The Sun. — 1849-08-07 (London, England)

AMPERE—Iet us make them worthy of so honourable an inhabitant. Thus shall we worthily signalise our national appreciation of the greatest of Englishmen, and thus shall we derive the fullest benefit from the rich legacy he has bequeathed us. Reform is better any day than destruction. We would not have the door of one theatre closed, but we would have every theatre worthy of its appellation—the Temple of the Muses— the Muses whose attractions are ever worthless when unaccompanied by the Virtues. How is this desirable end to be attained ?  The numerous cases of alleged poisoning that have been tried in different parts of the country during the present assizes show the fearful extent to which that most horrible crime has recently been carried. The details of an ordinary murder case are sufficiently sickening; when we find a person influenced by a desire of vengeance, or, perhaps, by a more sordid motive, wilfully and deliberately planning the death of his fellow-man, and coolly watching the deathpangs of his victim, a feeling of inexpressible horror arises, we cannot sympathise with the blood-stained assassin. Notwithstanding the natural repugnance to capital punishment, we recognise the justice and expediency of the law that declares " whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed"—that pronounces the life of the murderer to be forfeited, and that the extreme penalty of death can alone expiate his enormous guilt. But there is something peculiarly harrowing when poison has been selected as the instrument of death, when the sanctity of the domestic board is invaded, and the fatal cup administered by one loved and cherished, in whom the utmost confidence is necessarily reposed. There is a deep and deadly treachery that excites the utmost loathing and abhorrence ; we cannot adequately express our indignation at the crime, or our detestation of the offender ; we cannot conceive how guilt of so heinous a character could enter into any mind, however depraved, or by what motives the offender could be influenced. The most sacred duty of life is violated, and the object to be attained is generally of the most trivial and paltry character—indeed, in the majority of instances, the mere love of crime, the feeling of the Thug, who described the intense rapture with which he beheld the expiring struggles of his victim, can alone be assigned as' the cause of that offence. In the common class of cases the victim is usually either the enemy of, or at least a stranger to, the murderer. Some fancied wrong or indignity nerves the arm to the fatal blow, but in cases of death by poison, the injury is inflicted on the nearest and dearest. The husband perishes by the hand of his wife, of one who had sworn at the altar " to love, honour, and obey him." The mother takes the life of her own offspring without the slightest remorse, and if impunity should attend the earlier offences, the fatal practice is resorted to again and again until detection.  Three cases have been tried during the past week, of wives for poisoning their husbands, and two convictions have been obtained. We shall not now dwell on the particulars of the evidence where the jury felt themselves justified in giving the accused party the benefit of the doubt. She had ever lived on the most affectionate terms with her unfortunate husband; the arsenic (the poison usually administered) had been openly purchased, and the jury believed that it was possible that the deceased might have taken the fatal draught by accident. But the circumstances of the other cases are worthy of notice—not for the purpose of gratifying a morbid and depraved taste, but of considering whether some obvious precautions might not be adopted to check the crime that has unhappily become so prevalent. In the Coventry division of Warwickshire, MART BALL was tried and convicted of the murder by poison of her husband,