The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

SATURDAY RETIEW,—What Mr. Somes's bi
amounts to is the total prohibition of beer to the
working man on Sunday. It is a compulsory enforce-
ment of total abstinence, at least on one day in the
week, for at least half the population of this country.
Less than this the bill does not aim at, and it is as
well that its real extent should be known. It not
only excludes the Sunday excursionist from his visit
to the country inn, but it dries up those foaming
pots which meet us on leaving town churches on
Sunday morning. It condemns the Sunday meal—
the poor man's only meal—either to cold water or a
dry crust. This may be quite right, but it is a tre-
mendous innovation on the social life of a whole
people ; and it is all the worse because it is one-sided,
tyrannical, and oppressive. We of the comfortable
classes have our cellars, our clubs, our bottled beer,
our old cognac, our every means and appliance for
reconciling as we can, or as we choose, our duties to
ourselves, to soc ety, to religion, and to health. We
may either drink to satiety, in moderation, or not at
all. Nobody interferes with us. Mr. Somes does
not legislate for the like of himself ; he only steps
in and orders what he thinks best for those who,
as he doubtless thinks, cannot help themselves.
Can't they, though ? Partial tyranny of this
sort it is not the Englishman's habit to
endure. There is not a nation on the earth
which would endure this sort of legislation ; nor
ought they to endure it. These are not the days for
calling out class passions, or for inviting sections of
society to stand out against their fellows. Perhaps
if it came to the last and ugliest form of it, we should
get the worst of the contrast, or comparison, or con-
flict, or whatever it is. At any rate, we are not
grateful to Mr. Somes and to Mr. Pease for suggest-
ing any reeling of the sort. That extremely well-
meaning and extremely silly person, Lord Ebury,
then Lord R. Grosvenor, experimented in this direc-
tion a few years ago. The Hyde Park riots were
the result, and, had he only burned his own fingers
nobody would have cared. The bishops, too, by
their recent pastoral against Sunday excursions,
have nearly succeeded in wientiting from the Church
of England that confidence which was gradually
growing up in the town populations. We have no
fear that Parliament will do anything so foolisla_ as
i
to give Mr. Somes's bill a second reading- Its nTro-
duction, however, is a thing to set us thinking ; and
the thing to think about is, how in these days—
when we plume ourselves about our civil and religi-
ous liberty, and our privileges and rights, and all
that sort of thing—such a monstrous attempt on
liberty as this bill can even be seriously thought of.
Across the Atlantic every vestige of personal liberty
is being rapidly trampled down under the heels of
the most vulgar and sordid tyranny that the world
has yet seen. Across the Channel, again, the fore-
most people of Europe is crouching in abject sub-
mission to another tyranny equally mixed up of
terrorism and fraud. But we, of course, are the
great exception. We are not as other men. France
and the United States may deliver themselves and
their liberties to death, but in England it is quite
another matter; we incur no danger of this sort.
For our own part, we are by no means so sure of
this. Mr. Bright and Mr. Somes are very fair imi-
tations of tyranny; they have all the raw material
of it. The one, in his injustice towards property,
and the other, in his insolent attitude towards the
working man's home life, would not disgrace even
historical masters of the art of oppressing their
fellows.

SPECTATOR.—A Brighton painter, named Sturt,
a man of some fifty years of age, had formed a
liason with a widow named Day. Both parties
were in a very humble way of life, and the woman,
especially, was miserably poor. Mrs. Day was a
person of very indifferent character, with a large
family of children, and of intemperate habits. What
the story of the connection between Sturt and the
widow had been originally was not clearly brought
out on the- trial. All we know is, that in last Feb-
ruary, after the connection had lasted for months,
if not for years, Sturt had engaged himself to marry
Mrs. Day within a short period. He was in the
habit of calling at her house constantly, and of
taking her out to walk. On Sunday, the 22d of
February, they went out together as usual, the
woman being ailing, but not apparently worse than
usual. In the course of an hour or so Mrs. Day
returned home, saying that she felt very ill. The
illness increased rapidly, and before the following
morning had arrived she was dead. When she was
dying she attributed her illness to a mince-pie that
Sturt had given her. This circumstance, and the
rapidity of her death, awoke suspicion; an investi-
gation was made, and Dr. Taylor, who was em-
ployed to analyze the contente of the stomach,
reported that it contained arsenic enough to account
for death. These were all the facts of the case, which
were unquestioned by either side, and which may be
taken as granted. The presumptive case against
the prisoner was strong. A murder had in all human
probability been committed. The murdered woman
ascribed her illness to food which the prisoner had
given her. The relations existing between the man
and woman were such that jealousy, or the desire
of escaping the performance of his promise, might
have made Sturt wish to get rid of Mrs. Day.
Arsenic was readily obtainable by a man in his posi-
tion. There was nobody else who seemed likely to
have any motive for committing the crime. And
supposing that be did give her the poison in the
mince-pie, the symptoms of the disease would have
exactly corresponded with those which did actually
take place. The presumptive evidence in the pri-
soner's favour was not equally strong. The alleged
motive of the crime was, it is true, hardly adequate.
The woman had no power to keep him to his word.
No man in his senses could ever suppose that any
jury would convict him of a breach of promise under
the circumstances of the case ; and the poverty of
both parties was so great as to make the idea of the
man's being afraid of the woman's suing him simply
ludicrous. However, in a discreditable and ille-
gitimate connection a number of causes may be
conceived as existing which might have tempted
the man to kill his mistress; but there wt.s no evi-
dence to show that any of these causes did exist
actually. On the news of Mrs. Day's death the
prisoner exhibited extreme grief ; his conduct
when arrested was straightforward ; and the story
which he told was simple and possible enough ;
while the few particulars contained in it capable 9T
corroboration could not be disapproved by the pro-
secution. On the other hand, it was almost in-
credible that a man, living on such terms as he did
with the murdered women, should not have known
who her murderer was likely to be; and it is odd, to
say the least, that when he was charged with
the murder, he should not have pointed out
the person on whom his suspicion rested. On
the whole we should say that the balance of pre-
sumptive evidence went against the prisoner; and
supposing the jury had been bound to say that
some particular person was guilty of the crime, we
think their judgment must have fallen on Sturt.
When we come from presumption to fact the com-
plexion of the case changes. The direct evidence
against the prisoner was singularly weak. The ar-