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

THE TRIAL OF MISS SJIITH.

(From the Times.)
The dead man L'Angelier is not one whose fate
there is any need to commiserate. His conduct to
one who bad been his victim was base and unmanly
in the last degree, and can only be excused on the
ground stated by the Lord Advocate, that by the
law of Scotland an irregular marriage might be
held. to have taken place, and that L'Angelier had
a right to consider Madeline Smith as his wife. and
to prohibit her union with another man. That
the jury should declare the crime Not Proven is
hardly surprising ; for the circumstances are as
mysterious as any that have ever been related in a
court of justice. If on the one hand the prisoner
purchases arsenic, and thinks of her compl-xiou for
the first time when she is distracted with terror
respecting her good name, on the other hand she
buys it so openly that a juryman might well think
her conduct incompatible wtth a murderous inten-
tion. In her fast letter, after the purchase of
arsenic in February, she tells her lover that "I
am taking some stuff to bring back the colour."
Of course, the prosecution look upon this as a proof
of consummate cunning ; the defence declare it to
be a corroboration of the prisoner's statement. If
L'Angelier indeed poisoned himself he must have
been the most extraordinary of men ; for he not only
makes two unsuccessful attempts, and goes to the
country foe his health afterwards, but he relates how
he was made ill by his paramour's chocolate, says
jokingly he would forgive her if even she were to
poison him, and a month afterwards, just before he
is supposed to poison himself, he tells his friends
he is going to Blythswood-square, and actually
loiters in the neighbourhood for the purpose of
making the world believe he is poisoeed there.
Was L'Angelier likely to commit self-murder, and
i n such a manner as wilfully to bring on Made:eine
Smith the suspicion of the deed ? These questions
are now beyond human investigation. The jury
by their verdict have declared their inability to
decide. In this verdict we must concur ; yet we
see no reason for the cheering and the manifesta-
tion of joy which greeted it. Madeleine Smith
goes forth free from the penalties of the law—that
is all.

1 (Prom the Daily News.)
The nature and effect of this verdict appears to
be as follows. In Scotland, as in England, a cri-
minal trial is a " wager of law." Toe Prosecutor
undertakes to convince a jury that the accused is
guilty ; the accused, to satisfy the jury that he (or
she) is innocent. The jury are not expected to do
more than express the conviction produced on their
minds by the statements of the witnesses and the
arguments of the lawyers. Their conviction may
be such as they would find it difficult to assign
a reason for ; still it is held to be conclusive as
to the facts. In England the jury are call-
ed upon to declare distinctly either that they
hold the accused guilty or that they hold him
innocent. The more considerate law of Scotland
makes allowance for that neutral state of mind in
which plain, unprofessional men may have an im-
pressicon of the accused's culpability too strong to
admit of their conscientiously declaring him inno-
cent—too weak to admit of their incurring the re-
sponsibility of exposing him to punishment. In
this case they are allowed to have recourse to the
temporising declaration—" not proven." Of this
privilege the Jury on Miss Madeleine Smith have
availed themselves, and the rather tantalising re-
sult of a protracted and exciting inquiry is simply
this ;—That L'Angelier died of poison, but not of
poison administered by himself ; that sufficient
evidence has not been obtained to carry home con-
viction to the guilty, though suspicions have pointed
strongly in a certain direction.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The Lord Advocate declared that in this case
"there was not a link wanting in the evidence ;"
that " there was no loophole at which the unhappy
prisoner could escape." Such was certainly not
the opinion of the legal profession in this country,
nor, as we are informed, in Scotland. And .that
was rather reckless langu tge to be used by the first
law officer of the Crown, in a case of life and d-a.h ;
it was language which should hardly he usel if tt;e
case was c!ear and cogent.
.But was this such a
case ? The case of a girl, accused of poisoning her
lover—a man who was not proved to have been
with her on the fatal occasion ! Circumstantial
evidence must often be resorted to, and ioferences
must be drawn from facts. But the inference of
guilt must arise from the facts proved. And
here—even if the man had been seen at the
house on that night—the reception of the
poison could only have been an infer-
ence. Then, however, it would have been an infer-
ence from a fact ; here it was sought to make an
inference upon an inference—nay, rather against
the facts. For the evidence rather tended to show
that he was not there on that night—at any such
hour as is supposed ; or that if he were, she could
not have seen him. Was this a case to characterise
as one in which there was not "a link wanting,"
and in which there w.ts no "loophole for escape ?"
We rejoice that the jury thought otherwise.

(From the Morning Post )
The case against Miss Smith, legally considered,
was lame and defective in the extreme. That she
desired to be out of the power of L'Augelier, and
married to her other admirer, was perhaps estab-
lished. It was proved that, at dates correipomling
with the illnesses of the deceaseJ, she bad bi)ught
arsenic for some unknown and as yet ill-explained
purpose. The arsenic bought at ono shop was
coloured with soot, and that purchased at another
with indigo. There was an entire want of proof of
administration. Drs. Christison and Penny, while
they looked for and found arsenic in the stomach,
neither looked for nor found soot or indigo. Al.
though seen in the neighbourhood of Miss Smith's
house at half-past nine p.m. on Sunday night,
there is no proof of his having had an interview
with her. From that hOur till he was found in
agony and weakness at two a.m. next morning, be
is not accounted for. There is a great chasm iu the
evidence. The presiding judge pointed this out.
The jury acted upon this conviction.

( From the Caledonian Mercury of Wednesday.)
If on Monday the interest of the public hal par-
ially declined, it was greater than ever on the 7th
day. From an early hour, a crowd besieged the
doors of the Justiciary Court ; standing room was
hardly to be obtained ; and the pressure from be-
hind became very severe. At last, the doors were
opened. Like a pent-up mountain torrent, when
swollen by melting snows, it sweeps away au ob-
stacle interposed by accumulated ice and boulders,
the multitude surged in, and would, half- bewil-
deied, have lost themselves in the passages, bad
they. not been prevented by iron inner gaTe4, and
the policemen who stood by each, as the genii loci.
In a minute the whole of the portion of tire court
allotted to the public was filled. At ten, when the
proceedings were resumed, the hall was more
crowded than ever. The side galleries appeared,
by a curious process of compression, to have ac-
quired the power of holding nearly double the
number which,. they had formerly contained,
crowds were standing near the further ends ; and
even the gallery passage behind the judges, where
the oanopy projecting above the dais forbids a view
of the speakers, was filled with attentive listeners
Of advocates especially there were present a greater
number than had previously attended, eager to be
witnesses of the single conteit in which were now to
be engaged two of their foremost leaders.
In the earlier stages of the trial the ability of the
counsel engaged was conspicuously displayed in the
rapid examinations of the Lord Advocate, the
searching questions of the .Dean of Faculty, and
the confident assumptions of Mr. Young, so diffi-
cult to deny. Yesterday, however, the great battle
really commenced. Hitherto there had been, as it
were, marching and counter. marching, manceuvring
and concentration of forces; now the leaders began
to marshal in array the opposing bodies of evidence
for the struggle on which the fate of the prisoner
depended.
When the Lord Advocate rose to address the
jury, the accused turned towards him, and watched
him uneasily and restlessly. Soon she recovered
her self-possession, and retained it during the
greater portion of his speech. Her veil, however,
which had been raised as she ascended the stair
into the court, had now fallen, and this was not to
be wondered at. A universal silence prevailed in
the court, The Solicitor-General sat motionless,

with his arms folded, and his mill grave eyes
steadily fixed on the ground ; wln'e the junior
counsel for tl e Cr ,wit, Mr. Mackenzie, look,'d
alternately at hi, p: ion ipal and a printed pa,pi-r
which he held in his hand. On the further side
of the table sat the counsel for the defence—the
Dean of F,:culty, listening calmly but with com-
pressed lips, now and then taking a brief note
with a pen which he held in his hand ; Mr. George
Young lo:king coclly at theljury, as if to put
thorn at their ease; and the junior, Mr. Alex-
ander Moncrieff, writing as fast as his pen
could fly for the service of his seniors. The
Lord Justice Gerk is at once listening to
the Lord Advocate, and investigating a printed
copy of the letters, or his own notes of the evidence.
Lords Ivory and Handyside are listening in-
tently, their eyes fixed on the speaker. Two of
the other judges, who are also present, listen, but
now and then turn to survey the court. The jury,
finding themselves personally addressed, become
more fixedly attentive than hitherto, and several
take snuff to clear their understanding. In one of
the seats allotted to the Glasgow reporters an at tist
is making a sketch of the crowded court, the wig-
thronged gallery on the further side, the accused
herse:f, and the other actors in the great drama
now in progress, evidently with a view to its pro-
duction in some illustrated newspaper. Meanwhile
the Lord-Advocate, having made some preliminary
remarks on the verification of the letters, and the
management of prosecution in other respects, en-
tered upon the more vital parts of the case, and be-
gan to draw the dark and mysterious outlines of
this strange and lamentable story. One by one,
each of the links of evidence was riveted into its
place. He traced the course of the relations be-
tween the prisoner and the dead man ; and read
many of the letters, of which parts had been for-
merly submitted by the clerk of the court. Very
different were they read now ; the passionate ap-
peals which they contained fell from the speaker's
lips vehemently and truthful, with the vividness
of an able actor. The prisoner shuddered. Then
he entered upon the proof; and, by the aid of a
multitude of little points of circumstantial evidence,
Unveiled the secret history of the deceased and the
accused during the months of Feb. and March—an
investigation which had to be all the more minute
in con-tequence of the rejection of L'Angelier's
pocket-b ,ok as admissible evidence. Towards the
close of a speech -of five hours and a half, he exa-
mined and rejected the various theories that m'ght
be propounded on behalf of the defence, and fixed,
as it were, the final link in declaring that, unless
on the fatal night of the 22d of March, the de-
e-ased had an interview with the prisoner in her
father's hou,e in Blythswood-square, the idea of
suicide, in the absence of motive, was impossible ;
and that if it was admitted that he had been there,
the evidence against the prisoner was perfectly
overwhelming.
In many of the most terrible dramas, whether of
real or fictitious life, there occurs some circum-
stance, which, of itself ludicrous, only heightens
the effect by contrast ; as when poor Hamlet jests
with the men who are digging a grave for the lady
of his love. Thus, if it had not been for the solemn
nature of yesterday's proceedings, it would have
been positively amusing to have watched the coun-
tenances of the jury changing during the con-
tinuance of the Lord-Advocate's speech. At first,
they were only attention ; then they became
graver ; and by degrees their faces lengthened and
lengthened, mid the corners of their mouths went
down. It appeared as if they had been formerly
easy in the idea of having to discharge a more
agreeable office, and were now awakening to a pain-
ful sense of haying to fulfil a stern and t en ible
Tears stood in the eyes of two of the jurors ; but
this may partly be accounted for by the magnetic
influence arising from the fact of their being stared
at by one man for five and a half hours, and staring
at him in return. Be this as it may, it will late
curious to watch the reverse of this proceeding to-
day, when the Dean of Faculty will draw the oppo-
site strings.

(Front the Caledonian Mercury.)
The last and decisive day of this great trial has at
length arrived. Of allthe eight preceding, yesterday
was perhaps the most excii ing ; for it was known that
the Dean of Faculty was to address the jury, and
his well-known abilities collected a greater assem-
blage than ever. The rush made by the crowd
into the larger gallery at eight was alarming—par-
ties, in a wild hubbub, bounding over the benches
down to the front—and it had abated little during
the two hours that elapsed before the commence-
ment of the proceedings. At ten, the galleries
were filled to overflowing ; the back of the gallery
behind the Judges, and the windows in that part
of the Court, were crowded with persons standing.
Several daring individuals sat in the corners of
the gallery with their legs dangling over the front,
and hats were deposited in perilous positions on
narrow ledges beneath.
For the first time, the Court and Jury were in
their places before the prisoner entered. Miss Smith
naturally appeared somewhat worn, owing, no
doubt, to the painful and protracted excitement of
the last eight days, which must have been all the
more intense within, because its outward manifes-
tations were almost always so effectually subdued.
The Dean, on her entrance, went up to her, and
spoke a few words to her, smiling, in an encou-
raging manner, as he has done ever since the third
morning of the trial. Then, after the opening of
the Court, and a brief pause, he rose to address
the jury. Slowly ho rose, and slowly, solemnly,
and mournfully, the words fell from his lips. At
first his voice was low, and yet it wa, always so
distinct, that from the beginning to the close of
his speech, it would have been difficult for any
reporter to have lost either his words or his mean-
ing. As he proceeded, his voice swelled louder and
louder ; his right hand, which at first was laid upon
the table, was waved in demonstration to the jury ;
his eye-glass was occasionally raised to his eyes,
as he read some portion of a letter, to show the
devoted love which the prisoner bore to L'Ange-
her ; and his lips projected in contemptuous scorn
when he spoke of the man who could corrupt and
betray hf-T. Without following the Lord Advocate
very minu'ely into all Vie circumstantial evidence
which the later had adduced, he struck boldly at
the priuciFal points of the accusation, and argued
that th,,y were, in the circumstance, incredii,le.
The eye-glass being found inconvenient, a pair or
spectacles were substitirecl. Every word was em-
phatic ; every sentence was delivered in a powerful
and deliberate manner, which chained for the time
the mind of his auditors into a feeling that it was
utterly iinpos,il.le that he could be in the wrong.
As he alvanced, he became more vehement in his
language, more excited in manner, more filled with
loateinu and horror at the wickedness of the man
through whose vile agency " a gentle, pure, and
affectionate girl, the pride of her father's family,"
had fallen so low as to be capable of writing these
painful and disgusting letter', and then attempt to
use them against her as an engine of terror and op-
pression. His emotion increased as be read to the
Jury, in quivering tones, the despairing letter of
the 10th February. It was in the last half-hour,
however, that his eloquence became irresistible, and
carried all before it. Every muscle of his face,
every gesture of his hands, every motion of his tall
and commanding figure, every tone of his deep and
powerful voice, told part of the story. It would be
utterly impossible for one who merely reads his
speech to comprehend the influence which it ap-
peared to exert on the minds of those who heard it,
when deprived of the auxil ary power of his almost
irresistible manner. Perhaps the moat telling part
of the whole was his introduction of the story of
Eliza Fenning, and the warning which he drew
from it : while the solemn and awful appeal with
which he concluded thrilled through the souls o

all in Court, and will be remembered by them to
their dying day. If the Jury had consulted im-
mediately, the result could hardly have been doubt-
ful. After an attempt at applause, which was in-
stantly checked, and a brief resting-time, the Lord
Justice Clerk commenced his charge. At first,
while the echo of the eloquent words to which the
Court had just listened, had hardly died away,
their power appeared to have extended to the
bench ; but, as his lordsnip proceeded with the re-
capitulation of the evidence, their influence was
lost.

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examination of Spolleo at the Dublin Police-court, the
hammer and razor found in the canal, were proved to be
the property of the accued. The further hearing of the
case was adj,.urved to Monday next.
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