The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-01-27 00:00:00

THE RESPITE OF MR. WATSON.

On Friday, in last week, a long statement was
drawn up by Mr. Fraser, the Rev. John Selby
Watson's solicitor, which was sent to the Itome-office, 1
in reference to the case, praying, in the first
instance for a commutation of the capital sentence,
but not upon the usual terms in such a case that the
prisoner should undergo the sec's try pcinishment of
penal servitude, hot asking that the prisoner should not
be dealt with as a criminal at all. Mr. Justice Bytes,
who tried the prisoner, was communicated with
by the Home Secretary in reference to the cage, and
the whole of the papers in reference to it were sent to
the learned judge, with a request for his opinion re-
garding the verdict, and generally upon the case.
In answer to the memorial, a respite has been
forwarded to the Surrey County Prison for stay-
ing the execution of the Rev. John Selby Watson,
, which would otherwise have taken place on the
MSc blatant, with a view to a commutation of the
capital sentence passed upon him to penal servitude
for life. This course has been taken on the recom-
mendation lif the learned Judge before whom the pri-
soner was tried. The Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's
Bench concurred in the recommendation.
Since his conviction, the unfortunate culprit has
been closely watched night and day, and is never
left alone, there being always one of the warders
of the prison in the same cell with him. He
passes his time principally in reading Latin and Greek
works, and religious books; regularly attends chapel,
and generally has a long conversation every day
with the Rev. Mr. Jessop, the chaplain of the
gaol. Since his conviction he has not made the
slightest allusion to his crime.

" FRIFINDS.—It is stated that -Mr. Watson, since his con-
viction. has not been visited by a single person "—From
Tuesday's Times.

In connection with the efforts which have rescued
Mr. Watson from the ignominy of the scaffold, Mr.
Edgar Sheppard, M.D., writing from (Wiley Hatch,
the 23rd inst., sent the following letter to The Times:— I
It is gratifying to observe the efforts which are being
made to rescue Mr. Watson from an ignominious death,
under the belisf that he was not responsible for the homi-
cidal act which boo so shocked the community and placed
him in his present position. That those who think dif-
ferently from his apologists should preserve a silence, lest
by their out:peaking they should prejudice the merciful
consideration which may lead to his reprieve, is sic more
than might be expected. But the professional letter in The
Titers of the 19th inst. by one of the physicians employed
for the defence, which gives prominence to certain well-
known facts in connexion with " impulsive insanity," so
completely ignores others of eimM significance that I am
constrained, as one who gave reluctant but honest evidence
on the other side, to ask your permission to allude to them.
m i For it is of much importance that public opinion on a matter
of this kind should be thoroughly and severely just.

It is beyond dispute that homicidal and suicidal lm.
pulses are consistent with an alosence'of delusions and hal-
lucinations in advanced life, and are dependent upon a de-
generation of nerve-element. This degeneration may, of
coarse, be sensibly increased by over taxation of the supreme
centre of life, and volitional abeyance is, in varying degrees,
the result. But antecedent evidence of intellectual im-
pairment and affective disturbance ;if I may adopt the ex•
pression without "getting into the clouds"; is very marked
in those eases, and impulsive acts of a lesser kind (such as
breaking furniture, tearing clothes, (be.) are the accompani-
ment. Ti, the melancholic of this type life has no console-
[ion in its prospect or retrospect; self-feeling is exag-
gerated and intensified, and various abnormalities of
thought and action are apparent. An act of violence in-
volving homicide, must be preceded by other acts indicating
volitional impairment. All the recorded cases, as far as I
am familiar with this literature. evidence this. And cer-
tainly I have never beard of, and never seen in my large
experience here and elsewhere, any homicidal or suicidal
attempt without antecedent evidence of unmistakable in-
sanity. In fact, it is the suspected and ascertained-to-lie
mail who do these deeds of impulsive violeuce—sitspeeted
because of previous conduct, ascertained to be mad by
medical examinations and the imposition of legal restraints.
But it is another thing to point to a man in whom in-
sanity was never dreamt of, and of whose insanity 110
one would have been rash enough to certify, and say that
because he has committed a homicide lie is of unsound
mind... . . . .

While admitting, then, that volitional impairment may
exist, uncomplicated with delusions or hallucinations, it is
of importance to note that such a state of things is very
rare. The ordinary causes of homicidal and suicidal im-
pulses are the last-mentioned symptoms—notably halluci-
nations of hearing. Imperhus voices overpower the auto-
cracy of the will, prompting and compelling their victims
to deeds of the most destructive violence. In the four
interviews which I had with Mr. Watson I pressed him
searchingly upon this point, lie had no trace of those nor
had he, he confessed to me, at the time of committiog the
fatal deed. " Ungovernable fury," summarized and com-
pendiously expressed all that he could say about it—a fury
generateillipa verbal provocation on the part op ilia who SO
abominable that he would never utter it to a living soul.

There is another matter to which I I.ire, in the last
place, to make allusion. The question was shrewdly and
persistently put by Serjeant Perry (whose clever and tem-
perate conduct of his case cannot lie too litahly praised) to
the no-heal witnesses. 'is not absence of remorse common
after deeds of violence in the insane?" But no one asued
with wmal persistency whether there was absence of re-
morse M the prisoner. To me he certainly expressed him-
self otherwise awl I should be disposed to say that there
was a 1110.11 n, of manifested remorse (of conscious, but
unexpressed remorse who can know the depths?) consistent
with his habitually calm, unemotional, and undemonstrative
character. _

......
Novae can feel more than T do the responsibility which
attaches to an oplaion unfavourably to the unhappy subject
of these remarks. All my anxiety was to find evidence of his
Insanity : and I am sure that the Crown prosecutors would
have been equally glad could I honestly and consistently have
done so.

The importance of this subject, both in its Immediate re-
lation to the prisoner and the public and also in its bearing
upon the future in the occurrence of similar eases, must be
my apology for the length of these observations, by the in-
sertion of which in your columns you will oblige.

The Tines (in a leader on Tuesday believes the public
wili learn with a sense of relief that an out and most un-
happy man is not to be d 'livered to an Ignominious death ;
while they ciii approve the niterna:SVe the Home
Secretary has chosen. Since the soitcnce is to be commuted
V penal servitude tor life, it follows that Mr. liruce has not
accepted the plea of insanity. Had he done so, the prisoner
would of course have been treated as net gritty, and would
have been consigned to a criminal asylum. It must, indeed,
have been the wish of every one that this ileteuca could have
been entertained, for it would have been a far greater relief
to be able to believe that such shocking violence on the part
of an lig“1 clergyman was not the act of a responsible
being. There was a natural and reasonable prejudice in
Wont. of the supposition. gut the Horne Sasretary has
acted eighty in modif)ing, not the verdict, but the sen-
tence. The jury deemed Mr. Watson guilty of murder, but
wished "strongly to recommend him to Mercy ens account
of his advanced age and previous good character ;" and
this plea must find an echo in every heart. The judge ex-
pressed the universal feeling when be said to the convicted
prisoner, "Nobody who has heard this trial can regard
your case otherwise than with the deepest compassion."
There would have been something so shocking in the hanging
of an old and worn-out elen.yrnan, that nothing but the
overwhelming necessity of exacting adequate retribution for
a great crime could have reconciled public feeling to the ex-
ecution of the sentence of the law. Weakness of age com-
mands some of the clemency often extended to weakness of
sex, and taere would have been something cruel in the
spectacle oTthe hanimian executing his °lnce on a man no
bniken down. Mr. Watson had fought the battle of life with
energy, ability, and patience for fifty years. He hail hoped,
doubtless, to close his years amid the respect due to
good work, a sacred profession, anti eld lye. But he casts
it all away in one lit of passion, and ends his days among the
outcasts of mankind. Such a lamentable close to such a
career should at least be a warning that no amount of care
can be too great in cultivating habits of self-control. Mr.
Watson, according to the evidence of those who knew him
best, had acquired these habits to a remarkable degree, and
yet was at length overpowered. Ile has furnished to the
annals of oriole one of its most terrible examples ; but of
the unhappy man himself the world will always think with
the compassion of his judge.