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

GI,:

£SONING.

TRIAL OF MADELEINE SMITH.
EIGHTH DAY—WEDNESDAY, JULY 8.
The High Court of Justiciary met again at tea
o'clock on Wednesday. a a

The Dean of Faculty addreised the jury on be-
half of the prisoner. He slid—Gentlemen of the
Jury--The charge against the prisoner is murder,
en I the punishment of murder is death ; and that
simple statement is sufficient to suggest to us the
awful solemnity of the occasion which brings you
an me face to face. But, gentleman, there are pe-
culiarities in the present case of se singular and
strange a kind—there is such an air of romance and
mystery invested about it from the beginning to tre
end—there is something so touching in the age, the
sex, and .he social position of the accused—aye,
and I must add that public attention is so directed
to this trial, that they watch our proceedings, an .t
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 eensign 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 aidressed you yesterday could
fail to strike you as Dust remarkable. It was chi,-
racterisecl 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 au involuntary homage that the
official prosecutor pays to the kind and generous
nature of the man. But, gentlemen, I am going
to ask you for something different from commise-
ration. lam going to ask for that which Iwi 1
not condescend t o 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 justice, and if you will 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 referred 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 admis-
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 ha l entered on the attempt with consider-
able ingenuity and skill. Their correspondence
was apparently soon after dropped through the
young lady's own sense if 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 string of 1856 the cor-
rupting influence of the seducer was succe-sful, 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-
pose, could never be known so well as
tar, looking to the altered tone of this poor
girl' b-tters. .She had lost not her virtue merely,
but, as my learned friend said, her sense of decency.
Wl:ose fault was that? Whose doing was it? Think
you that, wi hunt temptation, without vile teach-
ing, a poor girl falls into those depths of degrada-
tioo ? No. Influence from without, most corrupt-
ing influence could alone account for such a fill.
And yet, gentle:l:en, through the midst of this
frightful correspondence, which I wish to God could
have be,-,n 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 justice that it shdull be produced, I feel satisfied
be 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 bonne 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 at teution. This you will find is an 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 oocasious—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 wore to be
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 chatacter 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 al
thing is absolutely impossible, but I do venture to
say it is well nigh incredible. He will be a bold
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-
pravi,,y 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 info 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 her—
the murder of one who within a very short space
was the object of her love—ah unworthy obje_ctq
an unholy love ; but yet while it lasted, and a
endurance was not brief—it was a deep, devoted
passion. Yet it is the object of
thisu passiont
s Such
rusurely,
isteh enow said to conceive the murder of.
theory you are asked to believe ; b
gen-
tlemen, before you believe it, you will ask for de-
monstration, you will not a con ented with con-
jecture or suspicion, and it will not be enough to
say that the theory cf 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
you are to convict of a capital offence
on which
On the
of February, on the 22d of February, and on the
22d March—for the prosecutor has now absolutely
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 he asks you to affirm that on those
three occasions she withherown hands administere 1
the poison. In all three charges he rays, 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, in the absence of eye-wit-
nesses, be proved by circumstantial evidence, but
you must always bear in mind that circurnstantia,
evidence must come up to this—that it must con-
vince you of the perpetration of these acts. NOW,
then. in dealing with such circumstantial prcof,
what should you expect to find proved ? Of course,