The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

SATURDAY,

will never get farmers and tradesmen to intrust him with the care of
horses, cattle, or money, while other servants are at hand. Let him be
as penitent as possible, he who has done nothing to repent of is still
the better man. In a third letter in the same journal, will be found
some useful hints on the subject of new penal settlements. Portions
of British North America are stated to be available for the purpose, as
containing most of those qualifications which we more than once
enumerated as desirable in any country selected for this purpose
There seems to be no reason why Borneo should not be
made use of in a similar manner. Except New Holland, it is
the largest island in the world, its soil tolerably fertile, and the inhabit-
ants hopeless, brutal, and savage.

The murderer of Mr. LITTLE still stalks abroad as free as air. The
authorities have tried everything but publicity in their proceedings,
and have failed, as a matter of course. Even clairvoyance, resorted to
in all that despair which catches at a straw, has apparently produced
nothing but a remarkable mesmeric effect upon the officials them-
selves. To theta a clue is no clue. They find a razor and a mallet,
stained with the blood and clotted with the hair, of the murdered man.
They find, or rather it is found fur them, a bag of the stolen silver;
but to them these things are but razors, mallets, bags, and nothing
more. Whence comes this obtuseness ? So horrible a murder, com-
mitted in any other part of the United Kingdom, would never have
remained undiscovered, or at least untraced, forty-eight hours. In
Dublin the police authorities have been as many days, and can trace
nothing, can offer no solution of the horrible mystery, and though
they suspect, possibly suspect in the wrong place, for they arrest
two or three innocent persons one after the other, and are
compelled, when it comes to the point, to own that they
have not a tittle of evidence to offer against their prisoners.
This is neither an original nor ingenious mode of assuring the public
of the zeal and active energy of the force, and is strangely inconsistent
with the boast their authorities make that they know the murderer. If
they know him, why in the name of common sense and common
honesty do they not arrest him at once, instead of apparently following
up every cock-and-bull story? If this is detective finesse, it is not
very commendable, and upon this point we may offer a few remarks.
How is it in the case of Mr. HARRINGTON, lately arrested on the charge
of the murder, and dismissed for want of evidence, that at the last
examination there was no counsel for the Crown present ? At least
some official should have been there, if only to elicit the quantity of
perjury committed upon the occasion. The fact is, the Government
authorities have displayed throughout. the whole business a lamentable
want of tact and management, and have exhibited rather a notice-
able indifference to the conduct of the inquiry. With respect
to the real culprit, though rumour is rife, and the police,
to shield their distressing want of the commonest sagacity, boast of
what they know, it is probable that the murderer is just as safe from
discovery as he was a week since. One little, though important, fact
we may mention en passant. Previous to the discovery of the bag of
silver at the station, an order had been issued for the clearing out of
all the tanks. A few hours after the issue of the order the bag
was found soaking wet, hidden in a hamper This, to stupid minds
like our own, would indicate a possibility of the murderer actually be-
longing to the railway establishment itself. The Dublin police, how-
ever, see nothing in it.

The gallows is bravely swinging out the old year. Jack Ketch
has enjoyed the merriest of Christmases. He strung up MARLEY
one morning, JACKSON at Chester the next, and finished his
Christmas week by turning off three Sicilians at Winchester. Then, by
way of ushering in the new year with due solemnity, he will in a few
days have the pleasure of attending an entertainment of a similar sort
at Maidstone, where the convicts REDANIES and MANSELL now lie
awaiting the carrying out of the sentence of the law ; and from them he
will possibly make a brief, but brilliant, tour in the provinces,
where his services will certainly be engaged. Sir GEORGE GREY seems
to have come to the conclusion that hitherto having shown an unwise
leniency, he would hang as many as he could catch to make up the
annual deficiency. His determination to admit of no extenuating cir-
cumstances is remarkable. Although in the case of CELESTINA
SOMNER, who showed such method in her madness as to put on an old
dress previously to cutting her child's head off, he found peculiar cir-
cumstances to justify a remission of the sentence of death, he could
find none to save that wretched boy of eighteen, BARBAALO, at Win-
chester, of whom his confederates, in the agony of a coward confes-
sion, said that he was dragged into the piratical conspirac:: on board
the Globe by their persuasions, and compelled to aid them by their
threats. A boy of eighteen is not usually a hardened ruffian and a
confirmed cut-throat. That discretionary power once so freely exer-
cised by the Home Secretary might have been permitted influence here.
But no, Sir GEORGE GREY was inexorable to all reprenentations; he saw
no extenuating circumstances in the case ; and this wretched boy, a
mere tool in the hands of his villainous confederates, met with them one
punishment. It may be a question whether the large discretionary powers
invested in the Home Secretary are not altogether wrong in principle. It
certainly does not insure that, due administration of justice we desire.
At least, it has not in the case of Sir GEORGE GREY ; for last year he
had a fit of humanity, and would hang no one, while this year a vio-
lent reaction appears to have seized him, and he hangs everybody he
can. catch. The execution of that boy ou Tuesday last was positively
inhuman.

DECEMBER 27, 1856.

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roof which we do

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