The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Yesterday one of the most cruel and cold-
blooded of murderers suffered the punishment due
to his crimes. The magnitude of political events,
the absorbing excitement of a busy and restless pri-
vate life, take away, in this age, something of the
interest with which great crimes are naturally re-
garded. Were it not so Dr. Pritchard would be
more than a nine days' wonder. If people had not
more important things to think and talk about, they
might well dwell on the cruelty, callousness, and
hypocrisy of the Glasgow doctor. We do not re-
member any criminal in our time whose acts show
a more complete depravity of nature. Rush shot
down his enemies and all who came in his way, as
an Indian fanatic might run a muck ; but the whole
thing was executed in a few minutes, and was pro-
bably planned not very long before. Palmer was
certainly a very bad specimen, and the two doctors
may divide the crown of wickedness between them ;
but even Palmer, though a poisoner, was not as
Blow a poisoner as Pritchard. Pritchard played
with the life of his unhappy wife as a cat plays with
its feeble prey. He kept her alive week after week,
sometimes increasing, sometimes diminishing, at
times even, we may presume, intermitting the doses.
Nothing that the most diabolical skill could effect
to give the illness caused by the drugs the appear-
ance of natural disease was neglected by Dr. Prit-
chard. He called in a medical man to have a wit-
ness that all was right and a person to certify the
cause of death. His wife died, after all, in the most
natural manner possible, and the murderer's skill
and patience were nearly rewarded with success.
Indeed, there is little doubt that he would have
escaped altogether had it not been that he thought
fit to send his mother in law out of the word also,
and from some impatience inexplicable in one so
capable of biding his time he killed her very rapidly.
A man may poison one member of his household,
for a single death excites no suspicion, but double
murders are very dangerous work. Mrs. Taylor
died. Mrs. Pritchard died, and when the alarm
was given there was no avoiding an examination
which brought out the whole dreadful truth. All
the skill and circumspection shown during several
weeks were thus made useless by the want of due
moderation. Happily for the safety of society the
most accomplished murderer is not wise at all times.
If Pritchard had kept his mother-in-law a few
months longer, he might now be practising his more
legitimate profession with success, and enriching by
his researches the journals of the learned societies
of which lie was a member. As it is, he was dis-
covered, and perished miserably ou the gallows yes-
terday morning. In one respect he was superior to
Palmer. He did not go lying to the scaffold. Ho
equivocated for a time, and made that half confes-
sion which is not uncommon with murderers, who,
even when all hope of life is lost, shrink from ap-
pearing to mankind in their full infamy, and seek to
make the world think that though guilty they are
not offenders of the very deepest dye. Dr. Prit-
chard was at first contrite enough to confess the
justice of his sentence, but not contrite enough to
stand before his children, his fellow-citizens, and
the public as the most execrable of poisoners. To
equivocate to Heaven is the habit of unfortunates in
this state of mind. The blackness of their sin must
not be hid, but they make it appear that it was not
so black. But when he found that nobody believed
him he determined to tell the truth. This was that
he poisoned both the women in the manner laid
before the jury at the trial. Perhaps he had not
that coarseness of nature which enabled Palmer to
prevaricate to the last, with something like a chuckle
of satisfaction at having spread abroad the impres-
sion that the jury was wrong. Pritchard was a man
of talent and education, and these faculties swayed
his mind at last in the direction of truth. He made a
kind of poor amends to the profession on which he
had brought infamy by admitting the correctness of
its scientific conclusions. In other respects his
memory remains utterly abominable. The crime of
poisoning by a medical man in the course of profes-
sional attendance goes to the limits of all that we can
conceive of wickedness. Treachery of the basest kind
is added to the ordinary cruelty and malice which con-
stitute the guilt of murder. What is the crime of the
low-bred ruffian who knocks down his victim for
a watch and a purse—what, we may say, is even
that assassination which stabs or shoots an unsus-
pecting enemy---to the guilt of him who answers
the confiding look of a patient with smiles and
words of encouragement and then hands the deadly
draught ? And when the victim is a poor, helpless,
trusting woman, and the drugging goes on day after
day and week after week, it is difficult to conceive
that the perpetrator has the ordinary nature of
mankind. Yet, of this most foul, strange, and un-
natural crime there have been several instances of
late years. The facility of the deed and the impro-
bability of detection seem to suggest it, and men
not wanting in talents, in good manners, and in
that demeanour which conciliates the good will of
the world, are transformed until they become
morally worse than the most degraded garotter who
is serving his time in gaol. The French doctor the
other day was a man of education and manners,
but he poisoned his victims with a ruthlessness from
which ninety-nine out of a hundred of the worst
criminals in France would have shrunk. Crimes of
poisoning are recorded in every age, but it cannot
be doubted that the facilities are more numerous
than at any former time. There is, of course, no
remedy but to execute rigid justice wherever the
offence has been proved. Whether it be a physi-
cian like Pritchard, or a nurse like Catherine
Wilson, no pains are too great to bring home the
crime to the perpetrator, no determination too
strict to refuse any mercy when guilt has once been
proved. In the case of Dr. Pritchard we may con-
gratulate the public on the success with which the
medical examination was conducted, and the con-
sequent removal of all doubt as to the justice of the
verdict. The poisons used were those which, if
present in large quantities, are easily detected, and
on this occasion competent men were employed to
make the analysis. Bat there may be more skilful
poisoners even than Dr. Pritchard, and drugs less
susceptible of the chemist's tests may be used by
future practitioners. To keep the power of detec-
tion up to the level of guilty ingenuity is a praise-
worthy and indisputable application of science.
HERALD.—The two houses of the Austrian Reichs-
rath have been cljsed with a speech delivered by
deputy from the Throne. The Archduke Ludwig
Victor, speaking in the Emperor's name, dismissed
the members of the Vienna Parliament with many
congratulations. He spoke of their indefatigable
zeal and patriotic activity ; he referred to the new
customs and commercial treaty with the States of
the Zollverein ; he praised the Budget on the point
of economy, and he looked to the future with con-
fidence. This was not a very ample budget of con-
gratulations • but it was, perhaps, the best that the
Vienna Cabinet just now could speculate upon.
There can be no denying that throughout the em-
pire trade and industry have never flourished so well
since the convulsions of 1849, that the legislation
and diplomacy of recent years have fostered trade,
or that the Imperial credit has been improved. All
this may cheerfully be conceded. But it may be
questioned whether the Austrian system, which the
Archduke Ludwig Victor so warmly eulogised on
behalf of his family, on Wednesday last, has been
so practically improved that it can work with per-
manent efficiency. The Grand Duke says—" Im-
portant reasons affecting the general interests of the
monarchy, and which upon that account have found
patriotic and eloquent expression in both houses of
the Reichsrath, counsel the accelerated convocation
of the legal representatives of the peoples in the
eastern portions of the empire, and bring with them
the necessity of postponing the Budget of 1866 in
this session." Here we mark the weak point in the
Imperial speech. Austria has not, as her detractors
prophesied seven years ago, sacrificed her principle
of local government to a despotic bureaucracy ; she
has completed since then many great reforin .
s, but
this delay in the discussions of financial policy at
o
Three
reigning all times rooted to a mischievous prinrcelple.i
broad reforms were promised by the e,
'rosftwas
Em-
perorene of w-henhe
decentralisationmounted; thethe
stehereohnde.T e first
was
one
reli-
gious liberty; the third was one of systematic finance.
Assuredly the Hungarian dissenters have little rea-
son to complain ; they are no longer treated as
an inferior caste ; the Protestants of Pesth and
Komorn occupy their old position ; and the only
check imposed is one which, while it grants them
security from Catholic interference, and a complete
ecclesiastical government of their own, subjects
them merely to such a surveillance on the part of
the state as will prevent them from using their re-
ligious liberty either as a cloak for political disaffec-
tion or as an instrument of annoyance to their
Catholic neighbours. Thus far, the Austrian Em-
peror has been faithful to his pledge. With reference
to local administration, he has encountered more
difficulties than were predicted to him by his former
Ministers, yet even in this respect the Reichsrath
, has triumphs to chronicle. But, in the matter of

• -
finance, the postponement of the Budget discussion
is nothing better than an attempt to obscure, with
a vapour of words, a gulf evidently unfathomable.
The City maxim, that the strength of a state is
measured by the extent of its credit, might be more
wisely applied to herself by Austria were she less
addicted to silence on the subject of her borrowing
policy. These huge deficits are not in themselves
ruinous, it is only when they alarm the state itself
that the credit of the state comes in question.
When Mr. Disraeli spoke of the British national
debt as " a fleabite," he raised the national credit ;
but when Austria postpones for a year the debate
on her Budget, the figures of many years past seem
to confuse themselves painfully. We have had Aus-
trian loans in the market during the last 15 years.
At the same time it must be granted that there
have been important accumulations of capital in
the Austrian empire. What we have to ask is which
side of the question does the Imperial apology re-
present ? The German papers tell us, when com-
menting on the remarks of the Archduke Ludwig
Victor, that Austria is accustomed to, and can always
sustain, a deficit. We are far from following them,
either in their affectation of confidence or in the
imputation which it implies against the Austrian
Government. No Power could last under the neces-
sity of making such continual and enormous demands
upon native and foreign capitalists. We are equally
far from applying to Austria the sneer of Metter-
nich against his master, " Austria never knows its
resources till it is bankrupt;" but the postponement
of a budget, we are bound to say, very much re-
sembles an act of financial recklessness if not of re-
pudiation. Nor did it appear necessary. The budget
of 1865 had been passed amid general approval. It
was not, and is not, anticipated that the balance-
sheet for 1866 will be less satisfactory, and there-
fore it is to be regretted that the session of the
Reichsrath for the current year should have been
brought to a close by a financial evasion. On the
other hand the Imperial speech contains hints tend-
ing to prove that, at last, the Austrian Government
is beginning to understand where her actual strength
lies. " The general interests of the monarchy" are
appealed to. Only as an imperial confederation can •
Austria ever maintain her rank among empires. It
may be wise for her princes to congratulate the na-
tion on its prosperity, its legislative progress, its
industrial power and intellectual energy, its fiscal
economy and its diplomatic triumphs ; but if the
imperial speech have any permanent meaning, it
consists in the aspiration that " in a near approach-
ing future a firm tie of union between all the peoples
of the empire may be formed by a common treat-
ment of the rights, duties, and interests which are
the same in all the provinces." That is the leading
truth of Austrian politics, and it is inseparable from
the financial policy to which we have referred as
upholding the entire system of the ,empire. Nor,
when the Austrian Parliament disperses can it be
suggested that the event, or the influences characte-
rising it, are of minor interest to the rest of Europe.
Austria, occupying a middle place between the east
and the west, the north and the south, is the ballast
of Europe; it is essentially a great pacific power;
it is a mighty political flywheel, and its interests are
bound up with those of every conservative and con-
stitutional power in the Old World. Credit is, with
Austria, however, a supreme necessity. It is not to
be insinuated, of course, that the imperial responsi-
bility has been shaken by a temporary conceal-
ment of the financial card ; but where was the
necessity for adjourninc, the Reichsrath before the
Budget for 1866 had, according to custom, been
produced ? We have very little doubt of Austrian
credit. We expect that it will soon produce a
• budget with which any Government might be proud
to face the world. We think the monetary position
of the Vienna Cabinet healthy and solid, and only
question the wisdom of dealing in suppressions, as
though the Emperor's Ministers were afraid of
having contracted a bad bargain with the future.
[ They have fallen into error, no doubt ; they have
converted state securities for considerations compa-
. ratively worthless ; they have raised loans without
Parliamentary sanction, and the raising of their
revenue is effected at an exorbitant cost. But,
taken at large, they have honestly represented both
the Emperor and the Empire ; and if we doubt
their wisdom in attempting to throw a veil over the
finances of the country, until it can appear in a
more acceptable shape, we must not deny that the
Austrian rule, in its regular progress and its influ-
ence over the many millions comprised beneath its
sway, is no dishonour to the politics or to the civi-
lisation of the time. It is improving for Germany
the principle of Parliamentary government.