The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-19 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1854.

It is 'discovered this morning by some of our
contemporaries that England and. France have
been. rather slow in sending assistance to their
Turkish ally in the Principalities. The Idea
would seem never before to have presented. itself
to their imaginations. They recognise at last,
however, the existence of the evil, and are, con-
sequently, sufficiently vociferous in denouncing it.
Why, the fact of these delays we ourselves have
been insisting upon, more or less earnestly, day
after day, during the last fortnight. We have pro-
tested against them as most detrimental to the cause
which we have so much at heart, as injurious to
the interests of Turkey, and as derogatory to our
own reputation. We have enveighed against the
folly of these protracted festivities and reiterated
compliments, against these balls, and routs, and
banquets of farewell by which, first of all, our sol-
diers, and then their chieftains, have been com-
pelled to tarry overmuch on their way towards
the seat of war beyond Constantinople. We have,
again and, again, in these columns, evening after
evening, ,charged the authorities with the heinous
culpability of either causing or tolerating this
systematic procrastination. And, at last, to-
day, upon this nineteenth of April, 1854—not
earlier !—the guilt of this dawdling policy is
[wonderful to relate] dimly perceived by some
among our more enlightened contemporaries. It
is suddenly discovered by these contemporaries of
ours—nobody in all the world dreamt of it before,
of course!--that our troops have been-very dila-
tory in their movements eastward, and that they
ought long before now to have energetically be-
stirred themselves.

Well—the pother made about this same as-
tounding discovery of theirs, by our morning con-
t4m/Praries, is, to say the least of it, sufficiently
amusing. It will be found sufficiently amusing
by those of our readers who
rjiave for some time
past marked, upon this identical subject, the course
of our own arguments. It betrays on the part of
the discoverers a, wonderful amount of exhilaration
of spirits at the recognition by them of this sur-
prising evidence of their own sagacity.
. _

Altogether, it recalls to our mind a memorable
incident in the life of Mr. WILLET, of the May-
pole. That gentleman, it may be remembered,
being rather slow of apprehension, had remained
for a long while impervious to the light of a fact
perfectly obvious to the understanding of every-
body else, but altogether
somewhinvisible to his "mind's
eye".—an eye
at lacking at most times
in speculation. c, It chanced,
however, that
sitting over the fire on this particular occa-
sion"—relates Mr. WILLre shistorian—" per-
haps because he was, as it
were, done
to a turn ; perhaps because he
was in an
, perhaps
unusually bright state of mind •
because
he had considered the subject so long ; Perhaps
becapse of all these favouring circumstances taken
together--it chanced that, sitting over the fire- o
this particular occasion, Mr. WILLET did, afar off
and in the remotest depths of his intellect, per-
ceive a kind of lurking hint or faint suggestion
that "--things were really what his associates
had. all along been insisting, but such as
he himself had previously failed to recog-
nise. " And this dim ray of light," conti-
nues our author, " did 3o diffuse itself within
him, and did so kindle up and shine, that at last
he had it as plainly and visibly before him as the
blase by which he sat : and fully persuaded that he
was the first to make the discovery, and that he had
I ("lea 424 ed CIOWM, fallen upon, and knocked on the
head allieffectbiorig i nal idea,whichhadneverpresentecl
itself to any other man, alive or dead, he laid down
his pipe, rubbed, his hands, and chuckled audibly."
Don't we hear to-day just such another audible
chuckle. of self-satisfaction ? Is not Mr. WILLET
one of a genus . And have we not among us, yet,
some of leis lineal descendants ?

Her© is the enormous and perfectly obvious

. .

evil of the delay of the allied troops sent from
and England to their rendezvous in
the Dardanelles. Everybody else had long ago
recognised it. The thing, in fact, was as plain
as a pikestaff. But lo ! and behold ! this morn-
ing it is suddenly, and for the first time, perceived,
and, of course, immediately thereupon loudly
denounced, by one or two of our contemporaries.
Why, the reality of this deplorable system of
delay has been for a considerable time past noto-
rious.* In these columns, we repeat, we our-
selves have denounced it again and again, until
we have become absolutely tired of the monotony
of the repetition. We have addressed our com-
plaints in the matter to those in office almost in the
form of direct accusation. Yet in this, as unhap-
pily in other instances relating to the war entered
upon by the Earl of ABERDEEN and some among his
colleagues with such obvious reluctance—in per-
tusurn ingerimus dicta dolium—the promptings of
ordinary prudence and the suggestions of common
sense would appear to have no influence in guid-
ing the councils of a still hesitating and still (to
a certain extent) timorous Government.
Nothing, however, can alter the fact—the fact
of the evil against which we have so often pro-
tested. The Western Powers have been sadly
wanting in promptitude in sending out troops to
the scene of action in the Principalities. They
have been wasting inestimable time in talking
about their intended achievements. They have
been—there is no other word for it—dawdling
over their preparations. The extent of
the military aid offered by them to
the Sublime Porte is, up to this moment,
altogether inadequate for the emergency. And
even that, comparatively speaking, insignificant
assistance has been so delayed and delayed, in
and compliments, at Paris and Lon-
( Maltadinner
-giving
and Marseilles, that even now the
I foremost of them—those already debarked at Gal-
lipoli—are only on their way to the seat of actual
war, to the scene of action among the belligerents.
England and France expect better things from
their united Governments.

Few cases of late years have excited greater
interest than that of Dr. WILLIAM SMITH, who
was last week tried before the High Court of
Justiciary in Edinburgh, charged with the wilful
and deliberate murder of a farm-servant named
WILLIAM M`DONALD, at Kirkton, or St. Fergus,
iu Aberdeenshire, during the month of November
last. It was not merely the respectability of the
accused, who occupied a position in society supe-
rior to most common-place murderers—it was not
the strange and mysterious circumstances of the
melancholy transaction that excited such intense
anxiety as to the result of the investigation. The
extraordinary character of the motive ascribed,
the manner in which the valuable principle of
Life Assurance was turned from its origi-
nal Purpose, and made to act the part
of the Lancashire death clubs for the
Purpose of gambling in human life invested
the case with a fearful importance, and rendered
it—if the suspicions entertained should have been
confirmed by evidence—one of thb most atrocious
ever brought under the consideration of a crimi-
' nal tribunal. It may be observed, too, that the
matter which directed the current of suspicion
against Dr. SMITH was, that he had speculated in
the life of the deceased man, and would have been
entitled to receive a sum of nearly 2,0001. in the
event of his death; one-half of which would be
altogether lost if WDONALD had survived another
fortnight. The large interest which the prisoner
held in this life at once made him the object of
doubt ; and, when it was found that he might
have committed the murder, these suspicions
were so greatly strengthened that he was
taken into custody, and exposed to the harms-
sing anxiety of a public trial for mur-
der, when, in the event of a hostile verdict,
he would have expiated the awful crime by an
ignominious death on the scaffold. The jury,
however, gave the prisoner the benefit of the
doubt, and by a majority returned a verdict of
" Not proven"—one allowed by the laws of Scot-
land (although not in the other parts of the United
Kingdom), and which does not discharge the party
from the penal consequences of his crime in the
event of additional evidence being obtained at
some future time. The minority were desirous
of finding the accused " guilty ;" so that it may
be seen how narrow was the escape, and if the
prisoner was indeed innocent, as we are bound
to believe after the verdict, he has suffered very
severely for his tampering with " gambling
policies," and his peril may serve as a salutary
caution to persons to abstain from any connec-
tion with matters which may expose them to such
grave imputation and serious annoyances.
The trial lasted three entire days. The most
eminent professional' talent in North Britain was
engaged in the inquiry. The Solicitor-General
led for the Crown, while the Dean of Faculty was
senior for the defence. Three learned Judges
presided on the bench. Everything, therefore,
calculated to elicit truth was available ; and yet,
we regret to say, that the mists are by no means
dispelled. The doubts have acquired more pain-
ful intensity, and public justice and the character
of Dr. SMITH alike remain without adequate vin-
dication. It is not even known with certainty
whether a murder has at all been committed.
And a dark cloud hangs over the fair fame of the
medical practitioner, that must darken all his
future prospects, and which he will find it difficult,
if not altogether impossible, to dispel; and this has
all arisen from the circumstance of Dr. SMITH hav-
ing speculated on the life of a person with whom
he was in daily communication, and by whose
early death he would receive large pecuniary ad-
vantages. We say advisedly that was the only
circumstance which warranted the trial, or his
being called on to answer a charge involving his
life and honour.

The evidence was purely circumstantial. It
was shown that the deceased, who was cheerful
and good tempered, not at all subject to depres-
sions, or likely to be guilty of violence against
himself, was engaged to be married, whenever he
could succeed in getting a farm. He was on the
best terms with his intended, and there had not
been any dispute or subject of jealousy between
them. He went out on Saturday evening, the
10th November, at four o'clock p.m., stating
that h© was going to the wheelwright's, and that
he had a " tryst" (or appointment) with Dr.
SMITH about six o'clock. A farmer named STEW-
ART deposed to having been at the wheelwright's and
seen a strange young man supposed to be the deceased,
there before 7 o'clock. He went back a little be-
fore half-past 7 for a few minutes, and the young
man was not there. On going home witness
heard a shot fired when he was about five minutes
walk from the wheelwright's shop. The shot was
also heard by WM. FRASER, bell-man of St. Fer-
gus, and was probably the one by which the
death of M`DONALD was occasioned. FRASER
proved that he left his own house a little after
half-past 7 o'clock, to go to the church to ring the
8 o'clock bell. When about forty or fifty yards
on the way he heard a shot, and saw a flash in the
direction of Dr. SMITH'S field. This took place
between 20 and 25 minutes to 8 o'clock. Every
person of any experience in criminal cases knows
the extraordinary difficulty in obtaining accurate
information as to time. Since the celebrated case of
ABRAHAM THORNTON, to the present day, the most
conflicting evidencehasbeen obtained on such points
from persons really desirous of telling the truth.
Here, however, the exact time was ascertained
with more than ordinary accuracy. There was
the agreement, in point of time, between the wit-
nesses STEWART and. FRASER; the latter, too, from
his duty of ringing the bells for particular times,
was not easily to be deceived as to the hour.
was thus fixed—at about 20 or 25
te to 8 o'clock. Now the prisoner proved
minutes
t I lye
e time
8 had been on a professional visit to the
Manse up to 7. He afterwards was at the house
of a Miss ANDERSON at 25 minutes before 8, by
her clock--but that she states it to have been

" about quarter of an hour slow." From this it
would not have been impossible, if Miss ANDERSON
was perfectly accurate as to the slowness of her
clock, for - the prisoner to have fired the fatal
shot ;-bUt there was nothing remarkable in his man-
ner or appearance. He subsequently went to
Mrs. PIRIE'S, and thence to Mrs. MA.Nsores,
but no person remarked anything strange; and it
Is difficult to conceive such a state of nerves as
would have enabled a person who had committed
an awful murder within ten minutes previously to
divest himself of any appearance of flurry or
agitation. It was shown that Dr. SMITH had
purchased a pistol of the same description as that
found by the dead body, and with which it was
alleged he had committed suicide ; but another
witness proved that the deceased himself had.pur-
chased a similar pistol some time previously. It
was by no means satisfactorily proved that the
case was not one of suicide, though the medical
gentlemen thought it not probable that it was so.
Dr. COURIE, however, declared that " the appear-
ances did not present materials to form an opinion
as to whether it was or was not a case of suicide."
Under such circumstances a conviction was
clearly impossible. Dr. SMITH would not have
been tried for his life, or suspected, but
for his dealing in gambling policies that
supplied the motives, and has occasioned
all the doubt and difficulty. After the fear-
ful revelations respecting burial clubs—when
we see men and women sacrificing their own chil-
dren
for the sake of a few paltry pounds—we
cannot wonder at any imputation cast on a
stranger, who had so large an interest as 2,0001.
in the event. The fact of a medical man being
the gambler enhanced the grave suspicions. •
About ten years since, Lord ST. LEONARDS—
then Sir EDWARD SUGDEN—declared such a pro-
ceeding, as permitting a medical man to be in-
terested in the life of a patient, to be contrary to
public policy, and as gambling insurances are not
forbidden in Ireland, and the Insurance Com-
panies did not resist payment, he declared the
Doctor a trustee for the personal representatives
of the deceased, and ordered him to pay all the
costs of the suit. Care must be taken against
such practices being introduced, or permitting
our valuable Life Assurance Companies to dege-
nerate into mere burial clubs, where strangers.
might have " motives of the most extraordinary
and tremendous character" for dealing foully
towards persons in whose lives they have no real
interest. The subject is one of exceeding in-
terest, and well worthy of mature and attentive
lvnsidera tion.