The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

v NEws.---It is to be feared that, notwith-
'4- days spent by Mr. Baron Chan-
"me :,IT money must
-rising out of the
`'r Lambeth
- any

standing the
veil at Chelmsford, more

fbreauspdesnatubdetoferergethrieeemeatia
ythceas'eesx-M_P.
toe
producedperceive
inhowfuture
erne
enr e b
se a st ei
et
ft
el
ee dt
0.
is
ry I
evidencethan has been produced in the case which has just
t difficult can
been heard. At the same time it is difficult to find
any fault weithte eaheexjturaryerfdoirhrey evidence submittedsitating to form any
conclusion
to them. It is clear that without the confession
d it
feen of
William Roupell his family would have
hopeless to prove that any of the suspected deeds
were forged, or to oust his innocent victims from the
property which they had fewpurchasedincOemnlyetatto
years ago this man would have been incompetent
appear in a witness box, and the persons whose for •
tunes are now endangered would have been safe at
least from his attacks. It is impossible to doubt that
the change of the law by which William Roupell
has been admitted as a witness is an improvement.
The only true principle in such matters is that no
witness or evidence ought to be excluded. The jury
or the judge should have everything before them.
The value to be attached to any particular evidence
should be left to their discretion. But, on the other
hand, in such a case as this, when a man comes
boldly forward to proclaim his own iniquities, to
explain the manner in which ho cheated, not only
his relations but a number of innocent persons, and
to tender evidence, the necessary result of which
must be to get back for his own family the property
out of which he has swindled them, it is absolutely
essential that the confessed forger should be con-
firmed in every particular. The practical result
which followed from the situation occupied by Wm.
Roupell was singular enough. During a whole week
this man waited anxiously in court, and eagerly
watched the trial in dread lest the jury should come
to the conclusion that he had been innocent of the
frauds of which he had confessed himself guilty.
The result of the trial which has just been
closed is so peculiar, and has so important a bearing
upon the case arising out of the same transactions,
that it may be interesting shortly to allude to it.
It was not until half-past 10 o'clock on Friday
night that the jury were discharged, although they
had been in deliberation since half-past 2 o'clock in
the afternoon, and although the judge had done all
he could to bring them to an agreement on the sub-
ject. It will be remembered that Richard Roupell
was the plaintiff in an action of ejectment against
Messrs. Freeman, who had lent £12,000 on two
farms in Warley, the action having been brought
in order to recover this property. It was established
beyond doubt that old Roupell, the father of Rich-
ard and of 'William, died in receipt of the rent of
this estate, and that Richard Roupell was his heir-
at-law. Now it is a maxim' of English law that
the heir-at-law is entitled to succeed to all the real
estate of which his ancestor dies seised or possessed
unless the deceased person has disposed of it either
by a wilt or by a valid deed executed during hie
life. In this case it was said by Messrs. Freeman
that the old man had disposed of it by a certain
deed, dated the 9th of January, 1856. But this fact
Messrs. Freeman were bound to prove. They were
required to show affirmatively that the deed of gift
in question had been signed, sealed, and delivered
by old Roupell. The Judge, therefore, put this
question to them—" Was the deed of the 9th of
January, 1856, executed at all by the testator,
Richard Palmer Roupell ?" Upon this, however,
the jury could not agree ; but the view which they
adopted, curiously enough, seems to have differed
from that of both parties in the cause. Richard
Roupell, the plaintiff, insisted that the deed was a
simple forgery, and William Roupell gave a de-
tailed and elaborate explanation of the manner in
which his father's signature had been forged. On
the other hand, the counsel for Messrs. Freeman
insisted that the signature was a genuine signa-
ture, and that, as the old man had often expressed
his intention of leaving his son William the pro-
perty in question, there was nothing extraordinary
in his having executed a deed of gift by which his
long expressed intentions were carried into effect. In
answer to the confessed forger and his brother, Rich-
ard, it did undoubtedly appear that the signature of
the old man was exceedingly like his genuine signa-
ture—indeed so like that a banker's clerk declared he
would have paid a cheque signed in the same way.
It was doubtful, therefore, whether there was in
fact any forgery. And in answer to the views of
Messrs. Freeman, it was said that no one had ever
heard of the execution of the deed of gift, and that
the two attesting witnesses had never seen the old
man sign his name upon any occasion, It was doubt-
ful, therefore, whether any such deed could have
been executed by old Roupell. Under these circum-
stances the jury adopted an ingenious and perhaps
true conclusion. They said, " Here is a deed which
bears a signature so extremely like that of the per-
son by whom it purports to be signed, namely, old
Roupell, that we believe the old man did write the
letters of which it is composed." This was the
opinion of some at least of the jury. In other words,
the signature is genuine. But, on the other hand,
they said, and said unanimously, that the old man
never intended to execute any such deed ; in other
words, that his signature had been obtained by
fraud. Whether his theory be true or false, it un-
doubtedly reconciles the apparent contradictions of
the ease. There are ways in which William Rou-
pell might have managed to obtain his father's sig-
nature to a document as to the contents of which he
may have known nothing; or, it is just possible that
his father may have signed a blank parchment.
This being granted, the difficulty as to the marvel-
lous similarity between the signature of the deed of
gift and the ordinary signature of the old man
vanishes. And the difficulty of accounting for the
existence of the deed of gift at all vanishes also.
But if the jury were unanimously of opinion that
the old man never did intend to execute any deed
of gift, and if even those of the jury who maintain
the genuineness of the signature are of opinion that
it was obtained by fraud, they affirm that substan-
tially the deed of gift is not the deed of the old
man, and that therefore the plaintiff and heir- ar-
law is entitled to a verdict. This is a point which
may probably give rise to future discussion. Ac-
cording to Mr. Sergeant Shee the jury did substan-
tially give a verdict for the plaintiff; according to
his rival, Mr. Bovill, they did not. l'he judge tried
in vain to compel the jury to draw the conclusion
which they were entitled to draw from the fact
found that they old man never intended to execute
any deed of the sort, but he failed in his attempt ;
for the jury boldly declared that if he were to have
them locked up until Domesday they never could
come to an agreement.
POST.--A question reappeared on Friday evening
in the House of Commons which, although its dis-
cussion led to no immediate results, is destined, if
we mistake not, to force itself, in one shape or
another, before long, upon the attention of the Le-
gislature. It is seldom that we are fortunate enough
to find ourselves in accord with the opinions of the
member for Finsbury, and still less often that we
are able to approve of the tone and manner in which
they are advocated. Mr. Cox's speech in the debate
to which we allude was, however, an exception to
the general rale. In calling attention to the sub-
ject of infanticide in England and -Wales, he struck
a chord that will vibrate to the touch in the heart
of every lover of his country. The tables of infant
mortality, in the abstract, form the most delicate
gauge which is accessible to us of the state of the
public health. The mephitic exhalations, the
poisonous miasma or the low type of vitality which
crowd our hospitals and workhouses with the adult
poor, can be detected instantly in the returns of the
infantile death-rate. If the natural ratio of this be
high, we may be quite sure that influences pernici-
ous to the public health are unnecessarily rife.
Where no disturbing causes, such as the employ-
ment of young mothers in the manufacturing dis-
tricts as mill hands, and their consequent separation
from their babies, are at work, a more infallible test
of the health of any particular locality caa hardly
be applied than the average number of deaths re-
gistered among that part of the population between
their birth and the age of two years. Latterly,
however, it has been shrewdly suspected that, espe-
cially in certain localities, there have been influences
at work which tend materially to diminish the value
of such data. It is roundly asserted that the number
of untimely deaths among children of tender years is
enormously augmented by the effects of violence, or
of a wilful neglect, which answers the purpose quite
as effectually. In other words, it is stated that a
large proportion of the infant mortality through-
out the country can only be properly classed under
the ugly heading of murder. Mr. Cox has moved
for a return, extending over 18 months, of the
number of verdicts in the case of infantile deaths
brought in by coroners' juries. The results thus
elicited are sufficiently startling. In that compara-
tively short space of time upwards of 5,500 children
under the age of two years met with untimely
deaths. Of these, 224 are returned as the victims
of wilful murder; 697 were found dead, a mere
euphemism for murder, to which juries would appear
to be partial, while in 956 casts the helpless little
creatures had been suffocated. At the head of this
ill-omened list stands unfortunately the metropolis,
in which close upon 300 children have had their
short space of existence suddenly abridged under
circumstances which leave but little doubt as to the
causes which have been at work. Now, it may rea-
sonably perhaps be doubted whether the increased
prominence which this particular crime has of late
undoubtedly obtained be not due, as Sir Geo. Grey
suggested, to the greater vigilance of the police, and
not to any augmentation in the frequency of the
crime itself. Many cases may now be subjected to
scrutiny which formerly escaped the light, so that,
especially when the enormous increase of our popu-