The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-08-24 00:00:00

THE VAUXHALLLROAD

DOES any one doubt that ANN JAMES was mur-
dered ? As reasonably might it be doubted that
antimony is a deadly poison: The felonious act
Of aceelerating a natural disease; and hurrying it
oil tuatital- terininatiCti; it every Whit es much
a murder as if death had been inflicted by the
etroke of -a hatchet.- Nay, more ; the former is,
if hnything; the fouler murder of the .two. An
attenipt-Was Made iy the conneel for the accused
to show that it had not been proved that the
poison had actually accelerated her end, but only
that it Might have done so ; that it had merely a
"tendency," not a "liability." Everybody, how-
-670., must concur with the learned Judge, when,
in summing up, he said : "He thought there
could be no doubt that the woman's death had
been accelerated by antimony." The only ques-
tidn; that remains to be settled—for it is
still, tinforttinitely; iiriansWetedis; who put the
antimony into the sago totlild tit Mrs. JAMES'S
bedside on the 10th. of June ? It was not—ccad
not—have been the deceased herself. ..There is
no room for supposing it got there through any
accident: Neither was it the work of a stranger.
••• , • •
We kno* eiaetly the names of the only parties
who possibly could have done
Two persons admit that they prepared sago for
the deceased, on the evening of the ninth, or
morning of the 10th, of June. Mrs. CAFFERATA
Says she prepared one cupful before going to bed,
and WINSLOW says he prepared another at five
in the morning. Mrs. CAFFERATA swore that
Mrs. JAMRS did not leave any of the sago which
she had cooked, atid that she Wined and Oft away
the cup she had used. The servant, MARGARET
HIGGINS, swore that at half-past eight in the
morning she removed and finished the contents of
a cup of sago. which was then warm, but that there
was a second cup, containing cold sago, which she
allowed to remain on the table untouched. This,
according to HIGGINS; would be the cup found by
the police; containing antimony. There is some
difficulty about the staterneiii of HiGGi-Ns, that
the sago she took away was warm. If it was
part of the quantity prepared by WINSLOW at
five o'clock,, we must believe that a common tea
cup standing on an open place will keep sago
w'arm for about four hours. Is that likely—or
e4eri possible l If it *fig not; and could not have
been warm, why did she remove one cup rather
than the other ? HIGGINS' statement and that of
CAFFERATA'S about the tea and egg, and in other
respects, are inconsistent with, if not flatly con-
tradictory to, each other, and One or other of these
witnesses must, to say the very least of it, have
been labouring under a most extraordinary del-
Sion; if riot something more. To suspect either
of them of falte s'earin'g were to implicate one
or other as guilty of the poltddidigi or as acting in'
concert with. its author. Is it unreasonable for
us to ask what motives could have induced the
one or' the other to conceal or Misrepresent the
truth ? la frs. CAFFERATA'S case it could only
have been to conceal her own giffit bltthere is not
the slightest ground for supposing that she ad-:
ministered the poison, or had any motive for
destroying her aunt's life. In the case of the
servant, the only motive likely to mislead her
would seem too` have been that 'of shielding' her
roaster rita ediiiitig his giatitttde by saving him
from the gallOvis. We irripie lio motives to'
anyone, nor do we pretend to judge the case ; we
merely p-eint out" the unsatisfactory -stare-a-this-
important part of the evidence.

As to the motive which led to the perpetration
of this crime there seems to be but little doubt.
Mrs. Shtg was murdered by some one who
hoped thereby more speedily ter obtain possession
of 0 Much, at least, of the deceased's property.
It viraS shanclantly preVed that such a motive
e'
nzigitt have had a Place in Wirtslow's mind and
it does not appear that it could have existed in
the mind of any other of the parties, wh ;dlotie
had it in their power to piit the antimony
into the sago found on the 10th of /line.
We are not, of course, entitled to infer
from this fact alone that WiNsLow's hand
did then acififinisttt that antimony ; hui the- fact,
so far as it goes, is most impo'rterit, As to the
verdict of the jury, whereby the prisoiiet has
been set free, we have no complaint, for un-;
doubtedly an important link of the chain of
evidence necessary to form guilt was wanting—
namely, evidenea that WiNsLow had been traf-
ficking with, and been recently possessed Of,
antimony ; for iVe cartniot for a moment credit
the titisitrdivtold story of his having been seen
sprinkling white powder upon tread and butter
for the deceased. The verdld of "not guilty"
of course means no more than that the evidence
was legally imperfect and incomplete. It does
not clear away any suspicion, or assert the
prisoner's. Ifffrooence; and if we have still reason,
to fear that the gttilty has been set free, it is
better that one murderer should go unhung than
that we. should run the risk of executing an
innocent man.

Thus murderers of the blackest type now walk
abroad and mingle freely in society, in open
L defiance of all law and justiee. The Richmond
poisoner lives ; the Canada Dock assassin is un-
known and unsuspected; the poisoner of Mrs.
JAMES (whoever that may mean) is at liberty ;
the Road murderer escapes detection; and the
Stepney miscreant is still undetected. One might
almost be excused for giving way to fear and
mistrust in taking food froni the hands of our
warmest friends, and some may even tremble in
retiring to rest, in the knowledge of such guilty
monsters being at large, and such atrocious crimes
so frequently baffling the keenest and most sharp
Witted investigation. When the most foul and
enormous crimes may be perpetrated with impu-
nity, life is felt to be less safe from the assassin.
A. feeling of personal insecurity must gain ground
even in the strongest minds; while the nervous and
feeble must' thereby be seriously unsettled; if not
altogether unstrung. Such a state of matters strikes
at the very roots of society, rolls.back the tide of
civilisation, and reduces us to a state akin to
savage life. We can understand that those living
under the sway ofthe King of Dahomey feel them-
selves daily exposed to sudden or secret slaughter.
If wandering unprotected, like GORDON CUMMING
or Dr... LIVINGSTONE, among the wild tribes of
Central Africa, we might lay our account for the
chance of being murdered, with the probability
of justice never being able to track the guilty
and avenge the crime. But we are not prepared
in this country, and at this time of day, quietly,
and as a matter of course, to submit to such a
disastrous state of things. What has come of the
-much-vaunted skill and penetration of our police
and detective force, that,so many great crimes are
permitted to remain so many great mysteries?
What are men of science doing that, in every
case of murder where their evidence is essential,
there seems an inevitable amount of contradiction
and uncertainty in their views P What an affront
to our whole system of criminal jurisprudence
and legal administration, which annually costs us
such an enormous sum of money, that the law is
now-a-days so frequently cheated of its proper
victim ? There is clearly something wrong some-
where, and the sooner we set about discovering
and remedying it the better for the suppression of
crime, the preservation of life, and the general
well-being of society. -

EtTAL ACCIDENT.---About three weejfs, ago? a man
named Thomas Stuart, 23 years of age, who was engaged
at Messrs. M'Fie's sugar house, fell by accident into a
pan of liquid, and was severely injured. die died y,este'rr
day from the effects.