New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-26
4 MORAL FRoY TIE LAMSON CASE.


which we have reserved for few final rciiec-
tlcns This is the abruptness OF the proceed
ngs. An English schoOl-boy dies suddenly on
December 3 his American brother-in-law, be-
ing charged with poisoning him, hastens from
Paris to face the accusers the trial leads to his
conviction on March IA and he is sentenced to
be hanged on April 4, four months after the
commission of the crime. This period suiliced
for the purposes of the prosecution, which,
with the aid of detectives and chemists, sue
ceedcd in enyeOpng the prisoner in a close
network of circumstantial evidence. Ills pc
cuniary plight and dubious shifts for making
living his adventures in London drug stores
in search of deadly posons the results of
laboratory analysis in the Identification OF a
vegetable alkaloid which balled the ordinary
tests of chemiStry-these and other mysterious
phases of this complex case were eyhaustively
illustrated in the evidence. The prisoner was
convicted 10y a jury whose sympathies had been
excited in his behalf, and Notwithstanding his
solemn protestatOn of innocence he was SEN
fenced to death on the l0lst day after his
wifes crippled brother had been poisoned; and
in order to render the judicial process as sum-
mary as possible, the execution of the sentence
was deferred only twenty zone days.
The rapidly with which so intricate case
has been dispatched is in striking contrast
with the prOtracted tediousness OF the Guiteau
trial, in which the interval between the arraign-
ment and the conviction was 1913 days, and that
between the crime and the final penalty full
twelvemonth. Apart from the informalities
and scandalOus scenes of that trial, its pro-
tracted duration was considered by many for
cign censors as a blistering disgrace to the Grim
ina practice of the United States. IL seemed
to them incredible that when the facts of the
crime were admitted by the defence, and the
evidence TUNED upon the single pivot CT men
tai responsibility, the case should have been
suffered to drag along for so many weeks, until
the community was weary unto death OF the
details, and the moral of the crime and the de-
terrent effects of the penalty were practically
wasted. 1t was openly denounced i'll England
as a miscarriage of Justice Without attempt
ing to justify the labOrlOus methods OF proceed
IRE in that case, venture to suggest that
unnecessary haste in English criminal practice
may also involve miscarriage OF justice.
For example, two respectable farmers i'll
Stanordshirc were charged two years ago with
assaulting and mutiating Il stOne-mason They
bore excellent regulations and stoutly asserted
their innocence, but after trial lasting only
few hours they were sentenced to ten years
penal servitude. few weeks ago the stone
mason died, leaving behind IA confession that
the outrage was sef-niiicted, with a view to
extorting money from the farmers friends and
that the cOnvicts, whose families meanwhile
had become paupers, were entirely innocent.
Here were two honest men convicted III hot
haste of a revolving crime because the circum-
stantial evidence bore heavily against them and
the motives of the real criminal were almost
inconceivable. The trutH seems to he that
while crime in its inception and. execution has
ordinarily "A certain degree OF 1eaSOnablenesS,
it is not always safe to put the motive and the
crcumstantial evidence together, and to assume
that guilt and responsibility for it follow with
the logical force of a syllogism. There are
crimes with motives so abnormal that the
human understanding finds itself seriously at
fault in attempting to reason about them.
When we pass from the motives of crime to the
requisite degree of mental responsibility in the
criminal agent, the fallibility of human judg-
ment becomes even more apparent
Reverting now to the LamsOn case, we do
not contend that there is indubititble evidence
of Injustice in the prisoners conviction. The
circumstantial evidence was so strong as to be
almost conclusive; the motive for crime was
easily found; the jury was evidently painstak-
ing and intelligent it was a fair and impartial
trial. What we object to is the precipltate rush
with which the sentence was ordered to be exc
cuted-an unnecessary and unseemly haste
which seems reckless, almost cruel, in view of
the fact that the man had been born and had
lived in distant country, and that there had
been no opportunity for ascertaining whether
there had been any mental faint i'll his family
or whether his American acquaintances could
furnish any evidence in regard to his irrespon-
sibility as a criminal agent. The statement
was made in our news columns yesterday that
an examination of the records of Boomngdale
had shown that there were strong proofs of in
sanity in his family, and that his lawyers had
to his American friends that the
evidence of his own mental incapacity was
daily increasing. We do not know whether
Mr.. Lowell will be able to obtain the re-
preve which the State Department is using its
good offices to secure, or that there are ade-
quate reasons for demanding reOpening of
the case but it is plain that the abruptncss
with which the trial has been conducted and
the execution Of the sentence ordered has car
ried with it the possibility of "a serious mlscar-
riage of Justice Three weeks was scant al
loWance of time.
COUNTRY BOARD.
The time il onnroachinp when the city father