The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-11 00:00:00

kr, lid 9
T 'len IV

LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1830.

The trial of SARAH DRAKE, the unfortunate
woman who recently murdered her child, LEWIS
DRAKE, at the house of her employer, No. 33, Upper
Harley-street, bas terminated in an acquittal, on
the ground of " temporary insanity." This result is
more extraordinary, as no particle of evidence was
produced to show the state of her mind, either be-
fore or subsequent to the fatal act. It was not even
asserted that she had at any former period been af-
flicted with mental incapacity, or that there existed any
hereditary predisposition to that fearful disease. There
was, in fact, nothing whatsoever to lead the jury to
infer that she was labouring under any delusion suf-
ficient to justify the commission, or rather to prevent
the penal consequences, of an offence of such magni-
tude, save the suggestion of counsel, who argued, from
the circumstances of the case, the maternal affection
which the wretched woman had previously exhibited
towards her unfortunate offspring, her anxiety to
bring it up with some degree of comfort
and respectability, and the total absence of
premeditation—that she must have been wrought into
a state of sudden frenzy, which prevented her from
being accountable for her acts. This view must have
been adopted by the jury, who gave the prisoner the
benefit of the doubt, and thus preserved her from the
extreme penalty of the law. It was also considered
that she would not escape with impunity, but that
their verdict would consign her to perpetual im-
prisonment in a lunatic asylum, a lingering and
hopeless punishment, which many persons
might easily believe to be more intolerable
than death itself. The deep sympathy that
was excited for the miserable creature by the
predicament in which she was placed by the conduct
of the nurse (Mrs. JometsToesa), whom it has been so
much the fashion to beslaver with praise and cotr -
mendation, had unquestionably a material influence
on the decision of the ewe—a deci2ion,
which however satisfactory it my to
to be spared the revolting spectacle of a
public excution, and that of one of the weahcr
sex, we cannot help regarding as being fraught with
the most dangerous consequences to society.
If the result of the present case can in any degree
be c onstituted a precedent that may properly be followed,
there is no case, however atrocious, in which a similer
appeal may not be followed by a similar acquittal.
Jour GLEESON WILSON might have been exonerated
from expiating his fourfold murder at Liverpool, or
JAMBS Bnomreenn Rem from the penal consequences
of the Stanfield 11311 massacre. But it has at all

times properly been held that the absence of any
apparent motive, or the suddenness of the fatal de-
termination, could not excuse the shedding of human
blood or depriving a fellow-creature of life. The law
undoubtedly makes allowance for the weakness of our
fallible nature, and sanctions a verdict fur the minor
offence of manslaughter in cases of sudden provocation,
where the blow was struck in the heat of passion.
But all the circumstances of the present case pre-
vented the possibility of such a decision. The unfor-
tunate infant could not hare done anything to
fluence her anger to such a degree as to deprive
her of all self-control. Whatever she might hare
felt towards the nurse, who at a moment's notice
threw the child on her hands, and obstinately
refused to retain it for even a single week,
al though well aware that the consequences
of the inevitable exie sure must have been absolutely
ruinous to the mother, vengeance should not he ve
been wreaked on the innocent victim. No possible
doubt could exist as to the commission of the crioe 7
that it was by the hands cf its parent that the unfo:-
tunate child was suffocated. The only alternative
was to find the accused guilty of the entire cf
fence of wilful and deliberate murder, or to
return a verdict of not guilty on the ground
of insanity. The jury adopted the latter course,
and in co doing set aside all the ordinary
rules of law. They stood, in fact, between
the criminal and the salutary code that she had
violated, and sheltered her from the consequences of
her enormous crime. There were, undoubtedly,
" extenuating circumstance.," such as exist in almost
every case of "child murder." Exposure, and its
inevitable results—shame, infamy, and disgrace, want
and destitution, stared her in the face. She could not
possibly have hoped to retain her situation, one of
considerable emolument, and in every respect de-
sirable for a person of the prisoner's station in life.
She had committed the offence which is regarded as
unpardonable in a state of society
" Where every woe a tear may claim,
Except an erring sister's shame."
The presence of the child in the house at Upper Harley-
street could not be concealed Detection was inevita-
ble, and dismissal without character, or the possibility
of obtaining a new situation, was impending. Driven
to despair by the obduracy of Mrs. JOHNSTONE, she
committed the highest offence known to the law, in
order to evade or postpone the injurious consequences
of her former fall. However they might commiserate
her distress, the jury could not properly go beyond
their allotted functions : they might have joined in
a strong recommendation to mercy, but the final
decision rested with the SOVEREIGN alone. Those
circumstances in the case would not have been
forgotten or lost sight of; and, if on ma-
ture consideration it appeared that a lenient
decision could have been arrived at, we can-
not doubt that "justice would have been tempered
with mercy." But the jury went beyond their legi-
timate sphere when they took upon themselves to save
the criminal, and thus usurped the unquestioned and
most glorious prerogative of the QUEEN, the brightest
ewel of the royal diadem.

Lieutenant WaGeionxLone of the most dis-
tinguished benefactors of the age, and one of the
most enterprising linglishmen of the century—has
expired. This announcement, made by ourselves on
Wednesday evening, the morrow of his demise, must
have filled with regret the hearts of many thousands.
For amongst all the public characters of the period
not one was more popular with his fellow-country-
men than the originator of the overland route to
India across the European and Asiatic continents.
Notwithstanding the possession of an iron constitu-
tion, he has passed away from us prematurely, before
attaining his fiftieth year—destroyed by that un-
selfish and self-sacrificing magnanimity which so
open leads to the calamities and decease of our
greatest public benefactors. From its own en-
trails the spider weaves its web, with its own life-
blood according to a beautiful fable of the
anthologists the pelican' nourishes its callow off-
spring; and so from the heart and the brain of Ilikt niue
comes that consuming vitality which causes an in-
ternal decay while lavishing externally its immea-
surable fruitfulness. It has been so with men in all
ages and under all cir, umqtancese The oil that
nourishes the lamp of the intellectual senctuary is
the life stream of genius—that life which the brighter
it burns the faster it coneumee—imparting radiance
to the world eshile bringing to itself only darkness
and ashes. Whenever the indomitable energies of e
great man, be he a poet or a warrior., a p-Itriot or en
illustrious benefactor of his fellow-creatures, such as
was Lieutenant WAGHORN—whenever the energies
of such a mind are dedicated to the achievement
of noble deeds—be sure of this, it is
for the life, and, alas, for the death ! With the war-
rior his victories are only the antecedents cf sorce
ulterior defeat, of some treacherous conspiracy, of
some ignominious assassination, or of some popular
ingratitude. With the patriot, his glory acquired as
the saviour of % nation is accompanied invariably by