The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-06-09 00:00:00

motion, it must suffice

" of our best customers," and ought to be sustained
when the misfortunes of her people are not of their

own seekinv,

Our Paris correspondent leads us to infer that
something in the shape of relief is looked for from
this good old Borough, and it is earnestly to be
hoped, that the natural anticipation of so near a
neighbour and so valuable a friend, will not be
disappointed. As for Liverpool's waiting for
- London, and all England, to take the lead on sub-
jects in which the whole community are concerned,
is an idea which cannot be too soon exploded.
We can afford to pay for the leading of our esteemed
Metropolitan brethren. It is purely a question of
pounds, shillings, and pence, whether Liverpool
shall be made to appear to have the biggest and
clearest head and the purest heart. The contents of
our commercial purse counts up to 46,000,000/ an-
nually, with a population of 400,000 persons only to
support. Compare these figures with those of Lon-
don, and the world will see which of the two great
rivals ought to take precedence of the other, in
works such as those we now venture to advocate.
The wants of the suffering French provinces are,
however, immediate, and without waiting to be led
by the nose, or shamed into the discharge of an
obvious duty, the public will expect to hear that
subscription lists have been opened for the relief
of those, among the French people, who have
just been left destitute by the visitation of GOD.
Since the above was written, we learn that the
French Consul in our town (as will be seen from
his announce in our advertising columns) has invited
his fellow-countrymen to forward to him their
subscriptions in aid of the fund for relieving the
unfortunate sufferers from this sad disaster.

As the day and hour appointed to put the con-
vict Palmer to death approaches, public opinion
becomes stronger and more divided. The awful
and eternal responsibility of taking away life,
when there is the smallest semblance of doubt
as to the guilt of an offender, weighs, in this
instance, with peculiar gravity, on the minds of
those who are the strenuous supporters of capital
punishment, whilst the philanthropists, who
form moral and religious convictions, are opposed
to the extreme penalty of the law in any case, are
so appalled at the crimes with which PALMER
stands charged. that they appear to doubt the force
of their reasoning, and shrink from giving expres-
sion, in his individual case, to those arguments
which they use against the punishment of death
under any and all circumstances. Amongst the great
masses—we here speak advisedly, as we have been
at some pains to ascertain their views—the opinion
is, that PALMER is a vagabond, and that although
his guilt has not been proved either in law or in
fact, that society will lose nothing by his being put
to death—a dangerous and untenable doctrine, to
which we will advert anon. While these several
opinions engross the peoples mind, allusion is
universally made to the course pursued by the
ATTORNEY-GENERAL with regard to the medical
witnesses brought up for the defence, and that sub-
sequently followed by the JUDGE in summing up.
Doctor LETELERBY, whose testimony had been relied
on by the Crown for years, whose practical skill
and unblemished character were thought all-
sufficient to justify the execution of other crimi-
nals, and to obtain a respite for two persons
charged with similar crimes, was on this occasion
not treated with the respect which he commanded
during years of semi-official life.
With respect to the summing up, the novel
feature which has excited the most general animad-
verson, is the fact that the JUDGE did not go
through the evidence as it came before the bench.
The evidence, which the JUDGE style "
commenced with the examination of Coon and
PALMER'S visit to Shrewsbury, and what took place
at the Raven-hotel—the summing up with a dis-
tinct reference to a subject—forgery—not before
the court and the charge to the jury, with a review
of the pecuniary difficulties of a man who had been
living for years by the most disreputable practices
of the turf—betting without adequate means to pay
losses. These degressions, from the established
line of procedure, have created a wide-spread sym-
pathy for the accused and sentenced man, and
coupled with the conflicting character of the
medical and chemical evidence brought forward,
there are thousands in this district, who, although
they do not feel satisfied of PALMER'S innocence,
and would hang him and every other man found
guilty of murder, are desirous of seeing a respite
granted, in order to give time to clear up all those
points of his case which are manifestly open to
doubt, and fit subjects for further and closer

investigation.
The few short minutes in which the jury arrived
at a verdict, after a ten days' trial, is another
matter which has excited universal attention. All
those who have waded through the daily reports
of the trial, as they appeared in an abridged form
in the newspapers, and those who have seen the
evidence as printed in extenso, in two ponderous
volumes, cannot help expressing their amazement
at the ready manner in which the jurymen must
have prepared their notes to have enabled them to
decide on PALMER'S guilt within a couple of hours.
We have devoted ten days to the study of those
voluminous reports, and yet we are wholly inca-
pable of offering the most vague opinion as to the
guilt or innocence of the prisoner ; and we are
not prepared to admit that those who were in court
and heard the entire case, were at all likely to be
enabled to form a more hasty judgment than those
who read the arguments for and against, on a
question of life and death. But without pretend-
ing to set up our humble abilities against those of
the jury, and without wishing to impugn the dis
interestedness and correctness of their verdict,
we may observe that we are not singular
in our mental weakness. Lord CAMPBELL
seems to have shared the inability we feel
and confess, for the learned Lord's sum-
ming up reads more like an allegory than a careful
resume of the evidence adduced on both sides, and
his charge to the Jury a sort of hieroglyphical
picture which commences with the portrait of a
swindler before the murderer, and the specific
crime of which he is accused are brought promi-
nently forward.

These are the principal phases in PALMER'S case,
which have led to the change which has taken
place in the public mind, in favour of an extension
of time, to allow the medical men and chemists
employed on,the trial to reconcile their many wide
differences, not as to matters of theory, but as to

matters of fact. By respiting the prisoner for one
month, nothing can be lost to the safety of society.

Death will be as terrible, and the work of the laws
retribution as full of justice on the 14th of July, as