The San Francisco call., 1897-11-21

Guilty or not guilty p
| A synoptic recollection of this crisis in
/ the life OF an American mother, sprung
Iron an ancestry of unsullied repute, and
Asaowned for her beauty and Wit, would
run:
Time, eight years ago; place, Liverpool; !;
accusation. murder; victim, husband !;
means, poison; motive, avarice; evil
dence, pres um ptiVe.
Guilty or not guilty7"
Not guilty"
The woman trembled and wept. Her
was against her.
Of all her friends and intimates none
stood nigh in faith and charity, save her
mother.
Even her lover, cowardly roue that be
proved, was taking ship for the United
States at the very moment she shrieked
TO God and swooned under the sentence of
death.
In the record of criminal iuris prudence
of Great Britain, a. least for the nineteen tn
century, the Maybrick case is unique for
pitiIe ssness of persecution, prejudice of
convection and injustice of condemna-
ton.
Was Mrs. May brick guilty?
An indignant and clamorcus public
opinion said no, and responsive to il
Mr.. Matthews, then Home Secretary,
commuted her sentence to life i'm prison
menr. To Woking she passed, instead of
ihe gallows, buoyed up by tho semi
official assurance that she was entitled 10
liberty, which must be denied her tenn
ri in Of ~
defense of the dignity and fair name of
glish justice.
N the face of abundant proof OF her in
.Hocence, monster petitions supported by
the sympathetic plsadings of such elo-
quent champions as Gail Hamilton. and
urged through diplomatic channels, have
lot yet aVailed to place the circumstances
of her case before the Queen, who is the
real arbiter of her fate.
1t would now seem that Mrs, Nav
bricks doom is sealed, as the British
Government has declined to consider the
request of President Mckinley that she
be pardoned as an act of international
courtesy, and this closes the only ap-
proach to the clemency of the Queen.
A person not familiar with the uncorn-
promising severity of the English GRIM
inal Justice and court procedure cannot
readily comprehend the singularities of
the May brick case, and the reason why
the woman's innocence avails her nothing
now in the efforts to secure her liberty.
Newspaper criticir N or comment, during
trial or afterward, respecting either Judge.
jury, Witnesses or prisoner, is dtsapproved
by custom and INDUCED at the peril of
prosecution for libel and punishment for
contempt. Such searching inquiry as the
reporters of the American press make in
judicial matters of moment is thus pre-
vented.
When Mrs. Maybrick was on trial
James Gordon Bennett was publishing in
London an edition OF the New York
Herald. It's staff included a number of
clever and daring men who had
grown up in the American school of jour
naIism, among them John Russell
Young, now Congressional Librarian,
Jfhn c. Reid, formerly and for many
Hsars managing editor of the New York
u lines; Oakley Hall. once editor Of the
~" York World Harry Dam, well known
in California; Ralph Meeker, Thomas
Fielders, Billy Knox. Irving Hawkins.
Cleveland Moffatt and a number of crack
reporters from New York and Chicago.
This staff, inspired by Mr.. Benefits
fearIessness, has already broken down the
barrier OF English. custom and dread in
the matter OF the Parnell Commission by
not only attacking the process and animus
Of the inquiry, but by securing confession
from lie Caron, the spy OF Scotland Yard
and intormeE for the crown, the effect Of