The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-10 00:00:00

erroneous, but such as might readily secure atten-
tion in countries less habituated to constitutional
government than °lir own, had no little share in
inducing Germany to belie' e that England would
remain neutral in the event of a nano-German war.
As regarded fears of foreign aggression, States are
naturally slow to believe that their territories will
be attacked, and Austria and Prussia consoled
themselves with the reflection that by yielding to
the wishes of the minor States they could at any
time array on their side every member of the Ger-
man Confederation. Viewing the matter in this
light, the invasion of Hehleswig became by no
means so improbable as the majority of English poli-
ticians were inclined to believe. it was from this
point of view, however, that we regarded the pos-
sible contingency of a Dano-German war, and events
have since justified our conclusions. Austria and
Prussia believed that Great Britain would remain

a. passive spectator of the occupation of the
Duchies, anti no one will now question the solidity
of the foundation on which that belief reposed.

But the occupation of Schleswig has since been
followed by the invasion of Jutland, and the allied
armies have now commenced active hostilities with
a view to the reduction of the town of Fredericia,
which guards the land approaches to the Island of
Funen. As the English Government contented
themselves with a simple protest when the Pros
sians took possession of the frontier town of
Kolding, the invaders may not unnaturally con-
clude that their present operations will induce no
change in the policy of the British Cabinet. In
this they are most probably correct. But it would
be a most fatal error for the German Powers to
fall into, to suppose that to whatever lengths they
might deem it expedient to push their aggressive
policy Great Britain would remain perfectly pas-
sive. It is reported that Austrian ships of war
are on their way to the Baltic, with the view of
co-operating with the Prussian navy in an at-
tempt to reduce the Danish position at Duppel,
and thus place the Island of Alsen, together with
the little army it contains, at the mercy of the
Austro- Prussian forces. This report the Foreign
Secretary contradicted• in the House of Lords on
Tuesday evening, on the strength of a formal as-
surance from the Austrian Government that it is
not their intention to send any naval force whatever
either to the Baltic or the Cattegat. Of course we
are bound to credit this statement, and to believe
that Austria possesses no more serious design than
that of despatching a few cruisers to the English
Channel for the protection of her merchant ship-
ping. Bat we may be pardoned for saying that if
the German Powers should entertain any project'
of combining their naval forces with a view either
to assist their land forces at Duppel, or to act inde-
pendently in any other quarter of the Danish
dominions, Great Britain could not remain a passive
spectator of such an outrage. The Foreign Secre-
tary may have acted prudently in declining to
make any declaration which would bind this country
to go to war, but he did not hesitate to let fall an
intimation which will not be lost on the German
Powers. The Channel fleet is now in British
waters, and if an Austrian fleet should venture
through the Straits of Dover it will not cross the
German Ocean entirely alone.
TIMES.-It is a famous saying of Bacon that the
subtlety of nature greatly surpasses the subtlety of
the :human mind. With equal or greater truth it
might be said that the secret springs of human cha-
racter and the motives of human actions are too
subtle for the moralist to analyse or for the legis-
lator to control by rewards and punishment. Crimi-
nal law is based, and must be, on the assumption
that acts of a certain outward complexion done under
certain conditions are of the same quality, and de-
serve the same penalty. The taking of life with
" malice aforethought," without legal excuse or pro-

vocation by actual blows, amounts in law to murder,
and the doom of the murderer is death. Perhaps no
more flexible definition of the crime would afford
adequate protection to society; certainly no other
punishment could be annexed to it without remov-
ing the chief safeguard against its more frequent
commission ; and yet what various degrees of guilt
does this legal idea of murder embrace ! We do not
speak now of differences in the power of self-
control, and therefore of moral responsibility, be-
tween different individuals. These subjects, though
they lie on the debatable frontier of physiology
and ethics, and at present occasion the utmost
perplexity to jurists, may possibly be reduced to
definite principles as our knowledge of both
sciences progresses. TLe most intractable and
recondite element of criminality—that which must
for ever baffle the foresight of lawgivers and con-
found the wisdom of earthly judges—is the mass of
antecedent circumstances and habits, from which
the crime sometimes appears to spring so naturally
as almost to exclude the agency of the will. There
are murders which, originating in some evil passion,
carefully nursed, preceded by no train of causes
such as the ancients ascribed to a malignant destiny,
palliated by no sudden temptation, mitigated by no
subsequent access of pity or repentance, are the
very type of diabolical wickedness. There are other
murders in which the slayer appears to be scarcely
less a victim than the slain—the victim of a cruel
and overmastering sense of wrong, not imaginary
but real, not transitory but permanent, blasting his
happiness, withering his hopes, making tyrants of
his tenderest and finest feelings, and demanding
vengeance with the voice of an imperious necessity.
Such a murder cannot be eliminated beforehand
from others of a far deeper dye, it cannot be tried
by different rules, or distinguished, even after its
true nature is made known, by a different verdict
and a different sentence. At yet, if human justice
is to bear any resemblance or relation to the
Divine, how can we consign the latter
class of offenders to the same fate as the former ?
The gulf that separates their crimes may be, and
often is, far wider than that which separates murder
itself from other acts of violence. To visit them
•with one and the same retribution is to wound or
deaden the moral sense of the Christian community
—that moral sense which gives all penal laws their
cnief efficacy and highest sanction. One of the
saddest and most pitiful stories of murder under
extenuating circumstances that have come before
the public for many a day appeared in our report of
the Warwick assizes on Monday. A young man
named Hall, of steady habits and gentle disposition,
was married on Christmas-day to a woman whom
he ,had courted for several years, without the least
of her virtue. On the very evening of
suspicion
the wedding-day she left him and returned to her
parents' home. Th 6 next day she was brought
back, but not to be a true wife to him, for she con-
tinued to " keep company," though secretly, with
another man, named Martin Toy, with whom she
had before been intimate. This nominal cohabita •
tion only lasted till January 3, when she deserted
her husband again, without giving any reason, and
lived in her father's house, consorting openly and
constantly with Toy. Hall met them together on
one occasion, and, on reproaching her with her con-
duct, got nothing but insults and foul words. His
wife boasted of her conuexion with Toy, and vowed
that she would not give it up. So far from evincing
the -slightest shame or compunction, she taunted
him with the wrongs inflicted by herself, and told
him that her first child should be fathered upon him
though it would not be his. Sbe even took out a
summons against him for threatening her unless she
returned, which was dismissed by the magistrates.
Again and again Hall visited her at her father's
house, and pressed her in the most affectionate way
to come back, but all in vain. To his master he
expressed in the most touching language his own
simple love and fidelity, and the misery which his
wife had caused him, To his fellow-workmen he
appeared as one distracted, but a crowsi,sd work
room is not the place for a wounded spirit to find
solace, and he afterwards complained that his shop-
mates used him cruelly. At last the cup of sorrow
and just resentment was full. On the evening of
February 16 he went to her mother's house, and re-
„:,ined there, strange as it may appear, talking
with ht,:b the women, and now and then whispering
privately wiL'l‘ his wife, whom he still, to all ap-
pearance, loved ti;:votedly. His manner, we are
told, was very kind, and he gave no sign by word
or gesture of his gloomy resoi've. For once his wife
followed him out when he rose it; leave, and she
never was seen again alive. What passed between
them cannot be known, but she was found lying
on Dartmoor-street bridge with a pistol shot throzigh
her cheek. Hall admitted at once that he had killea
her, but the evidence as to his language is conflict-
ing, some testifying that he said he never intended
to do so, and some that he spoke of the deed as one
that he had long contemplated. Whether he used
either expression or both is of little importance
in law or in reason. It is enough that, being
wrought up to desperation by injuries that might
have maddened the best and calmest of men, he
employed ,a deadly weapon to avenge himself.
Who can read the tale of this domestic tragedy
without a sentiment of compassion for the mur-
derer ? Who could have heard, without sympathy,
his pathetic appeal, after his conviction, from the
inexorable justice of human tribunals to the judg-
ment-seat of Him who in justice remembers mercy ?
That appeal has reached the hearts of many who
were not present at the trial, and have no more in-
terest in the poor artisan than humane minds must
ever feel in a fellow-creature, more sinned against
than sinning, condemned to an infamous death.
The strong recommendation of the jury in his
favour has already been endorsed in a memorial
from more than 50,000 inhabitants of Birmingham
ande
nt
ed. We
its neighbourhood,
Lrhoaoriydd, l.
and more signatures are e
p
imagine a fitter case than
this for the exercise of the Royalequita bclelemst
eannedya.rd,Tiltcrime of Hall, tried by any
be-
longs to the least aggravated form of murder. It
might have been committed by a person possessed
of almost every virtue except the iron will that