The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-10 00:00:00

THE GLASGOW POISONING.

After an interval of expectation, the light cavalry
could be discerned in dark uneven masses on the
hills far south of Farnham-wood, slowly retreating
along the high ground and watching the imaginary
foe beneath them. The Rifles were despatched
to their support, and breaking into skirmishing
order, advanced and occupied the borders of the wood of
Farnham. Immediately after the action began with an
irregular dropping fire, which swelled gradually into a
continued rattle. The Rifles dodged from bush to bush,
crowding behind the trees and mounds, lining the hedges,
always on the move, but never slackening their fire for a
single instant. The Horse Artillery, with the heavy
cavalry on the extreme left, supported them with a smart
cannonade ; but the help was apparently unavailing, as,
after a fierce defence of an orchard and farmhouse, the
retreat was sounded, and the Rifles fell slowly back.
They stole across the open ground in twos and trees,
turning every now and then to fire, until they gained
the shelter of the light cavalry, when the assemblee was
sounded, and the whole regiment drawing together, re-
treated in double time. The light cavalry manoeuvred to
cover the movement, and in this they were supported by
the troops of Horse Artillery, which commenced the
cannonade in hot earnest. The resistance, though gal.
lant, was supposed to be of no effect. The Artillery
were ordered to limber up and retire, and the whole
force commenced a rapid retreat. This was one of the
most brilliant and animating movements of the day.
The heavy rumble of the field batteries as they moved
off, the rapid movements of the cavalry, and, above all,
the ceaseless din of trumpets and hoarse cries which rang
from rank to rank, with all the hurry and confusion that
seemed to pervade the force, gave to the whole scene the
aspect of a veritable field. The Horse Artillery were the
last to retire. They emerged from the low plantations,
pressing their horses to the utmost, and thundering across
the plain with a rush apparently as resistless as the sweep
of destiny. As they fell back the regiments of infantry
formed massive squares upon the common, through the
intervals of which the mounted troops retreated, and
formed upon the flanks of the squares to cover their
retreat in turn. In this manner the greater portion
of the plains of Aldershot were traversed, the Court
and staff moving from height to height, and having a
Full view of every movement that took place, The in.

fantry were deployed into line, and opened file firing,
and a field battery at each end of the brigade contributed
to swell the din ; but the retreat nevertheless went on as
rapidly as ever, so the spectators were left to suppose
the advance of the enemy was overwhelming. The cavalry
and Horse Artillery made a last desperate effort to re-
trieve the fortunes of the day, and advanced to the point
in two magnificent lines, with the guns on either flank.
After two or three preparatory wheels over the ground,
as a hawk might turn before he stooped upon his prey,
the 7th and 15th Hussars formed line and halted. The
trumpets sounded the advance, and with a dull jingling
sound the line moved on faster and faster, till the charge
rang out from every rank, and on they came, like a
whirlwind over the plain, shaking the solid earth, and
scattering the turf like dust behind them. The grandest
and most terrible feature of real warfare was here pour-
trayed with a fidelity which made the very crowd seem
awe-stricken and appalled. Hardly had the dust in the
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to end. As each charge was made the mounted troops
fell back further and further, until they finally retreated
on the flanks of the infantry, who had deployed into line
at the foot of some steep heights surmounted by the
field batteries. Here the last desperate stand was made.
A. fierce file fire was opened, and every one of the 30
guns upon the ground was taxed to the utmost to keep
up the cannonade. Not till all parts of the common
were wrapped in smoke, and the whole scene as invisible
to the Court as to the crowd, did the volleys cease.
With this final effort the movements of the day were
brought to a close.

TRIAL OF MADELEINE SMITH.
EIGHTH DAY—WEDNESDAY, JULY 8.
The Hieh Court of Justiciary met again at ten
o'clock on Wednesday.
The Dean of Faculty addressed the jury on be-
half of the prisoner. He said—Gentlemen of the
Jury—The charge against the prisoner is murder,
and the punishment of murder is death ; :Led that
simple statement is sufficient to suggest to us the
awful solemnity of the occasion which brings you
and me face to face. But, gentleman, there are pe-
culiarities in the present ease of so singular and
strange a kind—there is such an air of romance and
mystery invested about it from the beginning to the
end—there is something so touching in the age, the
sex, and ?he social position of the ae,cused—aye,
and I must add that public attention is so directed
to this trial, that they watch our proceedings, and
hang on our very accents with such anxiety and
eagerness of expectation, that I feel almost bowed
down and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
task which is imposed on me. You are invited and
encouraged by the prosecutor to'snap the thread of
this young life, and to consign to an ignominious
death on the scaffold one who within a few short
months was known only as a gentle and confiding
and affectionate girl—the ornament and pride of
her happy family. Gentlemen, the tone in which
my learned friend addressed you yesterday could
fail to strike you as most remarkable. It was cha-
racterised by great moderation—by such modera-
tion as I think must have convinced you that he
could hardly expect a verdict at your hands, and in
the course of that address—for which I give him
the highest credit—he could not resist the expres
sion of his own deep feeling of commiseration for
the position which the prisoner was placed in,
which was but an involuntary homage that the
official prosecutor pays to the kind and generous
nature of the man. But, gentlemen, lam going
to ask you for something different from commise-
ration. lam going to ask for that which I will
not condescend to beg, but will loudly and importu-
nately demand--that to, which every prisoner is en-
titled, whether she be the lowest and vilest of her
sex, or the maiden whose purity is of the unsullied
show. I ask you for ju.tioo, rand if you wid]kindly
lend me your attention for the requisite period,
and if Heaven will give me patience and strength
for the task, I shall tear to tatters that web of
sophistry with which the prosecutor has striven to
invest this poor girl and her sad, strange story.
The Dean then reerred to the first introduction of
L'Angelier to the prisoner—au introduction made
in the street in such a way as showed he could not
procure it otherwise or elsewhere. He described
him as an unknown adventurer, and, relating such
parts of his earlier history as had been brought be-
fore them, he described his character as vain, con-
ceited, and pretentious, boastful of his personal at-
tractions, and ever courting the society of ladies
above him in station, and endeavouring to push his
fortune by means of marriage. He referred to his
changeable and excitable character, and his frequent
threat of suicide while suffering from disappoint-
ment in love. Returning to the commencement
of the prisoner's acquaintance with L'Angelier, he
said he thanked the Lord Advocate for his adthis-
sion, that, at that time, though their correspondence
was improper, because clandestine, yet the let-
ters of the young lady breathed nothing but
gentleness and propriety. The correspondence,
however, also showed that if L'Angelier had origi-
nally in his mind to corrupt and seduce this poor
girl he had entered on the attempt with consider-
able ingenuity and skill. Their correspondence
was apparently soon after dropped through the
young lady's own sense of propriety, but in the
spring of 1856 it was unhappily renewed, and it was
but fair to suppose rather on the importunate en-
treaty of this young man than on the suggestion of
the lady. The correspondence was for a time put
an end to by Mr. Smith, and for a time that inter-
ference had effect, but alas ! the next scene was the
most painful of all. In the spring of 1856 the cor-
rupting influence of the seducer was successful, and
the prisoner fell. How corrupting that influence
must have been, and how vile the arts were
to which he resorted for his nefarious pur-
pore, could never be known so well as
by looking to the altered tone of this poor
girl' letters. She had lost not her virtue merely,
but, as my learned friend said, her sense of decency.
Whose fault was that? Whose doing was it? Think
you that, without temptation, without vile teach-
ing, a poor girl falls into those depths of degrada-
tion ! No. Influence from without, most corrupt-
ing influence could alone account for such a fall.
And yet, gentlemen, through the midst of this
frightful correspondence, which I wish to God could
have been concealed from your eyes and those of
the public—and if it had not been, as my learned
friend thought, absolutely necessary for the ends
of that it should be produced, I feel satisfied
lie would not have done so—but even through the
midst of this frightful correspondence there breathes
a spirit of devoted love towards the man who
wronged her that strikes me as most remarkable.
Entering upon the case, the learned counsel re-
marked upon the little evidence that existed to
prove that the parties had ever met in the house in
Blythswood-square. From the 18th Nov. till the
death of L'Angelier there were only two interviews
proved to have taken place within the house. From
all her letters it appeared that the condition of
getting access to the house depended upon the ab-
sence of her parents from home. "If M. and P. go
from home I could take you in at the front door,
and I won't let a chance pass." But that chance
never came. The Lord Advocate seemed to say that
there were some concerted signals by rapping at the
window or on the railings with a stick in order to
attract attention. This you will find is au entire
mistake. L'Angelier did on one or two occasions
take that course, but the prisoner immediately for-
bade it, and ordered him not to do it again. In a
letter which bears the postmark of Dec. 5, 1856,
she says—" Darling, do not knock at the window;"
and again in a postscript, "Remember do not
knock at the door," earnestly repeating 'this cau-
tion. Independent of their communications at
the window, whatever they were, there were only,
two occasions—namely, those of which Chris-
tina Haggart spoke, on which they were proved
to have met within the house in Blythswood
square at all. About this time it is quite obvi-
ous that they had it in view to accomplish an
elopement. It was quite plain that the consent of
Miss Smith's parents to her union with this young
Frenchman was not to be thought of any longer.
That hope was altogether gone, and accordingly
there are constant references in the letters, about
this time, to the arrangements that were to be
II made for carrying her from her father's house and
accomplishing a marriage either in Glasgow or
Edinburgh. The opportunity for that, however,
never came. The Dean then proceeded to say :
We now arrive at a very important stage of this
case. On the 28th Jan. the prisoner accepts Mr.
Minnoch, and my learned friend says that from
that time the whole character of her mind was
changed, and she set herself for the perpetration
of one of the most cool and deliberate murders that
ever was committed. I will not say that such a
thing is absolutely impossible, but I do venture to
say it is well nigh incredible. lie will be a bald
man who will seek to set limits to the depths of
human depravity, but on that subject all past ex-
perience teaches us that the perfection even of de-
pravity is not rapidly attained. It is not by such
short, easy stages as the prosecutor has been able
to trace in the career of Madeline Smith that a
gentle, loving girl passes at once into the savage
grandeur of a Medea or the appalling wickedness
of a Borgia. No, gentlemen, such things are not
possible. There must be a certain progress in
guilt. It is quite out of all human experience to
suppose that, from the tone of love in which the
letters that had passed before were written, there
should be a sudden transition, I will not say to
the loss of affection for one particular object, but
to that savage desire of removing by any means
the obstruction to her wishes which the prosecutor
imputes to the prisoner. Think for a moment how
foul and unnatural a murder is imputed to ber—
ate murder of one who within a very short space
was the object of her love—an unworthy
object—
an unholy love ; but yet while it lasted, and its
endurance was not brief--it was a deep, devoted
passion. Yet it is the object of this passion she is
now said to conceive the murder of. Such is the
theory you are asked to believe ; but surely, gen-
tlemen, before you believe it, you will ask for de-
monstration, you will not
will
beconnottentheedewniottliighconto-
jecture or suspicion, and
say that the theory of the prosecutor is the most
probable that is offered to us. Oh, gentlemen, is
that the manner in which the jury are to deal with
such a case Is that the kind of proof on which
you are to convict of a capital offence ? On the li)th
of February, ou the 22d of February, and on the
22d March—for the prosecutor has now alosolutely
fixed on these dates—the prisoner is charged with
administering poison to the deceased. Observe, he
does not ask you to suppose merely that by some
means or other the prisoner conveyed poison to
L'Angelier, but lie asks you to affirm that on those
three occasions she with her own hands administered
the poison. In all three charges he says, that she
did wickedly and feloniously administer to, or cause
to be taken by, the said deceased Emile L'Angelier,
a quantity of arsenic. I do not dispute, gentlemen,
that these charges may, iu the absence of eye-wit-
nesses, be proved by circumstantial evidence, but
you must always bear in mind that circumstantial
evidence must come up to this—that it must con-
vince you of the perpetration of these actg.. Now,
then, iu dealing with such circumstantial proof,
what kihould you expect t 9 find poYed Of C9Urkes