The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-02-08 00:00:00

UNCONVICTED PRISONERS.

The calm and dispassionate statement of Dr.
Hesse!, following on his acquittal on the most
serious charge that can be brought against any
ULM, opens up some very grave considerations
in reference to our legal jurisprudence. Let us
endeavour fairly to look at the whole case. It
has been maintained that the doctor ought never
to have been arrested at all. There is nothing
to substantiate this position. Two persons
%%ere taken from London to Ramsgate avowedly
for the purpose of identifying a man accused of
the murder in Great Coratu-street. The custom
of the police authorities is, and it is a very proper
custom, to place the suspected person among a
number of others, and then to admit Vie person
or persons who think they can identify a
suspected man. Dr. Hessel voluntarily placed
himself among a number of others, the suspected
person being one, and, strange to say, the two
men who professed to be able to identify the
supposed murderer, p4ss.,cl over the suspected
min (WllO is ai innocent as the doctor), and
pointed out Dr. Gessel as the presumed criminal.
On such testimony as .this the police did but
their duty in arresting the doctor; bat from this
point till his acquittal and liberation he was
most unjustly treated, though we would carefully
except his actual trial. The trial itself was fair
enough, as indeed it may be said all our trials
are. But we have only to examine Dr. Hessas
truthful statement to see that in all respects he
was unfairly treated and with unnecessary harsh-
ness.

The theory of our jurisprudence is that till a
man is convicted he must he presumed to be
innocent; but the fact is that there is a medium
stage between innocence and conviction, and
that is the stage of beiug accused, and that
occuaed persons are treated HS if they were pre-
sumably guilty. Dr. Hessel's statement clearly
shows this, so far as facts are concerned, what.
ever Our theory may be. Let us note a few of
these facts. We learn from this narrative that,
on being singled out by two witnesses of whom
we can ecucely trust ourselves to speak, Dr..
Hessen] assertion of an alibi was not at once
acted upon, although inquiry into this must
have resulted, one would think, in his immediate
liberation, but that the doctor was locked up all
night in the Town Hall of Ramsgate, a police-
man remaining in the room all this time with
the accused and his devoted wife. Time next
day he was delivered over to the London police,
and taken to the metropolis, the assertion of an
alibi being all this while repudiated without in-
quiry. After being formally charged with the
crime, before the magistrate at Bow-street,
where all the Government criminal prosecutions
are commenced, Dr. Hessel was placed in a cold,
dark cell, despite his being in very poor health
at the time, and merely convalescent from a very
serious illness. Light was only admitted to this
cell by an open door, always guarded by a police-
Olin; in adjoining cells there wero ehriekiug
women and noisy men ; and the doctor was in-
debted to the gaoler for evidently exceptional
kindness, which did little to relieve his miser-
able position. There is something straugely
harsh in our law when it is found that on the
accused urging that the evidence as to the alibi
should be at once produced, his own counsel
tells him that " this could not be I" Why ?it
,nay be reasonably asked Besides other in-
dignities, the chapiain was taken to the House
of Detention in the police van, the people his-
cog him as he passed. Here he was treated
with increased severity. He was placed in a
little cold cell; was stripped naked, to be exa-
mined; everything he possessed, including the
potograpn of his wife, and his own wedding-ring
(according to the German custom), had to be
given up; he was numbered as though he were
a convict, and as a convict was he treated
turoughout,having to eat everything with a large
wooden spoon or with his flagers, for fear he
should commit abide. Even a pocket-bandker-
°did was denied him with a coarse laugh. Every
hour through the night he had to respond the
regulation "all right" to a warder; and as a set-
off to all this, and munch more, there was but one
act of bare justice—the prisoner was every day
allowed to confer with his counsel.

Probably not one person who ;Wads this state-
ment will maintain that this is fair and just
treatment towards a wrongly accused and uncon-
victed Ulan. On Li, point the opinion of Mr.
H. F. ‘Vooiryca, furiurny chaplain of Maidstone
maul, is imp ,?....4iit subt vauttble. After relating
OOi Oi 1118 0,11 vxperience, and pointing out
th. ; 00000 sAiry har,oines to,.vards untried men,
urges Lost More should be in en,li as acts
of cells re,irmbling ordinary cliamberA, with
dcceut cli.iii, cocoa-ant matting, a fireplace and
wardsmeu chosen for known civility of demean-
mr ;so that the prisoner gliould have nothing to
hoaat out found guilty and if proved innocent
. . .

1,..u1d feel th,t, lo fi4ti been fairly treated;
lie diet should he given in a fair and just
ri,, according to pre .ious labita. Such a re-
fhrin would be easy end inexpensive, and is itu-
p iratii.e]y deimintled in the interest of the on.
:vied, whether innocent, or criminal. To the
former such treatment it cruel and unjust hard-
ship ; to the latter it is the administration of
punisomeot before the proof of guilt. It is sad
to think what an immense amount of injustice
is thus done in the aggregate. Dr. Dossers
C 530, as it ultimately turns 00, will be a case of
cry miirl injustice compared to that of inatty
0: ours. He will be compensated both by Govern-
taunt and by public subscription for all the
wrung he has suffered, so far as money can do
this. But how many innocent persons have
iffered similar hardships and indignities for
whim' no money is raised, and who leave their
prisons to feel for ever afterwards how great a
mockery is our legal maxim, that a man is pre•
smiled to be innocent till he is found guilty!