The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-05 00:00:00

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY.

(From the Lancet.)
Any ambitious metaphysician of sopiring genius de-
voted to the study of the doctrine of probabilities may
find ample scope for original speculation in seeking to •
fairly apportion the amount of moral guilt amongst those
directly or indirectly implicated in any great crime. It
is essential to the well-doing of society that murderers
should receive the punishment of death. Yet there can
be little doubt that many a man who has hang for his
crime would have been held comparatively guiltless could
the responsibility of the act have been apportioned se-
cording to abstract principles of justice, and that Mac-
heath would have had no occasion to sing--
".It's strange we have not better company
Upon Tyburn tree."
A Well of three days' duration has just been concluded
at Glasgow, which affords abundant material for much
speculation. James Thomson, a journeyman taifor, ad-
ministered a doseof prussicacid to &young woman named
Agnes Montgomery, which rapidly caused her death.
He escaped detection at the time, as it is probable many
other criminals escape detection in Scotland, through the
absence of a coroner's inquest. Twelve days afterwards
he again administered prussic acid to a man and his wife,
having mixed it with some whiskey, of which he invited
them to partake. They narrowly escaped death. Prus-
sia acid was detected in the spirit, and the body of the
girl, subsequently exhumed, presented abundant evidence
of her death being occasioned by this poison- For n either of
these crimes could any motive be assigned. The prt.
Boner was condemned to die, and we believe the verdict was
nsostjust, though his perfect sanity seems more than ques-
tionable. For we confess to little of the fine-drawn gni.
paths, which relieves the perpetrator of a deliberately
planned murder from due punishment because he does
not come up to a certain standard of inganity. When
we see criminals so frequently feign madness, and bear
counsel cross-examine witnesses with the sole object of
proving it, we may well be more cautious in granting
reprieves on the score of insanity.
In reading the particulars of the above ease it neces-
sarily becomes a matter of surprise how a, poor tailor
could obtain possession of such an amount of so poisonous
a drug. On the trial the prisoner's shoprnates proved that
a good deal of conversation took place about the time of
Miss Smith's trial regarding the rapid effects of prussic
acid, which they said was sometimes used for photogra•
phic purposes. A carrier's boy proved that he took a note
from the prisoner to Hart's, a druggist in Glasgow, from
whom he got a phial. He could not read, but another
boy read the note on the way, and said it was for prussic
acid. The prisoner told the carrier's boy that be wanted
the stuff to dye his hair, but if he was asked by the drug-
gist he was to say it was wanted by a photographer. The
druggist's shopman proved that prussic acid was supplied
to the carrier's assistant on Sept. 12, and the latter said
he gave it to the prisoner on the morning of the 11th,
the day of Agnes Montgomery's death. It was proved
that the carrier's boy got a second supply of prussic acid
at Hart's on Sept. 24, the day before the second admi•
nistration of poison.
We cannot better express our opinion of the man who
sold the poison than by quoting the words of the judge
in summing up the case. Hi. said, " that he never knew
of a more singular piece of carelessness in selling poison
than that exhibited by Stirling, the chemist, Hart's as-
sistant. He got no satisfactory answer to his question
as to who the acid was wanted for, and did not believe .
that it was intended to be put to the use alleged, and yet
gave it without inquiry. He (the Lord Justice Clerk)
would not retract what he had said the day before to
Stirling himself, and would repeat, that the death of the
girl ought to lie on his mind for life. . •
But we must go further back than the chemist who
supplied the deadly drug. When the Sale of Poisons
Bill was shelved last session we thus wrote in these
salaams :—" If dearly-bought experience is to be taken
as a guide, this delay of a bill restricting the sale of
poisons may be accompanied by the death, either acci-
dental or intentional, of some whose lives the timely
passing of a judicious measure might have saved."—
Med. Innot, August 22, 1857.
Had this bill been then passed, and at once carried
into effect, the man now condemned to death could not
have obtained the poison in the easy manner above
narrated, and the woman would, probably, have been
alive, for no extreme vindictiveness was proved against
the prisoner. There is a chain cf moral inculpation ,
sufficiently puzzling. Whether it will serve as a warning
to members of Parliament who are preparing to °ppm'
the introduction of a measure calculated to prevent the
recurrence of such crimes remains yet to be seen.