The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--
TIMES.—The remarkable trial which closed on
on Saturday is no unfair specimen of the method
by which the criminal law of this country attains,
or at least seeks to attain, the ends of justice. That
process, familiar as it is, is far more difficult, be-
cause conducted under far stricter conditions, than
would appear at first sight. Nothing looks simpler
than the management of a criminal case, and by-
standers are often tempted to imagine that they
could themselves perform the duties of counsel,
judge, or jury, perhaps of all together, without any
great effort, and quite as effectually as the respon-
sibie actors. A very little experience utterly dissi-
pates this delusion. The plain and coherent story
which is told in the opening speech of the prosecut-
ing counsel may be the product of a most laborious
investigation, aided by all the resources of science,
and the points insisted on may have been selected
with infinite care from a mass of chaotic materials
too vast and various for an untrained mind to have
digested. The examination in chief, which seems
the easiest thing in the world, requires no ordinary
skill to bring out the whole knowledge of the wit-
ness without violating any rule of evidence; and
cross-examination, if practised according to the
popular theory of it, would, in nine cases out of
ten, do the prisoner more harm than good. Perhaps
the speech for the defence is the part of the proceed-
ings which is beat appreciated by the public ; but
the disadvantages under which it frequently has to
be made are such as the public cannot fully com-
prehend. The Judge's task, where it is confined
to reading over his notes, cannot, indeed, be con-
sidered very arduous, but where it embraces a
careful analysis of the case and an elimination of
everything irrelevant, it is a mental exercise of the
highest kind. All these necessary stages in the con-
duct of a trial were carried out with marked ability
in the prosecution of Muller, and the humane
maxim of our law, that where human life is at
stake no trouble can be superfluous, has seldom
been more scrupulously obeyed. The address of
the Solicitor-General on Thursday possessed the
great merit of stating the whole case without over-
stating it or encumbering it with doubtful matter.
If it be compared with the evidence and the reply,
it will be found that nothing of any importance had
afterwards to be retracted or supplied, and that the
only new feature introduced by the defence was the
alibi. Now that we know all that was to be said,
the conclusion appears self-evident, but nothing
short of a judicial inquiry could have thus sim-
plified the problem. It was above all things essen-
tial to show that several independent trains of
reasoning converged into the proof of Muller's guilt.
A single chain cannot be stronger than its weakest
link, but the united strength of several chains ex-
ceeds that of the strongest among them. The
disposing of Mr. Briggs' chain on the Monday
morning after the murder, and the being found in
possession of a hat corresponding to his on board
the Victoria,:were no doubt:most suspicious circum-
stances, but neither of them would have added any
force to the other, had the identity of the two
articles rested on the same presumption. As it
was, each was proved by separate testi-
mony, and the attempt to cast doubt on
the identity of the latter opened up another
track leading in the same direction, But suppose
ing all the witnesses who swore to Mr. Briggs's
property had been discredited, there was
still the fact of a hat exactly resembling
Muller's being found in the railway carriage, and
the more this fact was sifted the more incredible
did it turn out to be that it should have belonged
to any one else. Here, then, were three distinct
grounds for believing Muller to be the murderer;
a fourth was furnished by the unquestionable dis-
covery of Mr Briggs's watch in Muller's box at
New York. These four clues had to be followed
out one by one, not only in court but long before,
when their bearing upon each other was much less
manifest. The certainty produced by their con-
vergence amounts to a moral demonstration, always
provided that no explanation can be given of so ex-
traordinary a coincidence. The whole cogency of
what is called circumstantial evidence turns upon
this. It has been urged with considerable force
that the use of this phrase is calculated to mislead,
and it is probably not the best which could have
been chosen to express the distinction implied in it ;
but the distinction itself, as expounded by the Chief
B iron, is real and most important. Mr Death's
testimony was direct evidence of Muller's exchange
ing Mr Briggs's chain ; it was circumstantial evi-
dence, coupled with other facts, of his having taken
Mr Briggs's life. An inference bad to be drawn
fromdit beyond that which it attested conclusively,
and this inference, though strengthened indefinitely
by like inferences from circumstances of like signi-
ficance, might have been scattered to the winds by
proof positive, direct and trustworthy proof, that
the fact inferred did not occur. What justifies
conviction on circumstantial evidence is, not that it
should be overwhelming in itself, but that it
should also bo unrefined. It is simply inconceiv-
able that appearances should so conspire against
an innocent man, and yet that he should have no
key to the mystery. If Mr Sergeant Parry had
been able to account for any one of the tokens
of guilt to which we have referred, he would have
sensibly we kened the argument on the part of the
Crown, and if he could have conjured away either
of the two hats, no one can say what the issue of
the trial would have been. He failed to do so, not
for want of that art which breaks the sequence of
an opponent's reasoning, but simply because no
human fancy could have invented an hypothesis at
once consistent with the truth and with Mailer's
innocence. Had the interrogation of the prisoner
been authorised by our law, his conviction would
doubtless have been more summary, but it could
not have been more inevitable than it was after the
breakdown of the alibi, and the cross-examination
of the nonchalant Mr. Lee. When we say that this
trial reflects credit on our administration of justice,
we are far from assuming the superiority of our own
system, in all respects, to that of our neighbours.
The want of a public prosecutor is sometimes a very
serious evil, though it may be outweighed by the
blessing of being free from the espionage and inter-
ference of such an officer. The provision for the
defence of prisoners, in other cases than murder, is
obviously defective ; there is something to be said
for allowing an accused person to volunteer evidence
valeat quantum, and there are difficult questions
about the qualifications of juries and the finality
of their verdicts. Still, the nobler qualities of
English character are generally displayed, in an
impressive form, on a trial for murder. A. foreign
spectator would have found nothing to condemn in
the solemnity of the spectacle, in the calm and
dispassionate statement of the Solicitor-General,
in the demeanour of the witnesses for the prosecu-
tion, or in the honourable manner in which Mr
Sergeant Parry discharged a most unenviable duty.
Not the slightest trace of prejudice against Muller
could have been discerned in any part of the pro-
ceedings, and if the charge ot the Lord Chief Baron
was adverse to an acquittal, it was only because the
rules of commonsense, applied to such facts, left no
room for two opinions. The same remark may be
extended, as we venture to think, to the general
conduct of the press in respect to this murder, a
subject upon which the Lord Chief Baron adopted
a very different tone from that of Mr Sergeant
Parry. To withhold from the public the details of
a case like this until the suspected party shall be
brought to trial is not only practically impossible;
it would also be highly impolitic, and would often
defeat the ends of justice. In commenting upon
them discretion is of course needed, but absolute
reticence as to the effect of notorious facts would
be mere affectation. Such was the nature of Mal.
ler's crime, and such his own infatuation after com-
mitting it, that the prima
,facie evidence against
him was complete and crushing c% hen Inspector
Tanner was sent in pursuit of him. He was pre-
judged only in this sense, and no sooner did his
unexpected assertion of innocence reach this coun-
try than the voice of criticism was hushed. In
electing to be tried by an English jury he showed a
just confidence in the impartiality of our tribunals,
and the result is so entirely satisfactory that his
confession, however much to be desired for his own
sake, could add nothing to the certainty of his
guilt.

HERALD.—Mr. john Bright is a much bolder
man than Mr, Richard Cobden, The sentiments
which the latter scarcely ventured to reveal in his
private letter to Mr Scovell, the former boldly avows
in his public communication to Mr Horace Greeley.
Mr Cobden, with the deference and caution of a
courtier (he has been to the Tuileries), while praisft
ing the "amiability" of the Federal President,
merely suggested to his Yankee friends the course
which he thought they ought to pursue as the most
likely to ensure their ultimate success. "Persevere"
is the gist of his advice. " Persevere, you have more
money, or, at least, more greenbacks, and a greater
command of men than your antagonists—scatter the
the one broadcast, and sacrifice the others reck-
lessly in continuous and harrassing, though fruit-
less assaults, and if you will but disregard the loss
of life and waste of treasure, it is evident that you
must in the end bear down all opposition." Mr.
Bright does not confine himself to side-winded and
ambiguously-expressed counsels. The election of
his distinguished friend, Abraham Lincoln, is at
stake, a _ d he cannot avoid telling Mr. Horace
Gree , or the benefit of all Yankeedom, " what
is pi ng in his mind," and " he wishes, it possible,
stake,
to send him a word of encouragement." It is a
curious instance of the facility with which dis
honest politicians can assume and cast off prinei.
pies, as it suits their interests or convenience to do
so, to find the man of peace, who in the House of
Commons whines over sufferings of an Irish cotter,
ejected because he could not, or would not, dis.
charge his stipulated engagements, and who de-

notinces the landlord of the victim as a tyrant
cause he sought to recover what his bargault, I
law, and justice accorded him—we repeat 111
curious to see such a professed friend of hunien.l
at the expense of justice, gloating over barbarl.oo
unequalled in the annals of modern war. Siesi
the devastation of the Palatinate by the Po
army, under Turenne, no such wholesale act of
discriminate destruction has disgraced a civil:
and Christian nation as the ravage of the She:,
doah Valley by the Federal troops. The 13.°1
steads whicir sheltered the unoffending famileteo
industrious men taking no part in the strugglebbi
been committed to the flames, and the food w
a plentiful harvest yielded for their sustenancel
been wickedly and wantonly destroyed, and the'il
the recognised agent of the man " upon the brig]
ness of whose personal honour," according t°
Bright, "no adversary has yet been able to !Isl
stain." " Qui facit per alium, facit per se," Isw
adage whose tenth is universally admitted ; and wi
tory will hand down to posterity, as the audit°
this barbarous act of cruelty, not the actual peel
trator of the deed, whose insignificance will se
him from infamous notoriety, but the chief of
state who planned and commanded its execo.t:,i
We so far coincide with Mr Bright's Wl°l
that we sincerely hope for the re-election of
Lincoln, not because "we have observed in,
career a grand simplicity of purpose, and a patrigt;
which knows no change and does not falter,
because we anticipate that the renewed governo
of a man who has violated his solemn oath to #
serve the liberties of his country by banishing,
imprisoning without trial its most respected cital
and by consigning those who differed from
policy to languish in prison without hope of prof
tion from the laws, which he has abrogated ore
ridden for his own base personal purposes—Nil
we desire the reelection of such a small-milli
though oppressive, tyrant to power, because we of
that repugnance to such a contemptible rule,
excite an enslaved people to resistance, and enc!_
cruel war by consigning the man who has carried
on with a savagery unknown in our days, if 11°'
the gibbet—which his crimes so richly merit
least to an oblivion which will secure his fell
citizens from the contamination of his presence. j
Bright repudiates the idea of being considered
donkey sending forth his harmless brayinge fd
beneath the lion's skin; he announces nimsel I
the veritable British animal, and he roars Ol
he wishes to palm off as " the sentiments !
heart's wish of every man in England who 11°,1
for the freedom and greatness of their countrit,
encourage his Transatlantic friends to a deternil:
continuance of this desolating conflict, while at 11
he seeks to conceal the pugnacity of his disposill
under a standing collar and broad-brimmed bey
the selected emblems of brotherly love and 01,.
tian forbearance. The member for Birmingt,
belongs to a religion which teaches its folloro
that when one cheek is smitten they should 10
the other to receive a similar infliction. His
tics differs essentially from his professed princlf;
according to which, instead of urging his fell
creatures to continue the horrors of civil Wril
should inculcate mutual forbearance and In,
"peace amongst men." We are ignorant 0.1.
form of church government which rules his!
but if there be a Pope amongst them we antlair
a speedy exercise of his spiritual powers,
ever a peccant brother deserved the penal
excommunication it is richly merited by
Bright. To base his wish for the micas;
the Federal arms on the conviction that
triumph would secure the abolition of 1;101
an unworthy subterfuge on the part of the 0,
ber for Birmingham. It has been officially
nounced by his Ministers—and Mr Bright cilia
be ignorant of the universally known fact-ii.,
Mr Lincoln is quite prepared to submit to thero
tinuance of slavery, if by so doing he can onic
establish the Union ; and this, the last plan
which they had to stand, is now taken from 11,°10
the feet of the Federal sympathisers in Eng.V
There is but one motive to which we can attlij
the action, to use an Americanism, which Mr /31
has taken in this matter. His constituents PAI
largely by the continuance of the war. Theyj
ply both sides with instruments of destructiontms
he may consider it imprudent to check the prop
of their trade by advocating a return to Phi
Some of the farmers of Bucks were wareasoild
enough to accuse Mr Disraeli of having 109/10
the price of wheat by congratulating his COV)
ents on the abundance of the harvest.
enough Mr Bright has profited by the warning',
lends his influence, such as it is, to continue ;of,
flict which is an overflowing source of weal"
those who have honoured themselves by OP
him into Parliament.