The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-28 00:00:00

to a conclusion that they were erroneous, that he
was at the entrance of Loughswilly, and that the lighthouse
in question was that on rannet Point, whereupon he deter-
mined to run in to anchor for the night. The master and
the mate both appear to have been unacquainted with
Loughswilly, and may therefore more readily have fallen
into the error which proved so fatal. But I cannot exone-
rate the master, in that, when he was subsequently in-
formed of his position and warned of his danger, he obsti-
nately persisted in boldly standing on up an unknown bay
without keeping his lead going, or even taking a cast till
it was too late to be of the slightest avail, a rock being
right ahead and the ship on the point of striking. I feel
bound, therefore, to pronounce the master in default, as
he neglected to exercise that prudent caution which was
necessary under the circumstances, and which it is incum-
bent on every master of a ship to observe. Taking all these
circumstances into consideration, and bearing in mind that
the master is a man of mature ago, and produced before
the court excellent testimonials to character, I have
not been disposed to pass a severe sentence, but I have
suspended his certificate for six calendar months.—l
have, &c.,

T. S. RAFFLES, Police Magistrate.
Liverpool, Nov. 21, 1864.
Wo concur in this report.

H. HARRIS' } Nautical Assessors.
R. B. BAKER,

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " LONDON REVIEW" ON DR. SMETHURST.—
The Muller discussion has—somewhat unnecessarily

.—dragged again into daylight the figure of a man
to whom obscurity and oblivion might have been a
welcome boon. Dr. Smethurst has been in death's
antechamber, the condemned cell, and has re•
turned from it safe and sound into the outer
world. Twelve jurymen, upon the evi.
dente presented to them, some years ago
considered hlm guilty of a base and villainous
murder; but the Secretary of State, with the con-
currence of careful and wise advisers, hesitated as to
the conclusiveness of the proof, and Dr. Smethurst
was allowed to come back again among his fellow-
men. The incidental mention of his case in a
leading article has given him voice and courage
to speak, and after the lapse of some time he
once more dares the English public to say that
he has been guilty. That verdict the English
public, once upon a time, pronounced with-
out much hesitation. An afterthought, the re-
sult either of maturer reflection or of administrative
irresolution, caused it to be unsaid, and left Dr.
Smethurst in the attitude of a man suspended be-
tween innocence and guilt. No newspaper discussion
can alter his delicate position. When all has been
said that can be said, the conclusion must still be
the same. It is not certain that Dr. Smethurst
foully and in cold blood poisoned the woman he had
shamefully seduced : otherwise he would before now
have met the fate of Muller. On the other hand,
it is not certain that he did not poison her; other-
wise he would never have been so near death as
the condemned cell. Between the two extremities
of certainty lies a whole misty region of probabili-
ties. Whether, on the whole, Dr Smethust must be
regarded as a lucky or an unlucky person, is a
question that will he answered differently by every
one, according to his familiarity with the precise
facts of Dr. Smethurst's case. There is only one
person living who can make sure of answering it
correctly, and that person is Dr. Smethurst himself.
A discussion which, at most, can end in nothing
more than the state of doubt above described, is
hardly worth prolonging. Against the Old Bailey
jurymen and Dr. Taylor, Dr. Smethurst is entitled
to set-off the " not proven" verdict of Sir G. Grey
and Sir Benjamin Brodie. But it is ridiculous,
after an interval of some years, to ask the readers
of the Times to arbitrate decisively between those
who sent Dr. Smethurst to the gallows and those
who saved him from it, The materials are wanting
for an exhaustive review of his case. If they were
all exhumed again, they would only plunge us into
the same difficulties as before. For the question is
not whether Dr. Smethurst can prove his innocence ;
that he cannot pretend to do. Positive evidence in
his favour there is next to none, owing possibly, it
may be said, to the singular circumstances of his
story. He can only repeat, therefore, that his crime
has not been proved, and so much, after a pardon
from the Crown, he has fairly a right to maintain.
The exact distance at which be stands, and ought
to stand, from conviction is a quantity that has no
measure. The law of England requires no man to
measure it. We shall not attempt to do so, and he
has a right to the benefit of the darkness in which
his history is involved. Dr. Smethurst, indeed, seems
to bra dissatisfied with being left by his fellowmen
under this necessary cloud. That is a matter not be-
tween Dr. Smethurst and the press, but between Dr.
Smethurst and his acquaintances. If his character
and habits are such as to outweigh all the suspi-
cious circumstances of the death of the unhappy
Miss Bankes, it is probable that he has the full
benefit of an unblemished life and temper, when.
ever those about him sum up the evidence on both
sides in the recesses of their own minds, In ordi-
nary life men are obliged continually to act upon
far less evidence than the law requires for the cul-
-1 viction and condemnation of a criminal. They have
to act upon rumour and hearsay, suspicion and
instinct. So long as there is as much against him
as there is, Dr. Smethurst may ask the world not
to pronounce him guilty, but can hardly expect
society to welcome him into its drawing-rooms.
Society cannot sift evideuco as a court of law sifts
it. It punishes not so much dishonour as the sus-
picion of dishonour. It strips off a reputation with
little ceremony, long before the reputation is abso-
lutely threadbare, dealing out a rough and ready
justice, and often sacrificing an individual for the
sake of its own paramount interest. The fueory of
the law is that every one is to be presumed inn's,.
cent till shown satisfactorily to be the reverse.
This is not the theory of society ; if it were, we
should have our houses filled with unconvicted or
respited villains, and oar wives and daughters
mixing from morning to night in the polluted at-
mosphere of undetected vice. The cordon which men
draw round themselves in private life for self-pro-
tection, is stricter the cordon drawn around them
by justice and the police ; and if Dr. Smethurst
has a right to all civil privileges till he is demon-
strated to be a murderer, he will find he loses most
of his social privileges until he demonstrates his
:nnocence. This is not a hardship upon him in
particular—it is a necessity arising from the
nature of things, which his expostulations to the
[ olished or violent will fail altogether to re-
move. Nor is it even in Dr. Smethurst's
case necessary for society to discuss the balance
of probabilities, either for him or against
him. Dr Smethurst may not be a murderer, nor have
we a right to call him one; but he has, at all events,
a past history, which travels with him in his train.
An assassin the law does not consider him, nor do
we cast a stone against him ; but he is an adulterer,
a perjured person, a seducer, and a bigamist. Miss
Bankes may not have been poisoned. At any rate,
she was seduced, just as Smethurst's own wife was
deserted and deceived. This is enough for most men,
and would perhaps render cautious people disin-
clined for the gentleman's acquaintance, Because a
man commits one crime, the law certainly does not
infer that he is likely to commit another. In ordi-
nary life people are sometimes in this respect less
charitable than the law ; but let that pass. There
can, however, be no doubt that a catalogue of sins
ought, upon the whole, to he a drawback to a medi-
cal man's progress in his profession ; and the taint,
of which Dr Smethurst complains as enveloping him
and his, might not be entirely removed if an angel
from heaven descended at Westminster Hall to in-
form the Lord Chief Baron and the public that Miss
Bankes had administered arsenic and antimony to
herself. Mies Bankes, at all events, did not seduce
herself. Even a sham ceremony of marriage requires
two persons to go through with it. Nor was it Miss
Bankes who upon her deathbed wrote a letter to
the bedridden Mrs Smethurst to say that she might
expect the Doctor home again presently. The in-
soluble problem, then, of Dr Smethurst's guilt or
innocence of the capital charge is a less practical
one than at first sight might appear. It is enough
for quiet observers if he is condemned upon the
minor counts in the indictment. The social punish-
ment which he is undergoing may be severe, but is
not altogether undeserved. If in suffering it he is
not expiating ono offence, ho is doubtless expiating
another.
THE "SATURDAY REVIEW" ON REDUCTION OF
EXPENDITURE.—There is probably some truth in
the rumour that the Army and Navy Estimates are
to he reduced ; but the zealous interpreters and advo-
cates of a Ministerial policy which is yet undisclosed
are imprudent, as well as premature, in their argu-
ments for sudden economy. The Government is not
likely to proclaim its complete conversion to the
doctrines of its most bitter adversaries by adopting
the language, as well as the policy, of the Peace
Society. Parliament, even on the eve of a general
election, will be indisposed to declare by its votes
that an extensive naval and military organisation
has become unnecessary, because public opinion was
a year ago utterly opposed to an unjust and inexpe-
dient rupture with Germany. As long as Lord
Palmerston remains at the head of the Government,
there will be no formai and professed disarmament.
Like other politicians, the Prime Minister has re-
peatedly exposed himself to the charge of inconsis-
tency in dealing with questions which others might
consider of primary importance. Reform Bills and
Church Rates involve serious issues of principle and
practice, but they concern Lord Palmerston only as
the choice of an opera might concern a manager who
had no ear for music. It is his business not to gratify
a personal preference, but to consult the taste of his
audience, and to make his theatre pay. In a period
of violent domestic or constitutional controversies,
Lord Palmerston would not have been for ten years