The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The magistrates of Derbyshire have re-
plied in a spirited letter to Sir G. Grey's commu-
nication of January 8, and urges the propriety of a
further inquiry into Townley's case. A grave protest
of this kind from a responsible body charged with
judicial functions is a very different thing from
noisy allegations of partiality and injustice. We
are willing to give the Home Secretary due credit
for resisting the poplar clamour against the execu-
tion of Wright. The petitions on his behalf, though
nominally founded on the merits of the case, were
notoriously inspired by an illogical notion that, un-
less Wright were spared Townley ought to have been
hung. The truth was there was no similarity
whatever between the reasons alleged in mitigation
of the two sentences. Both murders, it is true, were
committed in a fit of passion, though Townley's
crime was probably the more deliberate of the two;
but the plea of insanity was raised in the one, and
never suggested in the other. This fact alone con-
stitutes a broad and impassable distinction, but a
far more important difference remains to be stated.
Sir G. Grey had, or believed himself to have, no
discretion as to respiting Townley; while in com-
muting the sentence of Wright he must have acted
on hie own sole responsibility , contrary to theopinion
of the judge. In declining, therefore, to flinch from
the performance of a most painful duty, and still
more in silencing with becoming dignity the hints
of mob law which mingled with appeals for mercy,
he deserved the respect if not the gratitude of the
public. It remains to be seen whether he will show
equal firmness in dealing with the wholly indepen-
dent and still more difficult question now submitted
to him. That question is in substance whether the
reprieve of Townley is to be considered final, or
whether his sanity, and consequently his liability to
capital punishment,is still a proper subject for inves-
tigation. In support of this conclusion the Derbyshire
magistrates allege several arguments of very un-
equal force. They object, first, to the Report of the
Commissioners in Lunacy, not on the ground that
these gentlemen were deficient in any qualification
for their office, but because their proceedings were
ex parte and secret. Why, they ask, should an
inquiry affecting life and death be less public than
one which concerns property only ? To this it
might be answered that the defect, if any, is in the
law, and that Sir G, Grey did not employ the Com-
missioners as judges, or even as assessors, but'only as
the advisers of his own conscience. It is needless,
however, to dwell upon this point, for although one
passage in Mr. Waddington's first letter would
seem to imply that the removal of Townley to
Bethlehem was consequent, in some degree, upon
the Commissioners' Report, a reference to the Re-
port itself shows that a contrary decision would
have been justified by it. The Commissioners,
speaking psychologically, " cannot consider him to
be of sound mind ;" but they expressly observe
that he acted throughput quite consistently with his
depraved views of right and wrong, " and with a
full sense of what they involved." They record
their deliberate opinion that he was justly convicted
at the trial under the rule of law laid down by
Baron Martin, and that any slight difference that
has been remarked in his mental state since the
conviction has been an improvement. We think
the magistrates are fully entitled to quote this docu-
ment as a confirmation of their own view, and that
for the present purpose they can well afford to waive
any exception to the Commissioners method of pro-
cedure. The next issue which they raise is far more
serious and practical. Granting that the Home-
office acted, not on the recommendation of the Com-
missioners, but on the certificates signed under the
Act 3d and 4th Victoria, cap. 54, how far were
these certificates valid, and what is their legal
effect ? It may be true, as the magistrates state,
that the second of these certificates, being forwarded
from Derby after the order of respite had been re-
ceived, cannot have been the motive which pro-
duced that order. This may throw a doubt upon
Mr. Waddington's accuracy, but does it impair the
validity of the certificate itself as an authonify for
acts afterwards done in pursuance of it? The sta-
tute says that it shall be lawful for two Justices of
the Peace, with the aid of two physicians or sur-
geons, to inquire into the insanity of a prisoner, and
Unit it they shall duly certify his insanity it shall be
lawful for the Secretary of State to direct him to be
removed to a lunatic asylum. These conditions
were fulfilled when the second certificate came into
Sir George's hands, and though the reprieve may
have been sent off on receipt of the first, the only
question now is whether the warrant for his con-
finement at Bethlehem was subsequent to the receipt
of the second. Such being the true bearing of this
matter, we may pass over the alleged technical flaws
in the first certificate—viz., its being dated on a
Sunday, and its being signed by borough magistrates
who had no jurisdiction in a county gaol. We
doubt whether either objection could be sustained,
but if the Home Secretary takes his stand on the
second certificate, neither can arise ; whereas, if
both were set aside,
it would still be possible for
Townley's friends to procure a third. Nor can we
go into the circumstances tending to show that the
certificates, or either of them, could never have been
procured had the object of them been known to the
visiting justices, and to one of the medical men who
signed them. We entirely believe, and have always
believed, that Townley owes his hairbreadth escape
to the adroitness of his solicitor—in other words, to
" means accessible to the rich, but inaccessible to the
poor." It is an advantage of which those who can
command money and possess devoted friends cannot
be deprived; all that the law can do is to see that it
is not abused. In our judgment, the magistrates suc-
cessfully dispose of the precedent of Clarke, which
Sir G. Grey adduced to prove that no such in-
equality could exist. What they have not done is
to exhibit clearly the strongest ground upon which
their demand for a fresh inquiry me: be rested.
The same Act, and the same section, vitich pro-
vides for the detention in a lunatic asylum Pf a
criminal found to be insane after his conviction
prescribes also the limit of that detention. He is to
remain in custody " until it shall be duly certified
to one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State,
by two physicians or surgeons, that such person has
become of sound mind, whereupon the said Secre-
tary of State is hereby authorised . . . to issue
his warrant to the keeper orother person having the
care of any such asylum . . . directing that
such person shall be removed back from thence to
the prison or other place of confinement from which
he or she shall have been taken." There can be no
reasonable doubt, we presume, that the intention of
this clause is to provide for the temporary incar-
ceration of a criminal lunatic, and to place him,
whenever his sanity shall have been ascertained,
in precisely the same position as to punishment as
before. A lunatic who was sane when he com-
mitted murder deserves hanging ; and the only rea-
son given by Blackstone, or that can be imagined,
for not carrying out the sentence pending his
malady is, that the infliction of death upon one no
longer capable of making his peace with Heaven
would be a public scandal. Now, we have these
facts before us. The jury, the judge, the surgeten
to the gaol, the governor of the gaol, and Sir G.
Grey himself concur in affirming Townley's legal
insanity when he murdered Miss Goodwin ; and we
may add that his own letters were not only most
sensible, but utterly inconsistent with the theory of
the defence. We have also the most positive testi-
mony, including that of the Lunacy Commissioners,
that he was, to say the least, not less sane after his
conviction than at the date of his crime. Persons
already committed to a belief—let us assume an
honest belief—in his insanity took upon them-
selves the task of certifying in his favour. Their
certificate was contrary in its tenour to that of the
Lunacy Commissioners, unless the insanity which
they meant to attest was of that kind which the
law does not recognise. Is Sir G. Grey, who has
emphatically declared that the capital sentence is
" respited but not commuted," precluded from issue
ing, or rather is it not his duty to issue, a new Com-
mission of Inquiry, and to act upon the result ?
'('his is the question which he has now to consider.
We think, with the magistrates, that the aid of
F°sT.--dtaerrstdhhwteeoe
Parliament should be solicited to prevent such a
miscarriage of justice for the future, but no altera-
tion iu our system could be allowed to affect a pri-
soner retrospectively. We have to deal with
Townley's present state of mind according to the
present law. When the letter of it was strained in
his favour the Home Secretary felt compelled to obey
it ; will he scruple to enforce it when the letter and
spirit are alike invoked in the interest of public
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help expressing some astonishment onset
Austria and Prussia is not surprising; but one
it by
can-
nottheextraordinary precipitation with which the_ latter
have suspended diplomatic rerlations with . the
f
Danish Court. The Dano-German
long standing, but only five days
management into their own
the two leading States of the Confederation took its
hands.alhaanv e elapse dispute
lsaede
islyisn since
Thursday last the Austrian and Prussian represen-
tatives proposed to the Diet to require from Den-
mark
November Constitution,
and, in u occupy Schleswig.
It now appears that immediately on that proposal
being rejected, the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin
instructed their representatives at Copenhagen to
make, in their names, a similar demand. On
Saturday the ultimatum in the form of an iden-
tical note, i'was presented by the Austrian and
Prussian Envoys to the Danish Government, and
two days were allowed for consideration. The time
expired on Monday, when the Danish Cabinet for-