The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-30 00:00:00

)116111_wgza AT LONDON ISIVAL.

is DlF:sleik: siW..7.7Allii—ireaTlll 1.
ith INNEDIF .411 withe 118. 1a55..... liiNaMili. lb. Ilili.

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LONDON, MONDAY, ESPY. X

TO OUR RL&DIRS.

SHOWMIC INTICLUO ENCL.

A !ate i•lttioto of the Ayres; is publiAlo.l every
erfeUOlg dorm: the ruin •0114011, couttiuing the
results of the (LAY'S MIL

Timer are few persons who could read the re-
port of the trial of Wituss Msuixev for the
murder of his wife without being "truck, first, by
the extraordinary nature of the evidence of the
witness .I...xrir Sii :rusks, and, secondly, by the
vacillation and infirmity of purpose exhibited by
the jurymen before whom the case was tried.
The evidence of SAUNtil[ll.l4, it will be remem-
bered, was briefly this : —On the morning of Sep-
tember the 2nd he left his home at about five
o'clock, and spent the early part of the day in
wandering about the town in search of employ-
ment. At about 12 o'clock noon ho appears to
hare found himself in Leg court, flreat Peter-
street, Westminster, where the accused and his
wife resided, though how he came there or why he
went there does not appear. Neither does it
come out what he had been doing since seven
o'clock in the morning, when he had an interview
at Pimlico with a man named CALI.EII., who was
instrumental in getting him some employment. It
appears, then, that SAUNIICSis entering Leg•court
at about the hour when the murder was supposed to
be committed, wont into the house occupied by the
prisoner and the deceased woman. The parlour door
was open, and the witness looked in. He saw a
man strike a knife into a woman. The man had
his beet towards the witness, and the woman
stood facing him. Having seen this stab, which he
describes as "a forward thrust with the right arm,"
the witness quietly walks away, and, merely re-
marking casually to some people who were stand.
ing about the entrance to the court that " there is
" murder going on in that court," he goes off,
and, marvellous to relate, betakes himself to a
neighbouring eating-house where he buys "Borne
" pudding" and eats it. In the course of cram-
examination this witness states that he can read
and write very imperfectly, and that " unfortn-
" nately" he had not had much time for religious
instruction. He professes, however, to have a
distinct understanding of the importance of the
evidence he has given, and to know that a
life is at stake, and depending in a great
degree on what he says. The solemn address
of the Judge himself fails to shake the
witness's statement, and the only explanation he
tan give of the monstrous fact that he actually
stood by and saw this murder committed without
interfering in the victim's behalf, is that he was
" frightened and confusA, and did not know what
"he was about." The gross insensibility of this
man, who could leave such a scene as this and go
off immediately to an eating-house, is something
which those only who are weU acquainted with the
clam to which he belongs can at all comprehend.
But this case of non-interference in a matter of
life and death is far from being an isolated one.
Any one who has had opportunities of witnessing
the conduct of the mass of which an English crowd
is composed will have observed how, in the
presence of some scene of violence or danger,
it is utterly paralysed and inactive. A few
impotent exclamations of " It's a shame,"
or, " Why don't somebody interfere f " or
" Can nobody find a policeman t " may
be heard circulating among the bystanders on such
occasions; but unless some educated person of more
than common energy is by to take the initiative,
nothing is done. When such an one comes forward,
he never has to wait for backers ; but the
crowd, with no one to direct it, is like JosaPn
Sat•Nnsr.s, " frightened and confused, and not
" knowing what it is about." We all of us re-

member the murder at the watchmaker's in Parlia-
ment-street, which occurred some years ago when
a large collection of persons stood flattening their
noses against the shop-window, witnesses of the
murder which was being committed inside. The
courage and energy that make a man ready to act
in emergencies of this sort is, singularly enough, •
rare and exceptional quality, and we think it is
hardly too much to say, that if a murderer
took it into his head to break open
his victim's skull in the Strand at
bread nointide, the neighbours would stand
by and stare, much as in another cue the neigh-
bours sat by and listened while Mr. Nosier-, in
his Northumberland-street chambers, fired pistols
at his cb' 7-piece for practice.
The astounding weakness and stupidity of the
witness J.oirrir Sirsnasa are by no means to be
considered, then, as necessarily invalidating his
evidence. That that evidence is difficult to re-
ceive there can be no doubt, just se there is no
doubt that the jury might reasonably hesitate to
give, on the strength of that evidence, • verdict
of guilty. But this is no excuse for their extra-
ordinary, and, were the use • less serious one,
their ludicrous, evasion of the responsibility
thrown on them. Curiously enough, too, it is
not on this ground of the doubtful nature of Sirs- 1
nets's' evidence that they shrink from giving their
verdict ; neither is it in consequence of the
remarkable testimony of the medical witness
that be thinks it "probable" that the wound
received by the deceased woman was self-inflicted.
Neither of these reel points of difficulty in the
ease seems to affect them ; but, on the contrary,
they are from the first of opinion that the pri-
soner was " guilty of killing his wife." That this
killing was wilful murder is the conclusion from
which they shrink, and ingenious indeed are the
subterfuges under which they seek to shelter