business in Canadians at improving prices, and irregular quotations for Americans. After the hot term an American advance along the line may be looked for.

The Mining Market, etc.-The South African market is firm and active, not to say excited. Judging from what is transpiring in the obscure shanty town of Klerksdorp, gold mine shares promise to be as plentiful as summer blossom; and if generalisation were ventured upon, from what is taking place at Klerksdorp something like the Sonth Sea mania of the John Law period would appear to be setting in among South African gold mine operators. Further speculative advances may with some confidence be predicted, and very likely the coming boom will carry in its sweep of premiums high quotations for mines which have no existence, or which are positively sterile. Investment should be discouraged, although many of the properties are sound and productive, and although gold exists in large abundance. The capital created for gold mining in shanty Klerksdorp runs into several millions.

"WHEN rogues fall out honest men may hope to come by their own," is a proverb of long standing. Paraphrasing the proverb for the mere ring of it, we may make another, and say that when "so called" financial prints and outside jobbers of a peculiar kind are at variance, interesting revelations may be expected. In the Mayor's Court last Sitting Henry Jesse Maxey, an outside jobber, was sued nominally by one Harris, of a print which calls itself the Stock Exchange Times, not by any means to be confounded with the paper known as the Stock Exchange. Practically the real plaintiff, however, appears to be a well-known person of the name of A. B. Emanuel. Emanuel was not to be put in the box for obvious reasons. Mr. Wildey Wright, his counsel, was wise, and exercised sound discretion in not wishing to subject him to crossexamination by the other side if it could be avoided, but as the defendant's counsel succeeded in getting out a great deal of the disagreeable matter in cross-examination even of Harris the plaintiff on the record, Emanuel was subsequently called after the defendant's counsel had closed his evidence. The action was brought for libel contained in a circular published by the defendant, and the matter of which had first appeared in a print called the Mining News, which the defendant had run for a few months, but which is now defunct. In cross-examination of Harris and Emanuel it was elicited that the Stock Exchange Times was originally owned and registered by Emanuel until he became bankrupt, and that he (Emanuel) is still uncertificated. It was not till after this that Harris came on the scene, but Emanuel was left in sole charge and control, undisturbed and uninterfered with by Harris. Emanuel was the editor, publisher, manager, canvasser, and representative; and indeed it did not appear that Harris -who, one of the jury thought, had been made a tool of by Emanuel-exercised any functions whatever in respect of the paper. The majority of the jury, however, seemed to think that if he had been made a tool of, it was as a knowing and willing instrument to further Emanuel's projects and views. It was further elicited that Emanuel had been convicted at the Old Bailey for endeavouring to extort money and threatening. The plaintiff further admitted that he was aware that "the Editor," Emanuel, carried on business as an outside broker under the name of F. Vernon, and that he saw an article in the Financial News, in which it was stated that in this capacity "the notorious A. B. Emanuel plunders a clergyman." He admitted that the clergyman had difficulty to get his money, but that it was all eventually paid over to him. Emanuel did not deny these soft impeachments, but he declared that it was not his fault that he had paid his creditors only 1s. 5d. in the pound. He generalised, however, and did not condescend to particulars.

"It was

owing to company promoters going away," said Emanuel; but which companies, or what promoters, or when these naughty men went away, he did not enlighten the Court. If Emanuel had added to the interesting information accorded to the public some information concerning a matter in which the manager here of the New York Tribune was concerned, it would have increased our stock of knowledge. But he did not say anything, probably because he was not asked, or because this took place some years ago. The jury marked their appreciation of the value of the charac

ter really assailed by selecting the smallest coin of the realm, viz., one farthing, as the measure of damage, the character really assailed by Maxey, the defendant, being Emanuel's, and not poor Harris', the furniture man or builder. On the other hand, the defendant Maxey was cross-examined as to his limited company, the Mining Exchange, and it appears that for some time it was very limited indeed in more senses than one. He was crossexamined as to whether he had paid any money for his qualification as manager and director. He started the company, and the shares he retained, after allowing other people to pay him for theirs, represented his purchasemoney; in other words, the shares he could not sell, or abstained from selling, but reserved for himself, represented his investment. But the Judge very properly ruled that the state of the defendant's company had nothing to do with the case. The verdict of PUMP COURT is summed up in two words-Arcades ambo.

It is astonishing what some lawyers will permit themselves to say for a client. Mr. Wildey Wright opened the case for the plaintiff by saying that his paper had a good circulation. It was a safe thing to say, no doubt, as he would not be called upon to prove it, it not being one of the issues of the case. The action was not brought against the print in question, but by the nominal owner of it, for personal libel on him in a circular issued by defendant. Counsel, however, cannot be blamed, as they are sheltered by the instructions they receive from the solicitor, and cannot be expected to make inquiries for themselves. So that Mr. Wildey Wright cannot be blamed.

The National Water-Gas, etc., Limited.-If you want to promote a company and to get money from the public, it is not necessary to have a property to dispose of. The whole thing can be evolved from the inner consciousness of the astute promoter. Here is the last approved recipe: Select the title of a company that was favourably received by the public. Having done so, imitate it colourably, but so as to avoid infringement. Buy a few patents which have never been of any use to anyone, and never will be -there are many such to be had for half-a-crown and a pint of bitter. The patents need not have any reference to or connection with the title. For instance, a patent for converting sardine-tins into gun metal would be applicable if the company you are promoting is one for the cheap supply of bread. After this is done, get the names of a director or two-the less they know about the business the better-and then ask for a big sum, the bigger the better, as you give thereby an air of potentiality to the concern. The promoter of the National Water-Gas, etc., Company seems to have had our recipe in his mind. He had the British Water-Gas for title. What easier than to change the adjective, and so we have British changed to National? As for the patents, why should not a Sunlight High Power Oil Lamp, patent No. 11,894, dated 1887, float a water-gas scheme in 1889! Reads funny, doesn't it? But the gullibility of the British public may be trusted to pass over this little discrepancy. Hence the present adventure. This is a proposal for £150,000, in £5 shares, for watergas, etc.; and Mr. Charles Marvin, who some years ago was mixed up, otherwise than with the keeping of Foreign Office secrets, has the modesty to assume the function of Controller of Liquid Fuel Department." Less conspicuous positions are assigned to the directors, who thus confess to personal inferiority to the man of oil. Marvin is the liquid fuel of the Corporation, and Bowman, a man with a string of personal qualities and distinctions, who is to join the board after the allotment (should there ever be one), is the water-gas. The sunlight high-power lamp patent, the Right Hon. Lord Camoys bashfully represents; and meekly the rocking fire-bar patents, the Hon. Ashley Ponsonby. Mr. Norman Lloyd, Q.C., stands for atomised fuel, which fuel, which has received protection by an outlay of £1; the £4 outlay for a complete specification being prudently deferred. Were the atomised fuel not to answer, the £4 would be thrown away. Mr. Bayley, who, with another, is to join after the allotment (should there ever be one), bears the dubious burden of £3 worth more of provisional protections: one for liquid fuel, a second for a steam generator, and a third for a highpressure tubulous steam boiler; so, at least, reads the prospectus, which, as seeking £150,000 for £4 worth of

66

provisional specifications, each and all of which may be disallowed by the Patent Office authorities, is an impertinence of a kind new to promoters. Ordinary mortals would have passed the hat round for the £16 necessary for complete specifications, and they would have waited until such specifications had been accepted and passed by the Patent Office. But Marvin, although bold enough in the Foreign Office, is timidity itself when outside of it. £16 is not always a convenient ready-money sum, and why not wait for it? Marvin is as much afraid that personally he will lose the good thing of the National Gas and Waterfuel as nationally that we are to lose India. The shadow on his life is Russia; his (sustaining, comforting, money-making aspiration is-liquid fuel. Of all the humbugs and nuisances which afflict humanity liquid fuel is the chief. Try it fairly and leisurely in the small way of a one-shilling-and-fourpence investment in the latest patented oil lamp. Set about charging the reservoir with oil, and the likelihood is that more than your fingers become disgustingly soiled. Apply a match to the wick, and a portion of it smokes persistently. For domestic purposes liquid fuel is a thing to talk about; not a thing to try. Then for the higher or manufacturing uses, the public are to understand that this National Water-Gas, etc., Liquid Fuel Corporation is presenting something new. There may be news in Marvin, but we have yet to learn there is aught that is new in liquid fuel. At least, liquid fuel is as old as he; both, in truth, came forth to trouble us almost on the self-same day. M. Andoun was the first experimenter in the laboratory of the Ecole Normale; and after him we had M. Sainte-Claire Deville the French Académie des Sciences. Later still, there were the attempts with the locomotives of the Paris and Strasbourg Railway, and with the boilers of the Imperial yacht La Puebla. It would not do; it quite justified the caution implied in £1 provisional specifications instead of £4 complete ones. Then followed the trials at Woolwich, and the trials of engineer-in-chief to the Navy, "Tommy" Lloyd, at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport. "True," Marvin will assert, "but that is long ago." It is; but all conceivable fakes were tried and tried in vain. "What are the Marvin fakes?" may well be asked; and why hidden away in provisional specifications, instead of being handed round in complete specification blue-books? There is such a thing as a confidence game; such a thing as buying a pig in a poke; and the concealment of the National Water-gas and Liquid Fuel Corporation, Limited, might be taken by a blind man for both. As for water-gas, the question may be asked, how many sorts of water-gas are there? If as many as there are patents, then marvels will never cease. Admit that there is one water-gas; what then of the others? Are they infringements? The time has really come when this dire suggestion must be ventured upon. In the interest of the investor it cannot be too widely known that property in new water-gas schemes may be as vain as investment would be in air or in sea water. Indeed, it may be worse; it may be attended with the worry and expense of the least satisfactory of all litigation, that, namely, of experts in actions under Patent Laws.

at

MONEY unchanged, and only in moderate demand. Billbrokers show no disposition to lower rates. The Nitrate market is firm and active. The Home Rail market is irregular, and the American market is firm. But the leading operators have not yet put in an appearance. MERCATOR

PUMP COURT ACROSTICS. SOLUTION OF SPECIAL ACROSTIC.

Arab.

LIGHTS: 1. A uctionee R

2. A dver B

The second prize to "Corisande," though she did not solve both lights. The others solved nothing. Will the other three divide, and take a lawyer's fee, 63. 8d.? A boon would be conferred on the Acrostic Editor.

MR. WILLIAM LAMBARD HALLWARD, who has just been appointed secretary to the West-end branch of the Imperial Life Insurance Company, 22, Pall Mall, will be associated with the present branch manager, Mr. George Burfield Carruthers, for the special extension of the life business in that district.

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY.-ANNUAL MEETING.

(Continued from page 46.)

Mr. C. Ford asked how it was that the receipts from town members had decreased since 1887 to £4,992 from over £5,000? There was also a decrease with regard to the country members. He asked whether the council did not think, in view of the miserable and almost disgraceful way in which the articled clerks attended the lectures and classes, that it would be far better to do away with them?

The President reminded Mr. Ford that this did not arise on the accounts.

Mr. Ford did hope the council would knock it on the head altogether. It was a mere sham, as far as the education was concerned.

Mr. Macarthur said there were those who had battened upon the society's property, by belonging to the club.

The President: I cannot allow these expressions. Mr. Macarthur severely criticised several items of the account, and hoped the meeting would reject the accounts.

Mr. R. Pennington (Chairman of the Finance Committee) said that before he attempted to answer the questions he would like to remark that it was very inconvenient that the council should receive no notice of questions which were going to be put upon the accounts; because questions on accounts ought to be answered with great care and accuracy. He had heard nothing about any questions upon the accounts until a quarter to twelve that day, and he had had some other business to attend to, and therefore he had not had full opportunity of ascertaining what were the proper answers to give. But to the best of his ability, and subject to that slight protest, he would answer the questions. The first was, 66 Why is not the certificate fee fund given as a separate account, like the articled clerks' fund?" The answer was to be found in the annual report, and was, he thought, a sufficient reason why it was not kept separately. First of all, there was no statutory obligation upon the society to keep a separate account of that fund, and the council said in their report, "The society have, in pursuance of the provisions of the Solicitors Act, 1860, rendered an account to the proper authorities of all sums received by them in respect of the fee of 5s. paid by every solicitor on applying for his certificate, and of the application of the money-which account shows that the money so received, with income derived from other sources, has been applied in the manner stated in the account-and such application has been approved." He did not think the meeting would be disposed after that explanation to discuss the question of certificate duty further. The second question was, "Why is not the bank balance of £461, December, 1887, included in the receipts as heretofore ?" As members would have observed, the account was now an entirely different account from the account which had hitherto been submitted to the members. It was not now an account of receipts and payments, but it was an account of income and expenditure, and the balance at the bankers would not properly go into an account of receipts. It had, in fact, been carried to the capital account, and was there to be found, not mentioned as a separate item, but it was part of the sum of £141,818 8s. 3d. capital account. The police testimonial advance of £15, repaid in January, 1888, should appear as income. It was included in sundry small receipts. On the charge which was made in the form of the society's account, it had been considered that that fund should go to the capital account, and there it had gone. The next was hardly a question. He thought it was turned into a question, but he had it in this form. Mr. Phillimore had observed that rent and taxes, etc., against the articled clerks' fund amounted to £4,057, which was too large a proportion. They should not be charged insurance. That was, of course, a proposition, and Mr. Phillimore would be at liberty, if he had put it in a proper form, to bring that forward and take the opinion of the meeting, but probably the meeting would be satisfied with the explanation that the charge to articled clerks of a proportion of the expenses of the society was a matter which had been discussed very fully before the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice of England, and after examining the accounts and hearing ex planations from the president of the year and himself, they had come to the conclusion that it was an extremely proper charge, and they saw no reason whatever of making any objection on that ground to the accounts. The next was an observation"The decrease in the examination fees seems to be £155 1s." That was a small matter, and he did not know that Mr. Phillimore had pressed it at all.

Mr. Phillimore: No.

Mr. Pennington said the next was, "The subscriptions from members had fallen off £108." Answer: That is so. (A voice: Why?) "Any costs received?" That included another question as to how much had been received for costs. The society had received sums for costs, and the council insisted upon the pay ment of costs by all persons who were liable to pay costs, and

who were able to do so.

Mr. Fox said he had asked whether it was the practice of the society to enforce the order, and if not, why?

(To be continued.)

VOL. IX.

PUMP COURT,

The Temple Newspaper and Review.

No. 148.

other, are such that while a prisoner should be allowed every facility which the law already so amply provides, care should be taken to make no exception in the mode of trial as administered in other cases. We are perfectly aware of the movement that is going on for permitting these statements to be made at the trial. We confess not to look with favour on it. The prisoner has his opportunity at the investigation, when he is asked if he has anything to say, and at the same time informed that he is not obliged to say anything. If he makes a statement, it is appended to and forms part of the deposition, and may be put in at the trial. It is sought now to enable a prisoner who has had the aid of skilled and practised lawyers to make up a statement at the close of the case, after having watched the course of the evidence, and to submit this statement without any cross-examination on it."

WE confess that we thought the jury might have been misled by a statement, untested by cross-examination, from the right conclusion, and that the interests of justice might have been defeated. With a weak jury there was undoubtedly great chance of this, but

De Lege; de Omnibus Rebus et Quibusdam Aliis.

:0:

We have been informed that Mrs. Maybrick is enceinte. If this is proved to be the case the sentence will have to be postponed, as the law does not permit two persons, mother and child, to be punished for the offence of one. After a postponement of the kind no death penalty is ever inflicted. Such is the practice, not required by the law, but accorded to humanity.

Ir the information we have above referred to be correct, an additional motive is furnished for the prisoner's haste to get rid of her husband before her condition could be discovered by him, and to give her the opportunity of legitimatising it.

THE following paragraph appeared in our issue of last week:

"It is high time that the question of allowing accused persons to put in statements at the last moment should be settled once for all. We have discussed it before, but as long as judges from humane intentions do not abide by the law and the practice, so long will there be chances of serious miscarriages of justice. We are quite clear that the legislature should not allow the statement to be made as evidence unless the accused is subjected to crossexamination on it; and we are equally clear that this is not to the advantage of an accused person. By the time this journal is published the judge will have summed up, and the verdict in Regina v. Maybrick will have been delivered, so that it can do no harm to any particular individual for us to say now that we regard the permission accorded by the judge to the prisoner to make a considered statement, which she had not made at the preliminary investigation, nor at the coroner's inquest, with grave apprehension. If the prisoner had been cross-examined she would probably have been asked to explain how it came about. that, knowing she was treated with distrust and suspicion by her brother-in-law and the nurses, she permitted herself secretly without their knowledge to mix a drug in the patient's food, even at his request? Further, as it seems she knew that he was in the habit of taking a drug which was poisonous, why did she, openly or secretly, administer it to him? The facilities which conjugal partners (especially the woman) possess, of doing away with each

a good panel capable of seeing unconfusedly the issues, of weighing with the scales of common sense the evidence. and above all of remaining undismayed and undeterred by the irresponsible clamour of the "Man in the Street," who has not had his mind concentrated on the evidence to the exclusion of all other subjects, as have the jury, nor had the opportunity of seeing the demeanour of the witnesses in the box, or hearing the evidence other than at secondhand, as told him by the reporter of the particular newspaper he reads at his breakfast-table or ia the train. The omission or insertion of a single word in a report often makes a world of difference to those who have not their own memory to aid them in the true construction to put on the report.

BUT as the Man in the Street, though mistaken, is genuine and earnest in his error, it is well within the functions of PUMP COURT to convince him, especially as it appears that the contagion has spread to several members of the Bar. That a great deal of the excitement is due to the fact that it is a young and interesting looking woman who was on her trial for her life is undoubted, and therefore we must first proceed to brush away with firm hand all the emotions engendered thereby in her favour.

AND first of all, if the prisoner be really guilty, Oh, Emotional Brother in the Street! can you conceive anything more diabolical, more fiendish, more remorseless and uarelenting than the conduct of this woman, who pillowed on her husband's bed at night, yet day by day and hour by hour sees him waste away inch by inch before her eyes in mortal agony, and stays not her murderous hand, nor wavers in her unrelenting purpose! Beside such conduct the quick dagger-stab of sudden passion is but an innocent act, or almost a venial offence. Get rid of your sympathies, first of all, my erring brother, and then let us get to business, rationally and calmly, as persons who are equally interested on the one hand that foul and most unnatural murder should not go unpunished, and on the other hand that an innocent person, whatever her other shortcomings may be, should not wrongly be convicted.

Now, what do you take your stand on? You say that the scientific evidence for the defence shows that the cause of death was gastro-enteritis, and that though

gastro-enteritis is produced by arsenic, and is a mode in which this irritant poison works death, yet that gastroenteritis is sometimes producible by improper or irritant food, say, by decaying lobster, for instance. And you further say, that this being the scientific aspect of the case, a doubt is created in your mind as to whether it was arsenic or, say, rotten lobster that was the cause of death, and that this doubt should be cast in favour of the prisoner. This we understand to be your contention, and just see how easily the bottom is knocked out of it.

We will grant you unreservedly that if no arsenic had been found in the man's body and in the food administered him, and if the sole evidence had been that the symptoms were the symptoms, however indisputably, of arsenical poisoning, you would be entitled to say that, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred such symptoms point to arsenical poisoning, yet there is a hundredth case in which it was produced by improper food, and that this is sufficient to create a reasonable doubt as to the true cause of death. This we grant you fully and unreservedly, and though our experience tells us how easy it is for a defence to create a scientific puzzle, and that there never yet was scientific evidence given by medical men which could not be controverted by an equal number of doctors on the other side, we grant you, we say, that the prisoner should be acquitted.

BUT what are the facts here? The cause of death, you say, was gastro-enteritis. Gastro-enteritis is producible. Gastro-enteritis is producible equally, if you like, by rotten lobster or by arsenic. But arsenic it is that is found in the body; arsenic it is that is found in his food (harmless food, mind you, not rotten lobster, or anything of that sort); arsenic turns out to be the substance that the prisoner admits she put in his beeftes, arsenic in the drains, arsenic in my lady's bower for cosmetics, arsenic everywhere, not rotten lobster. The food that produces the vomiting, symptomatic of arsenic and of rotten lobster, happens not to be rotten lobster, but harmless food, the same kind of food as that in which my lady puts a substance, which on examination is found to be arsenic.

CONSIDER these facts, and then say whether you have any reasonable doubt-mind, a reasonable doubt, such as would influence your judgment in your ordinary daily life and business; a reasonable doubt, not a vain imagining, such as a weak-minded person casting about for doubts and chimeras is apt to indulge in-that arsenic, by whomever administered, whether self-administered or not, was the cause of death.

We do not turn aside to say that rotten lobster will not produce fatal gastro-enteritis, except in certain conditions of the body which your doctors have not proved to have existed in this case. The case is quite strong enough without labouring this.

IN forming your conclusion without reasonable doubt, you must not allow your reasoning powers to be numbed by the enormous consequences which you know must result from such conclusion. These consequences may make you wish you had not the duty to decide, but the process of reasoning must be the same, if you are logical, whether the issue of your conclusion is that the prisoner be imprisoned for a day or hanged by the neck.

any

No, well-meaning, kind-hearted Brother in the Street, you have by this time given up the idea that there can be reasonable doubt as to the actual cause of this man's death. Let schoolmen and doctors puzzle themselves and each other over hypothetical cases of rotten lobster. You are by this time convinced that this particular case is a case of arsenic, not rotten lobster; arsenic, nothing but it. Whatever other thing somebody else in the history of the world may be recorded to have died from, you know so far as human judgment goes that this man died from arsenic. You are not as God. You are reasoning as but poor man can reason, with the powers that the Almighty has permitted him to have, and this reason proclaims as loud as loud, as loud can be, Arsenic. Pay no heed for the present to those well-meaning people who are averse to hanging in any case. Even if a man gouges out

the eyes of his mother, or like the Whitechapel murderer, disembowels his victims, these humanitarians say there should be no hanging, and they try to prevent it upon any excuse, and they are glad to have your help to prevent a hanging. They consider hanging in any case only but murder added to murder, and therefore they do beguile you with chemical conundrums. Yes, it is clear that we-you and we-agree that arsenic caused this man's death.

Now, by whom administered? Was it by the woman? The evidence against her is very strong and convincing; so strong and convincing that the defence thought it incumbent on them to endeavour to raise a chemical puzzle, though a weaker puzzle we do not remember in the course of our experience of many such puzzies, nor one that was, indeed, less of a puzzle. Granted that arsenic caused the death, Sir Charles Russell felt that his case was well-nigh hopeless, and so all his efforts were directed to this point. But he did not, however, leave any stone unturned in other directions of forlorn hope. Granted arsenic, what, in brief, is the situation? A woman interested in getting rid of her husband; a woman who had threatened the deceased for his ill-treatment of her; a woman who had expressed her hatred of the man with whom she felt herself compelled to live for the sake of appearances, and who stood in the way of her prosecuting her amours. Here is motive. But you will say, and say rightly, the mere fact of there being motive is not sufficient. There may be plenty of motive to do an evil deed, and yet the evil deed may remain undone. You are quite right. But is this all? If it were, and we allowed her to be hanged, her blood would cry unto us from the ground. Let us see what else there is. The man dies from arsenical poisoning (we have now agreed to that as being beyond reasonable doubt). Then arsenic is traced to her possession, and to places that she has access to; arsenic is hidden away, disposed of in drains, no other person with a motive to dispose secretly in this way of arsenic having access to these drains. She is discovered interfering with the food and medicine as secretly as the circumstances towards the close of the drama permit her. Finally, she is seen to put arsenic (there is no necessity for circumlocution, dear friend, so don't with the narrow-sightedness of the wouldbe astute fancy that we ought to say, "She is seen to put something which turns out to be arsenic;" we give at once the result of the two stages of our inquiry)—in the food that is to be administered to him. Is this enough for us? I think we must admit that here is positive proof greater than is usually forthcoming in any trial for murder. Short of seeing for ourselves, what more would you have? Death by arsenic, arsenic put in the food by a person who had a strong interest in the death of the man. We must admit that in the absence of explanation, of satisfactory explanation, of satisfactory explanation accompanied by some proof, that evidence like this is amply sufficient. Observe, we say, satisfactory expla nation accompanied by some proof; a merely plausible explanation won't do in the face of such evidence; the less so if this merely plausible explanation is not made until after the whole force of the evidence has been presented to the keen wit of the accused. It would not be difficult to make a mere plausible explanation if we ourselves had heard her say she would murder with arsenic, and saw her pour it down the man's throat. Now, has there been a satisfactory explanation accompanied by proof? Has there been even a merely plausible explanation presented under circumstances, and at a time when it would be less tainted with the odour of being a concoction and an afterthought? But was the explanation whenA woman knows (according to ever offered even plausible?

the evidence adduced on her behalf) that her husband takes a noxious drug secretly; she believes that he is on his deathbed, and that his doctors are baffled; she is aware that she is suspected by the nurses and by the man's brother; she has good reason for knowing that his death would be a relief to her; is it plausible that she would permit herself (if she were innocent, and if she were not determined to get rid of him at all hazards) to put this drug in his food, even at his request, secretly, without acquainting the doctor, without acquainting the nurse, the brother, or anybody? Is it plausible that having been reconciled to her husband

to

she should not have taken means to let those in the house who were aware of their differences acquainted with it? She need not have done more than let them see a loving touch or hear a kindly word, or told them more than that her husband and herself were now happily at peace one with the other. On the other hand, why was she able to speak so positively that he would die, in spite of the favourable opinion of the doctor that he would live? Why did she, if she was in the frame of mind which precedes or follows confession and forgiveness, write her paramour that her husband would surely die? As to the explanation of the other arsenic found on her, is it a satisfactory explanation that she, a woman with plenty of money, had to make her own face wash when she had the means of purchasing it ready-made, as well and better than she could make it, instead of resorting to the slow, tedious process of first extracting the arsenic from fly-papers, and then mixing it with other things? But where is the mixture? Suppose even it be true that when a schoolgirl in Germany, with not too much money and subject to control, she had to resort to this tedious process of procuring the different elements for her cosmetics-what need had she to resort to it now that she was her own mistress with unlimited money at her disposal? It is much to be feared that however innocent the purposes for which she extracted the arsenic in Germany (which may very well be true, and indeed we are inclined to believe that it is true), it served the evil purpose of informing her how arsenic might be obtained for more evil designs.

You say that it is something in her favour that she did not perform her diabolical schemes more secretly. Remember, however, that the toils were closing round her when she was finally discovered, that she was being narrowly watched towards the finish (how long before she had been slowly poisoning him to the best of her ability it may not be logical to introduce into the discussion here), and it became necessary for her to take some considerable risk, if she were to be in time to work her fell purpose to the end she had in view. Later on, when her husband had his worst fears confirmed, she would not have had the opportunity. Don't forget all this time, dear friend, that it is you who propose to explain away the most convincing proof of guilt ever offered in a court of justice, and that we are entitled to examine the worth and value of the explanation. As to her explanation for having added water to the bottle of meat juice she had placed the arsenic in, because she had spilled some of it, just ask yourself why she should have taken trouble to replace with water a little meat juice that she spilled accidentally, thus spoiling, or rather weakening, what was left in the bottle, and deceiving those who had to administer strengthening food as to the value of each dose. But if, instead of a small but strong arsenic powder of her husband's, she had to put in her weak solution (the weakness of which she had learned by experience), derived from such sources as were at her disposal, then it became necessary for her to throw off some portion of the meat juice to make room for her arsenic solution. Finally, whenever this explanation was concocted-whether concocted in her brain at the time she put in the arsenic, to account for the spilling, or arranged after the evidence had taken its course-its weakness is as palpable as the evidence against her is strong.

AND who is it that makes this explanation which we are asked to accept without proof or any corroborative circumstance? Is it a disinterested person whose character for truth is undeniable? And first, is it a person whose veracity, in spite of a wrong done suddenly under temptation, has been without much reproach; or is it, on the contrary, a person who for a long period of time has been educating herself, or whom the environment of circumstances has been educating, into being a liar and a schemer

of schemes?

LESS important points to be noted, though they ought not perhaps to be passed over altogether, are-first, that if there was a reconciliation such as the prisoner's story, which must be taken as a whole, relates, we should perhaps have expected a short codicil modifying somewhat the harshness of the testator's will, and it is remarkable that there should have been only one powder, which, she says, she put into the food at his request.

FINALLY, the Man in the Street needs but a little time for cooling his emotions to be irrevocably convinced-as were the twelve impartial men who concentrated their whole attention to the case with a sense of the responsibility which devolved on them, and them alone that a young and fascinating woman, not having the fear of God before her eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, "feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought, did kili and murder one James Maybrick," her husband, by administering arsenic poison to him.

Ir is a notable thing that the words in an indictment for perjury are far more solemn and impressive than in one for murder. Probably the original framers felt that it would be but painting black on black to add anything to the sufficiently awful words, "kill and murder."

Of course it would be a relief to many people, and not less to us, if the Home Secretary can conscientiously see the way, which we do not at present see, to commuting the punishment. And, indeed, it must be a severe strain to have a duty of this sort cast on one. Of course, the simplest thing to do, and one that any but the most conscientious Home Secretary would feel strong temptation to do, is to commute the punishment to life imprisonment. An ingenious theory may be propounded that though the prisoner did administer poison with intent, yet that her efforts were not successful, and that the man died in the meantime from some other cause. It is not because we are unable to see this that we should not be glad if someone in authority could conscientiously see it.

THE agitation for reprieve is largely grounded on the feeling against capital punishment. The same thing accounts for what to most people in England seems the absurd rider of recommendations to mercy that French juries almost invariably attach to their verdict, even in cases of diabolical and cold-blooded murder. The recommendation serves to avoid the hanging, and that is all it is added for. It is the only means the jury have to prevent the capital punishment on a verdict of guilty, and they use it freely for this purpose.

THE murdered man, James Maybrick, was insured for £2,000 in the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association of New York, for the benefit of Mrs. Maybrick. The Liverpool representative of the association received a telegram during the preliminary investigation from New York, intimating that Mrs. Maybrick, being in need of funds, should have £200 advanced to her on behalf of the association, which we believe was done.

ONE word with those well-meaning people who would, in spite of their convictions, let the prisoner Florence Maybrick off, and who point to the case of Madeleine Smith as furnishing proof of how a woman in like case may, if let off, afterwards lead a guiltless and blameless life. The one word is, how do you know but that the facility with which that person got off, emboldened Maybrick and other women poisoners? "How oft the means to do ill deeds make ill deeds done." Let wicked women become convinced, as you are doing your best to convince them, that their sex will protect them from the last penalty, and women poisoners will never cease out of the land.

PLEA on behalf of tigers. A correspondent, writing to the Amoy Gazette, says: I observe with regret that Messrs. and have taken to killing tigresses, having slaughtered in cold blood a brace in the last two days, one of which was in milk and had cubs. The excuse that she had killed a native within a week and was the terror of the villagers has little weight with me. This timely remonstrance is to beg the life of the females of this beautiful and interesting species."—(Sic)!

MR. JUSTICE DENMAN has become a vice-president of the Bethnal Green Free Library, E.

A GOODLY Sum of the Incorporated Law Society's money was thrown away in fighting what was known as the Law Stationers' Cases. The council of the society (except Sir T. Payne) encouraged the society to go to the House of Lords; the society went there, and was badly beaten, Now some