Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

the beginning to the close of his speecl4 it would have
been difficult for any reporter to have lost either
his words or his meaning. As he proceeded, his voice
swelled louder and louder ; his right hand, which at first
was laid uporr the table, was waved in, demonstration to
the jury ; his eye-glass was occasionally raised to his
eyes, as he read some portion of a letter, to show the
devoted love which the prisoner bore to L'Angelier ; and
his lips projected in contemptuous scorn when he spoke of
the man who could betray her. Without following
the Lord Advocate very minutely into all the cir-
cumstantial evidence which the latter had adduced, he
struck boldly at the principal points of the accusation, and
argued that they were, in the circumstance, incredible.
The eye-glass being found inconvenient, a p air of spectacles
were substituted. EVery word was emphatic ; every
sentence was delivered in a powerful and deliberate
manner, which chained for the time the mind of his
anditors into a feeling that it was utterly impossible that
he could be in the wrong. As he advanced, he became
more vehement in his language, more excited in manner,
more filled with loathing and' horror at the wickedness
of the man through whose vile agency "a gentle, pure,
and affectionate girl, the pride of her father's family,"
had fallen so low as to be capaNe of writing . these
painful and disgusting letters, and then attempt to use
them against her as an engine of terror and oppression.
His emotion,inereased as he realto the jury, in quivering
tones, the despairing letter of the 10th of February. It
was in the last half-hour, however, that his eloquence
became irresistible, and carried all before it. Every muscle
of his face, every gesture of his hands, every motion of his
tall and commanding figure, every tone of his deep and
powerful voice, told part of the story. It would be utterly
impossible foe one who merely reads his speech,
to comprehend the influence which it appeared
to exert on the minds of those who heard it,
wnen deprived or the auxiliary power of his almost
irresistible manner. Perhaps the most telling part
of the whole was his introduction of the story of Eliza
Fenning, and the warning which he drew from it.: while
the solemn and awful appeal with which he concluded
thrilled through the souls of all in court, and will be
remembered by theca to their dying day. If the jury had
c msulted immediately, the result could hardly have been
doubtful. After an• attempt at applause, which was
instantly checked, and a brief resting-time, the Lord
Justice Clerk commenced his charg3. At first, while the
echo of the eloquent words to which the court had just
listened, had hardly died away, their power appeared to
have extended to the bench; but as his lordship proceeded
with the recapitulation of the evidence, their influence was
lost.—Caledonian Mercury, of Friday.

The dead man L'Angelier is not one whose fate there
is any need to commisserate. His conduct to one who
had been his victim was base and unmanly in the last
degree, and can only be excused on the ground stated by
the Lord Advocate, that by the law of Scotland an irre-
gular marriage might be held to have taken place, and
that L'Angelier had a right to consider Madeline Smith
as his wife, and to prohibit her union with another man.
That the jury shouid declare the crime " Not Proven" is
hardly surprising ; for the circumstances are as
mysterious as any that have ever b =en related in a
court of justice. If on the one hand the prisoner pur-
chases arsenic, and thinks of her complexion for the first
time when she is distracted with terror respecting her good
name, on the other hand she buys it so openly that a
juryman might well think her conduct incompatiable with
a murderous intention. In her first letter, after the
purchase of the arsenic in February, she tells her lover
that " I am taking some stuff to bring back the colour."
Of course, the prosecution look upon this as a proof
of consummate cunning; the defence declare it to
be a corroboration of the prisoner's statement. If
L'Angelier indeed poisoned himself he must have been the
most extraordinary of men ; for he not only makes two
unsuccessful attempts, and goes to the country for his
heall afterwards, but he relates how he was made ill by
his paramour's chocolate, says jokingly he would forgive
her even if she were to poison him, and a month afterwards,
just before he is supposed to poison himself, he tells his
friends he is going to Blythswood-square, and
actually loiters in the neighbourhood for the purpose of
making the world believe that he is poisoned there. Was
L'Angelier likely t ) commit self-murder, and in such a
manner as wilfully to bring on Madeline Smith the sus-
picion of the deed ? These questions are now beyond
human investigation. The jury by their verdict have de-
clared their inability to decide. In this verdict we must
concur ; yet we see no reason for the cheering and the
manifestation of joy which greeted it. AlNdeitne Smith
goes forth free from the penalties of the law—that is all.
—Tin cs.

Tae nature and effect of this vard;ct appears to be as
follows. In Scotland, as in Er gland, a criminal trial is
a " wag-'r of law." The prosecutor undertakes to con-
vince a jury that the accused is guilty ; the accused, to
satisfy the jury that he (or she) is innocent. The jury
are not expec ed to do more than express the conviction
produced on their minds by the statements of the witnesses
and the arguments of the lawyers. Their conviction
may be such as they would find it dfficult to assign
a reason for ; still it is held to be conclusive as to the
facts. In England the jury aro called upon to declare
distinctly either that they hold the accused guilty or that
they hold him innocent. The more considerate law
of Scotland mak,:s allowance for that neutral state of
mind in which plain, unprofessional men may have
an impression of the accu,ed's culpablity too strong
to admit of their conscientiously declaring him inno-
cent—too weak to admit of their incurring the responsi-
bility of exposing him to punishment. In this case they
are allowed to have recourse to the temporising declaration
—" not proven." Of this privilege the Jury on Miss
Madeleine Smith have availed themselves, and the rather
tantalising result of a protracted inquiry is simply this :
—That L'Angelier died of poison, but not of poison ad-
ministered by himself ; that sufficient evidence has not
been obtained to carry home conviction to the guilty,
though suspicions have pointed strongly in a certain direc-
tion.—Daily News.
The Lord Advocate declared that in this case " there
was not a link wanting in the evidence ;" that " there was
no loophole at which the unhappy prisoner could escape."
Such was certainly not the opinion of the legal profession
in this country, nor, as we are informed, in Scotland.
And that was rather reckless language to be used by the
first law officer of the Crown, in a case of life and death ;
it was language which should hardly be used if the case
was clear and cogent. But was this such a case ? The
case of a girl, accused of poisoning her lover—a man who
was not proved to have been with her on the fatal occasion !
Circumstantial evidence must often be resorted to, and
inferences must be drawn from fads. But the inference
of guilt must arise from the facts proved. And here—
even if the man had been seen at the house on that night
—the reception of the poison could only have been an
inference. Teen, however, it would have been an inference
from a fact ; here it was sought to make au inference upon
an inference—nay, rather against the facts. For the evi-
dence rather tended to show that he was not there on that
night—at any such hour as was supposed; or that if he
were, she could not have seen him. Was this a case to
characterise as one in which there was not " a link want- I
ing," and in which there was no " loophole for escape ?"
We rejniee that the Jury thought otherwise.—Morning
Herald. --
The case against Miss Smith, legally considered, was
lame and defective in the extreme. That she desired to
be oat of the power of L'Angelier, and married to her
other admirer, was perhaps established. It was proved
that,. at dates corresponding with the illness of the de.
ceased, she had bought arsenic for some unknown and as
yet. ill•explained purpose. Tne arsenic bought at one
shop was coloured with soot, and that at another with
indigo. There was an entire want of proof of administra-
tion. Drs. Christisoa and Penny, while they looked for
and found arsenic in the stomach, neither looked for nor
found scot or indigo. Although seen in the neighbourhood
of Miss Smith's house 'it half-past nine p.m. on Sunday
night, there is no proof of his having had an interview
with her. From that hour till Ito was found in agony and
weakness at two a.m. next morning, he is not accounted
for. There is a great chasm in the evidence. The pre-
siding judge pointed this out. The jury acted upon this
conviction.--Vorning Post.

There will be no disposition, we imagine, either north
or south of the Tweed, to question the propriety of the
verdict delivered in the case or Madeline Smith. Legally,
that verdict sets the young lady free, to catch more men—
if she can. Moran;, upon any supposition, she is any-
thing rather than Innocent. The conduct of which her
own handwriting reveals her guilt is such as should
consign her, if law could always execute justice,
to a long period of penal or penitential seclusion.
Her own letters left no mystery as to a secret which
ended in becoming au illicit intercourse, characterised
on her part from the beginning, and before what is by
eourtesv called seduction had taken plane, by a degree of
abarideßment of the modesty of her sex, which rendered
p'.gtirns of them unfit to be read in court. It is very
I furious, as the Lord Justice Ciort observed, that the first