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

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 21; 18616.

Kent and Surrey, and to abandon their Farn-
borough Extension, to authorise the acquisition of
additional lands in London, Middlesex, Surrey, and
Kent, and of the Sittingbourne and Sheerness Com-
pany, to extend the time for completing and pur-
chasing lands for undertakings in London, Surrey,
and Kent, to amend the Acts relating to the com-
pany, and for other purposes.
Lord HARRIS, in seconding the motion, said that,
although the works mentioned in the bill appeared
numerous and important, there were only two of
them which they were obliged to carry out, the
others were only permissive, and would be proceeded
with when necessary. They proposed to acquire
additional land for the extension of the Ludgate-
hill station. There was no doubt that Ludgate
would be their main station, as they might not have
occasion to go on to Finsbury, for which they had
a bill.

After a long discussion, the bill was unanimously
approved.

The CHAIRMAN said the next bill was.to authorise
the company to make new railways and alteration
of authorised railways in Surrey and Kent, and new
streets and alterations of streets near their Farring-
don-street terminus, and to use the West London
Railway and West London Extension Railway ; to
authorise the Kent Coast Railway Company to
make a newroad at Ramsgate ; and to confer powers
and impose obligations on the corporation of the
city of London with respect to the new and altered
streets. A:resolution approving the bill was adopted.
The third bill was for authorising the company to
make a branch railway to Chatham dockyard, and
to make arrangements with the Admiralty, which
was also agreed to.

The CHAIRMAN then proposed the approval of
the bill for making railways from the South-Eas-
tern and London, Chatham, and Dover Companies'
Railways to various districts and places in Kent,
Surrey, and Sussex, and to the towns of Lewes and
Brighton.

Lord HARRIS seconded the resolution, and con-
gratulated the shareholders that the preamble
had been passed by the committee of the House of
Commons, as he believed that it would bring a larger
amount of traffic over the line into the metropolis,
and afford great advantages to the public.
After the rejection of two amendments, the ori-
ginal motion was carried with only three dissen-
tients amid loud cheers.

A bill was then approved for making a railway
from Maidstone to Ashford.
A vote of thanks to the chairman and directors
was passed for their management of the affairs of
the company.

troops crossed the Saxon frontier and began their
advance towards Dresden.

A large body of the army which advanced into
Saxony passed by Strehla on the Elbe, and pushed
forward in the direction of Riesa, the point of junc-
tion of the lines of railway which lead from Dresden
to Berlin, and from Leipsic and Chemnitz to Dres-
den, Bautzen, and Zittau. As the advanced guard
approached Riesa the wooden railway bridge on
which the line from Leipsic to Dresden crosses the
Elbe was blown up by the Saxons. This did not,
however, much impede the advance, for the Prus-
sians took possession of Riesa, and pushed their co-
lumns forward in two directions towards Dresden to
the front and towards Leipsic and Grossenheim on
either flank. The object of this lateral movement is
to gain possession of the line of railway which, run-
ning east and west through Saxony, would be of
great use to the enemy for purposes of concentra-
tion, if allowed to remain intheir hands. Its posses-
sion does not give much advantage to the Prussians,
for the retiring Saxons have in many places torn up
the rails, and have cut the telegraph wires.
On the western side of the theatre of war the
Prussian troops have advanced from Minden and
Holstein against Hanover, and from Wetzlar against
Electoral Hesse, so that with the exception of the
second army in Silesia under the Crown Prince, all
the Prussian troops in the field have been put in
motion almost simultaneously.
Geu. Manteuffel, the late commander in Schles-
wig, is to have, it is supposed, the command of the
Prussian corps in Hanover.
At the same time, as an advance was made in
Saxony from Strehla, another body of Prussians
crossed the frontier from the direction of this town,
where the headquarters of Prince Frederic Charles
were yesterday established. A part of them entered
the Saxon town of Lobau, which they found without
a garrison. The railway bridge here was not blown
up, although it had been mined. The lines of the
railway were, however, torn up and laid in confu-
sion on the way. The Prussian commander imme-
diately employed the country people to restore the.
railway, and they appear to have entered upon the
work with great alacrity and goodwill. Near Baut-
zen the line was also broken, and here also it is
being rapidly repaired.

Prince Frederick Charles at the same time as his
troops advanced issued a proclamation to the people
of Saxony to the effect that the King of Prussia had
found himself compelled to make war against the
Saxon Government, but that it was not intended
that the effects of the war should fall on the people ;
on the contrary, that all private property would be
strictly respected, and that no peaceful inhabitant
would be disturbed.

A report which has reached this town of a skir-
mish between a Prussian brigade and some Saxon
troops near Bautzen appears to be without founda-
tion. The Austrian war manifesto has just been re-
ceived here, and has called forth an extra sheet of
the local paper.

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 one 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 most 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
King's love of justice, and invent stories by the roam 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 been 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 I>ll own relations, and asso-
ciating with a very doubtful set of characters. He himself,
moreover, not only admitted that he had extorted money
from tho 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 a capital ono 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 London 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 seep William
Smith going at half-past 7 on the 11th towards the Slough
station, that they had spoken to him, and that he had oe
tall hat and a dark coat. It was proved by a constable
that ho was in the High-street of Eton about a quarter to
12, and it was shown by satisfactory evidence that there
was ono train from Slough at 7.43, by which ho 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. Bovingtons'
house just at the time when the murderer must have loft 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 swore most positively to a high hat
and dark clothes. It would be almost impossible for cir-
cumstantial evidence to be more perfect. Here 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 left 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 la w
does not always require that motive should be proved.
And yet there cannot bo 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 boon 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 he did walk towards Slough " to
meet a woman," as ho told ono 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 rospectables, drawing a distinct line 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. Tho
accused from the first said he had never left 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, ho 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 deniecLby a cloud of independent witnesses.
The evidence for the defence is unanswerable, so perfect
that no one 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 one who resolved to use it for his own purposes, and
killed Mrs. Millsom either to got 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 over They had, and the great additional advantage
of being headed off the false scent.