To the right, at the back, Vesuviii.q. The weather was
beautiful, the sky bright, the people itittildeeted With
joy. I shall never forget the scene.
Under the portico, however,
the scene was less pic-
turesque. The liberty of voting promisee; te every,
person was kept; but the mode of voting left a greau
deal to be desired. There was an urn between two
baskets, the one fall of si (ayes), and the other of no
(noes). The elector chose hia reply in presence of the
National Guards, and in front of the crowd. The nega-
tive answer was difficult, even dangerous, to give. -In
the quarter of Moutcalvaris a man who said "No," and
gave his vote with some degree of boasting, was punished
for it by receiving a stab with a poignard. The
assassin and the voter are at the Prefecture. I am
assured that the same system was employed in Tuscany;
it is no better than it at all events.
The foregoing is a nice sample of the mode in
which universal suffrage is practised under the
annexation system, and of freedom and purity of
election.

The Journal du Havre of the 26th gives the
following sad account of the appearance and con-
dition of the Irish prisoners taken by the Pied-
montese, and who arrived in that city that
morning :
The six o'clock a.m. train brought this morning into
our city 488 Irishmen, who were made prisoners while
fighting in the ranks of the Pontifical army, and who
were returning to their homes. They came from Genoa,
whence they embarked for Marseilles, and from that
place went to Havre by rail. The greater part of them are
fine men ; some are very young, several of them not being
more, apparently, than from 17 to 18. In general, their
aspect is sad and cold, and in their countenance Ills-
couragement is strongly marked. Some of them, when
interrogated, manifested regret at having answered to
the appeal which had been made to them, especially in
consequence of the futile result of their efforts. They
are in the greatest destitution ; their uniform—if the
heterogeneous garments which covered them can be
called by that name—a good deal resembled that of our
Croupiers. Previous to marching against the enemy, in
the plains of Perouse, where the Pontifical troops,
commanded by General Schmidt, surrendered, most of
them had not received their uniform, and it was in the
very same tattered garments in which the unfortunates
appeared in our streets that they fought with the Pied-
montese troops: However, although they are at this
moment in destitution, it is not necessarily to be inferred
that they are all unfortunate, several of them belong to
rich and noble families in Ireland (?) Some wear a
blue great coat, with silver buttons; others, the kepi a
la Francaise, and white gaiters ; some, the red trousers,
and others the blue cloth tunic, with red stripes and
yellow facings. A few wore the lace of a non-com-
missioned officer.
Another train, with 300 or 400 Irish, was ex-
pected to arrive at the same port immediately-
What a miserable business this whole affair of
the " Irish Brigade " has been. The treatment
of the men has been scandalous in the extreme,
from the beginning to the end of their career.