The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-10-09 00:00:00

THE ROAD MURDER.

OF all the mysteries that ever perplexed the
public mind and defied the most sharp-witted
and often-repeated investigations, the Road mur-
der is the most mysterious. Not only does it
challenge all past history to produce a parallel,
but it seems likely to remain for ever prominent
and unique in the calender of undetected crime.
There is unhappily nothing new in the fact of a
murderer being successful in escaping the hands
of justice. We can all remember too many
horrible instances of unaven.ged slaughter—in-
deed, the present epoch of our history seems
likely to be remembered for the frequency with
which atrocious murders have been committed
without detection. Notwithstanding this unfor-
tunate familiarity with scatheless felony of the
deepest dye, we repeat, there is something about
this Road child-murder which. causes it to stand
out in startling and bold relief—that stamps it
with the black distinction of being the most
extraordinary and the most impenetrable instance
on record of concealed criminality. It does not
stand in the same category as those cases of poi-
soning which have recently been allowed to slip
away between the fingers of detectives and
lawyers. Nor can it be ranked with those brutal
and fatal assaults, the perpetrators of which we
know to have succeeded in taking refuge abroad.
It as far exceeds the Waterloo-bridge tragedy, and
some others of that stamp of mysterious murders,
as they in their turn exceed most others. The
bare possibility of transacting such a crime as
that of the murder of the little boy KENT in the
circumstances almost exceeds credibility. In an
age which permits the publication of the most
extravagant and improbable romances, the in-
sertion of such a catastrophe in any work of
fiction would, we verily believe, have been
enough to have branded the plot with a degree of
forced and inconceivable mystification sufficient
to condemn it in the estimation of the most in-
satiable lover of the wonderful. After a four-fold
investigation, spread over part of five calendar
months, not a single discovery has been made to
indicate the fact of a murder having been com-
mitted. Had the body of the child not been dis-
covered no one could have believed it possible
that such an offence had been perpetrated. We
should have had a dozen theoretical explanations
of the disappearance of the child, but it would
have been set down as a thing impracticable and
not to be for a moment imagined that the child's
life had been taken away. As it was, the dis-
posal of the dead body, but for a very slight in-
tervening difficulty,—that of the splashboard,
which prevented it passing down into a deep and
scarcely accessible cesspool,--would have placed
it, in all probability, beyond discovery. Neither
weapon, nor stain, nor trace of anything to indi-
cate the dreadful occurrence has yet been found.
The mutilated remains of the poor boy alone
testify to the horrible fact that he was snatched
from his cot at dead of night, and cruelly and
most foully murdered within the precincts of his
parent's abode. No motive for so black a deed
can be even guessed at with any degree of confi-
dence. From every point of view, and in all its
details, the mystery is as complete as the crime
is frightful. So true is it that fact is more won-
derful than fiction.

While there seems to be but one opinion as to
the entire absence of evidence sufficient to war-
rant the committal for trial of anyone whatever,
there seems also to be an equal amount of unan-
imity as to the injudicious anyl unfortunate
processes of inquiry adopted in this case by the
several authorities. Of course there is no cer-
tainty that by any method of investigation a
more satisfactory result could have been obtained ;
but it must always be a matter of regret that any
loopholes should have been left open for the
escape of the criminal, or that anything should
have remained undone, the omission of which
appears to afford. some tangible ground for
painful reflection on the conduct of those upon
whom the public are forced to rely for the ex-
piscation of all the facts connected with crimes,
and the discovery of offenders. The examination
of ELIZABETH GOUGH, concluded the other day,
is the fourth distinct investigation instituted for
the discovery of the Road murder—the three
former having been the coroner's inquest, the
examination on the charge against Miss CON-
STANCE KENT, and the private inquiry by Mr.
SLACK. Not one of these has been complete in
itself, or satisfactory in its bearing. The coroner's
inquest was but the hasty and passing inquiry of
a day, and was concluded with a degree of
precipitancy most unbecoming in so serious and
marvellous a case. The two inquiries based on
specific accusations—first against Miss CONSTANCE
KENT, and latterly against ELIZABETH GOUGH,
necessarily excluded the accused persons
from examination, as well as all state-
ment of facts not bearing on the guilt of the
persons so charged. These examinations were
thus necessarily partial and incomplete. Mr.
SLACK'S private investigation was not only im-
perfect in as much as it did not embrace the tes-
timony of the nurse, but in its scope was altogether
unprecedented, and, if not illegal, at all events
most repugnant to our English notions of fair