The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TimEs.—The trial of John Currie for the murder
of Major De Vere has failed to throw any new light
on the motives or circumstances of that atrocious
crime. The coroner's inquest had already elicited
all the material facts of the case, and they were such
as to render a conviction inevitable. Never perhaps
was there less room for doubt or extenuation, never
was the task of a prisoner's counsel more hopeless,
and never hasthe sentence of death been pronounced
on one less deserving of compassion. It will be re-
membered that Currie was a private in the Royal
Engineers, quartered at Brompton Barracks, near
Chatham, and that his victim was a first captain in
the same corps, and instructor in field fortifications.
Since Currie had joined the regiment, on Sept. 1,
1864, he appears to have been several times on the
black lists. Though one of his officers testified on
the inquest that he was a sober and well-conducted
man, it was shown that he had been four times under
punishment for " exceeding his pass and returning
drunk." At all events, while under file instruction,
he more than once got into trouble for his idleness
an 1 sulkiness under reprimand. On one of these
occasions his sergeant reported him, and Major De
Vere ordered his working pay to be checked for a
day, whereupon Currie doggedly refused to work,
and for that offence sent by the colonel to the cells,
and put through a course of extra work. It was then
doubtless that he meditated the cowardly vengeance
which he afterwards executed in cold blood. On the
11th of last month Major De Vere was standing
with other officers on the parade ground of Bromp-
ton Barracks about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Currie
was in wait for him at the open windo w of his own
barrackroom with two loaded rifles. Presently- Major
De Vere moved a few paces away from the rest to
give some orders, when Currie took a deadly aim and
shot him through the back. The major lingered for
11 days, but died on the 22d from the effects of the
wound. Immediately on the shot being fired Currie
was taken into custody, admitted that he had done
it, and pointed out his rifle just discharged. His
manner in addressing the officer who questioned him
was respectful and perfectly collected. On being
asked by a comrade what made him do it, he
calmly replied, " Why wouldn't I do it ?" adding
that Major De Vere was a rogue, a tyrant, and a
thief in his heart, and that he had scrupulously
singled him out, so as to injure no other officer.
He has since expressed no contrition, but, on the
contrary, entire satisfaction at his deed, and re-
ceived the news of Major De Vere's death with the
utmost unconcern. In fact, his conduct from first
to last has been that of a deliberate and self-pos-
sessed murderer, looking before and after, but with
much less regard for his own safety than for the
destruction of his enemy. - It is shocking to realise
such a state of mind, and more shocking still to be
compelled to doubt whether it is by any means un-
common. Aristotle, in distinguishing the passion
of hatred from that of mere anger, remarks that the
latter aims at inflicting pain only, while the former
desires nothing less than the annihilation of its
object. It is to be feared that the worse of these
two feelings is no stranger to a great many minds,
though held in check by powerful restraints.
Avarice, lust, envy, or revenge, are all equally
capable of producing it, and there are probably
thousands who, without having the nerve to commit
murder, are nevertheless murderers in their hearts.
What Mr. Sleigh calls by a figure of speech " an
uncontrollable morbid impulse," that is, an intense
and imperious longing to put some obnoxious
person out of their way, is felt by all these
people, but it is not really " uncontrollable,"
for it is in fact controlled by the fear of the
gallows. The difference between their mental
condition and that of Currie, so far as appeared
from the evidence, is simply that his love of life,
being less intense than in most men, was not quite
sufficient to overbalance his vindictive instinct.
He fancied he had been harshly treated by Major
De Vere, and brooded over it to desperation.
Whether he had or not, and whether, as was sug-
gested at the inquest, Major De Vere was too severe
a disciplinarian, hardly affects the question. No one
can go through life without experiencing numberless
wrongs, both real and imaginary, and resisting many
" uncontrollable" temptations to retaliate for them.
Indeed, it was rather Mr. Sleigh's object to discon-
nect the crime of Currie from the alleged tyranny
of the Major, since the admission of a malicious
motive would have militated against the theory of
morbid impulse. As, however, there was not the
faintest proof or presumption of any insanity in the
prisoner, or any peculiarity about the act except its
careful premeditation, he might as well have advised
his client to plead guilty. In this case it is hardly
probable that a single voice will be raised in favour
of commuting the sentence. The most zealous oppo-
nents of capital punishment recognise certain mili-
tary offences as au exception, at least when com-
mitted on active service. It is not very easy to
reconcile the principle of this exception with the
assertion, so often made in the same quarters, that
death is not the most deterrent of penalties. Still it
is worth something as a testimony to the necessity
of enforcing discipline in our army at any cost.
Perhaps old officers, both naval and military, are
predisposed to detect degeneracy in the British sol-
diers and sailors of our own day. Perhaps they too
easily forget the mutinies and half-mutinies of for-
mer times, the complaints which have never ceased
to cause anxiety at the Admiralty, and the com-
ments of the Duke of Wellington himself on the
behaviour of those Peninsular troops who were ready
to "go anywhere or to do anything." Still, it is vain
to shut our eyes to the statistics furnished by the
calendar at each successive assizes, and to the still
more formidable increase of " military-murders." At
Winchester, for instance, it has sometimes happened
that two-thirds of the whole number of prisoners
tried wore her Majesty's uniform ; in other words,
that a few thousand men, who ought to be under
strict surveillance, have committed more serious
crimes than all the other inhabitants of Hampshire.
This seems to prove either that a large proportion
of the worst characters enlist, or that they are sadly
deteriorated by the service. Whether the present
state of the army be due to the materials whence
it is drawn, or to some less obvious fault in the
system, we cannot pretend to say. It is for the
Horse Guards and the War-office to probe the evil
to its source, but the public, who pay many millions
fora force numerically small, have a direct interest
in the efficiency of its discipline. 'They will never be
secured by rendering the Mutiny Act more strin-
gent, or by enabling such assassins as Currie to be
tried at once by a court-martial. Such changes
may or not be desirable, but they are not recom-
mended by our recent experience of military jus-
tice. Moreover, there are many men who would
prefer to be shot by their own comrades to con-
fronting a crowd on a scaffold. What is really im-
portant is, that conviction and punishment should
follow close enough on the crime. The act under
which Currie was transferred, on the application of
the Secretary for War, to the Central Criminal
Court has done much to abridge the interval which
might otherwise elapse. His execution will be a
warning to mutinous spirits less reckless of conse-
quences than himself, but executions alone, how-
ever numerous and exemplary, will never restore a
healthy tone of subordination to the ranks of our
army.
Post —" The Women of Mississippi," to the
number of about four hundred and twenty, have
taken a step which seems likely to bring to a crisis
the fate of Mr. Jefferson Davis, the ex-President of
the late Southern Confederation. They have asked
for him that which he has not yet asked for himself
—a free pardon at the hands of President Johnson.
Now that this petition is presented the natural won-
der is that nothing 9f the kind was presented be-
fore. But better late than never, and better that a
few hundred ladies should appeal to the President,
even though in vain, than that he should either
linger in jail prostrate in strength and spirits for an
indefinite period, or be hurried to execution through
the mockery of a trial, without one word of remon-
strance or appeal from those whom he served so
well, and in whose cause -he risked and lost every-
thing.
We confess that we are not sanguine of the
success of the petition. Nothing could be easier
than to put off such an appeal without an absolute
or ungracious-looking refusal. A few careful
words of assurance that in the treatment of Mr.
Davis the interests of justice and the United States
should be tempered with mercy would commit the
President to nothing, and leave the fair appellants
nothing to complain of. Unfortunately for the cause
of the petitioners the person with whom it rests to
grant a pardon is not easily accessible to the motives
which the ladies have urged. They rest their case
upon a few very simple and obvious points. Mr.
Davis, they say, had always been a prominent poli-
tician. There had long been " sectional strife fos-
tered by extremists both North and South," and
when this came to a crisis how could Mr. Davis re-
fuse the call of the almost united voice of the South-
ern people to preside over their councils ? He only
took in war the prominent position he had always
held in peace, and though the fortune of war has
gone against him, yet as the Southern States have
returned to the Union, and Mr. Davis himself is
ready to accept loyally the issue of the struggle, he
ought not to be visited with the vials of Northern
wrath. Such is the plea of these ladies of the Mis-
sissippi, and it is one which the whole civilised world
will endorse, with the exception, perhaps, of Mr.
Bright, who does not seem to think that an Ameri-
can President can do a wrong or unwise thing. The
truth is that the execution of Mr. Davis for the part
forced upon. him by the course of events in the South
would scandalise the world. Scarcely less scandal-
ous is the treatment which he is now undergoing.
People ,on this side of the Atlantic who earnestly
desire to see every spark of feud or strife stamped
out, and the. return of brotherly feeling and federal

unity brought about as speedily as possible, ask con-
tinually on what conceivable ground of common jus-
tice or political expediency the treatment of Mr. Davis
is justified ? Is it intended to wear him out by the
rigour of prison discipline? Is he to be kept in a state
of abject, unworthy misery merely to gratify a vindic-
tive passion on the part of the Northern populace? is
it that the President himself gloats over. the subjuga-
tion of the leader of the vanquished Confederates,
and feels a low pleasure in harassing him with petty
mortifications, and in prolonging the terrible sus-
pense between life and death ? Is it that this broken-
down man is to be left to eat out his own heart ill
almost unendurable confinement, in order that
secretly inflicted misery may terminate that life
which could not, without eternal disgrace to the
Union, be taken by the public executioner ? It is
not from any personal feelings towards the Presi-
dent that these questions are asked on this side of
the sea. Englishmen watch with the deepest interesb
the proceedings of the United States Government.
Aud when one mail after another comes, and still
no news of trial or of pardon ; and only reports of
wilder clamours for the prisoner's death, and of
clumsy and ill-disguised touting for evidence of his
knowledge of the design on President Lincoln's life,
people here are driven to ask for reasons, and then
such questions as we have asked above rise to every
one's lips, and men tax their ingenuity to justify
conduct which is utterly repugnant to our notions
of law and right. This Mississippi memorial again
turns all eyes on the prison of the ex-President, and
raises a new feeling of anxiety for the result. But
if the Chief Magistrate has not the public spirit or
the mercy to set free this broken-down son of an
evil fortune, are there no large-hearted men in
the Northern States who can see what is magnani-
mous, and can say so ? In a question which so
much concerns the honour of human nature as well
as of a great Government, ought the first appeal
for generous conduct to come from a few women
It is not from the South but from the North that
appeals for the life of Mr. Davis should emanate.
The States who have conquered, who have regained
that which was their darling position—an intact
Union—who have at length trodden under foot and
stamped out the disaffection of the South, it is for
them to suggest that it is nobler to pardon a
vanquished enemy, ready to return to his allegi-
ance, than either to hang him for treason, or pro-
long his imprisonment in a state of misery and
torture which is more like the cruelty of the
nations of antiquity than the justice, not to speak
of mercy, of an enlightened and powerful people
in the nineteenth century. To us it seems that
the Legislature of the United States has a
great duty in this matter. If there is a spark of
generosity in Congress, some one will lift up a voice
for Davis. No doubt, in the eyes of Northerners,
his crime is great, and we must make allowance for
the strength of their feelings and the energy of their
hate, but there is such a thing as magnanimity.
There is a mercy that becomes the throned monarch
better than his crown, and is more patent for healing
strifes and winning loyalty, and reclaiming revolted
citizens, than all the fire and sword and confiscation
which the unchastened revenge of brutal mobs maY,
scatter far and wide. If the President of the United
States be well advised. he will at once let the world
see that he forgives the past and has no misgivings
for the future by ordering Mr. Davis's release upon
his taking the ordinary oaths of allegiance. But if
not, it is for all generous men, both in North and
South, to make their voices heard in behalf of the
only course that can be adopted without discredit to
a great nation.