The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-21 00:00:00

The Lies of Circumstance.

(From the Spectator.)
The acquittal of William Smith for the murder of Mrs.
Millsom, the housekeeper in Cannon-street, an acquittal
which we may as well say at once was all but inevitable,
but just, is in ono respect unfortunate. It will deepen, and
deepen greatly, the remarkable English distrust of circum •
stantial evidence, a distrust almost peculiar to the people
of this country. Asiatics confide in no other form of evi-
dence. Accustomed to hear men, otherwise good, lie in
the moss deliberate manner, and aware of their own ten-
dency to imagine facts, they rely on circumstances alone
for truth, think the judgment of Solomon which strikes
Englishmen as a bit of shrewd oppression, proof of the
Khsg's love of justice, and invent stories by the ream in
which a circumstance reveals the truth concealed by oral
testimony. Even on the Continent the police rely on in-
cident far more than on eye-witnesses, and give to the
facts of a man's past life a weight in proving his guilt
which to Englishmen seems in the last degree oppressive.
In England alone is there genuine confidence in testimony
as opposed to facts, a definite belief that there is in events,
as in nature, an occasional irony. Englishmen are,
least of all mankind, inclined to fatalism, having a latent
notion that Fate itself can be fought if only
dogged enough, but they all believe more or
less in that irony of circumstance, that unexpected
and unreasonable departure from the ordinary sequence of
cause and effect, which they call luck. A common jury,
which is usually a microcosm of England, is therefore al-
ways frightened at convicting without witnesses, and the
trial of William Smith will greatly deepen the alarm.
Never did circumstances tell so terribly against an inno-
cent man. A woman, known to have boon subject to
threats, was found murdered, and the man who threatened
her was almost accidentally discovered. This man when
traced proved to be a bad sort of scamp, not exactly of the
criminal class, but still bad enough to extort money from
a poor woman, distrusted by his own relations, and asso-
ciating with a very doubtful set of characters. Ho himself,
moreover, not only admitted that ho had extorted money
from the murdered woman, but that he had expected the
police to arrest him on that charge, an admission the police
probably thought extremely unlikely if the expectation
had been genuine, while the device of confessing a minor
offence to conceal & capital one is exceedingly frequent.
Then spots were found on his coat believed to be blood
stains, though they were only stains from some material
used in his trade, which might very well have been blood
stains if Smith had cut himself in shaving or acciden-
tally touched a newly killed animal. Further, it seemed
that he was long enough away from his home at Eton to
have been in Loudon at the time of the murder, about 10
p.m. on May 11, it was proved that he said he was going to
London about 7 o'clock on that night, and that the remark
excited some surprise. It was also deposed by a lamp-
lighter and another witness that they had seen William
Smith going at half-past 7 on the 11th towards the Slough
station, that they had spoken to him, and that he had on a
tall hat and a dark coat. It was proved by a constable
that he was in the High-street of Eton about a quarter to
12, and it was shown by satisfactory evidence that there
was one train from Slough at 7.43, by which he might have
gone to London, and another by which ho might have re-
turned before the constable saw him. Finally, a respect-
able person, housekeeper in a neighbouring house in the
city, swore that she saw him leave Messrs. Bevingtons'
house just at the time when the murderer must have left it.
There was no reason whatever for suspecting this woman
of any improper motive of any kind, and she firmly be-
lieved the accused to be the man she said, singled him out
among 14 people, and sworn most positively to a high hat
and dark clothes. It would be almost impossible for cir-
cumstantial evidence to be more perfect. Hero was a man
of bad character who acknowledged himself guilty of a
crime towards Mrs. Millsom, who was shown to have
said ho was going to London, shown to have been seen
going to a station which a London train would pass, and
recognised by an honest witness as having loft the house
in which the murder was committed at a time which
tallied exactly with its commission. Nothing but a motive
was wanting, and in the face of undoubted facts the law
does not always require that motive should be proved.
And yet there cannot be a doubt, if evidence is worth
anything at all, if in fact the very basis of every system of
trial is not rotten, that 'William Smith was totally inno-
cent of the murder. The circumstances had lied against
him almost as if they had been sentient. There was but
one train from Slough that evening by which Smith could
by possibility have reached London in time to commit the
crime, and that train left Slough at 7.43. By that train
the prisoner, though ho did walk towards Slough " to
meet a woman," as he told one witness, certainly did not
go. Henry Harris, a hatter, met him in Eton-square at 20
minutes past 6, and did not leave him till 10.10 still in a
beershop in Eton. Henry Coster, photographer, confirmed
this statement in detail. So did John Starling, a brazier,
so did Henry Holderness, a gardener, so did G. Dodner, a
bootmaker, so did John Matthews, a photographic printer,
so in fact did ten or twelve men, all of whom stated cir-
cumstances which induced them to recollect the day,
and all of whom must have combined to perjure them-
selves if the accused was not in Eton while the murder
was being committed in London. The theory of
such combination is too absurd for' consideration.
In the first place, they had no motive for such a crime ; in
the second, average English scamps abhor murder just as
much as English respectables, drawing a distinct lino be-
tween it and every other crime ; and in the third, they
were supported by a very remarkable bit of moral evidence,
and an equally remarkable bit of physical testimony. The
accused from the first said ho had never loft Eton that
night, this point being fully admitted by the police. Now,
we take it to be almost a certainty that had Smith com-
mitted the crime, he would not have denied going to Lon-
don, but have invented some story to account for his going,
sure that the mere fact of his journey would be traced. The
physical evidence was merely that, as Smith certainly was
in Eton at 7.30, he must have run the whole way to the
Slough station, while the Windsor station was quite close,
and the same train stopped there. Nobody, aware how a
man like Smith detests exertion, would believe any asser-
tion of the kind, unless supported by positive evidence, in-
stead of being denied by a cloud of independent witnesses.
The evidence for the defence is unanswerable, so perfect
that no ono who reads it will doubt that Baron Bramwell,
in declaring Smith "not only acquitted, but innocent," was
right, however they may question the wisdom of a remark
the omission of Which in any similar case will raise a pre-
sumption that the Court disagrees with the verdict.
William Smith being innocent, the old problem revives,
and the theory advanced in the Times to help its solution
is certainly very shrewd. The writer evidently supposes

that Smith bad revealed the secret of his extortions to
some ono who resolved to use it for his own purposes, and
killed Mrs. Millsom either to get her keys, or out of rage
at her refusal. It is certain that he did not rob the house,
and extremely improbable that a refusal of that kind would
tempt a man to risk hanging, but still the theory is plau-
sible. Either Smith or Terry may have mentioned the
possibility of obtaining money to some one, who planned
a robbery, but not a murder, allowed Mrs. Millsom to go
quietly to wards the staircase, and then tried to stun her
with a life preserver, capable of concealment as he retired.
Alarmed at the effect of his blow, he retreated, carrying the
weapon with him, and was seen by Mrs. Robbins. That
theory meets every point in the case, except that Mrs.
Millsom expected her visitor, and stood talking a consi-
derable time. As a rule, after a trial the police slacken
their efforts, but they have at this moment just as many
clues as ever they had, and the great additional advantage
of being headed off the false scent.