On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
guilty class what they knew before—that such lotteries have blanks in them , and that Iosh in . Buch gambling- involves loss of life ; but the existence of blanks , or the extent of the loss , do not operate on the gambler ' s mind . If the prize is great , the penalty may be proportionate , and he will only feel an additional stimulus to his passion . The chastisement of Paimer for one ill-conducted crime is compensated by impunity in his other stratagems , and by the impunity which attends those who may be involved in similar transactions and never even accused .
We had a very imperfect glimpse of Pa : lmbb ' s mode of keeping iu charge his brother Walter , upon whose death he claimed money from an insurance office . The insurance office refused that money . TVe have no statement of the grounds on vhich the payment was refused . The office , we presume , is perfectly respectable ; it is not supposed to have incurred any blame for refusing what on the face of it was a distinct and valid demand .
Who was the agent for pressing that demand upon the insurance office in April , 1855 ? It has been stated in the recent trial that Mr . Pbatt , the solicitor who negotiated several loans for Palmes , was the agent for making the demand upon the insurance office at the time of Waiter ' s death . The demand appears to have been repeated , and to have
been under consideration for some time ; but refused with great obstinacy . Again , we say , what were the reasons alleged ? Men do not usually submit to the refusal of payment in cases where sums like 13 , 000 / . are at stake . Yet Palmeb submitted ; and in doing so , he confessed that he dared not attempt to enforce that claim . "What was it that deterred
him r How was it that his solicitor advised him to submit ? This is one of the dark vistas into which we are just permitted to glance , but which justice fails to explore . Do cases frequently occur in which claims are refused ? Sometimes , we know , claims are refused , and are ultimately enforced in actions of law ; but are there claims which , being refused , are never brought before the law ? This question is doubly interesting
when we remember that if it had not been for the death of Cooke , in November , 1855 , we never should have heard anything about the claim of Walter ' s insurance , or the payment of the insurance on Antste Palmer ' s life . We know , therefore , of two instances of deadly suspicion which would have passed over without the slightest public knowledge , if it had not been for the very dissimilar case of Cooke .
Mr . Pbatt appeared as a witness for the prosecution before the Criminal Court . It is quite true that no man can be held answerable for the character of his clients . Wo arc jeell aware that some solicitors do make a distinction , such as Romilly attempted to introduce , and that tliey will not act for men whose characters they disapprove . This moral distinction finds strong objection from many , and the objection is supported by some cogent reasons . As at present advised ,
therefore , we cannot judge a lawyer by the character of his clients . Nevertheless some pregnant questions are suggested by the disclosure of the relation between Palmer the client and Pratt the solicitor . We speak in ignorance , desiring to be enlightened . We are inclined to assume , though there is no statentent of the fa ^ t , that the solicitor must
have been informed as to the reasons for ¦ which the insurance office refused payment in Walter Palmbir ' b case . Mr . Pratt continued to be in communication with Palmer Ofber that refusal , ' and , in some respects , to act fbriiijm . Does it often happen that solicitors feubmit . oft the part of thcir ' clients to the rcttnalof payment to the amount of 13 , 0007 . ?
Do they suffer such refusal to pass without knowing the reasons ? Money was raised for Cooke at sixty per cent , discount . We perfectly understand the risk of dealing with a man" like Palmer . Does it frequently happen in the business of Iiondon solicitors that they have to obtain money on those terms ? that their clients are willing to pay such terms ? Are other instances known to the legal profession in which the refusal of thousands by an insurance office , or the obtaining of thousands at sixty per cent ., may go on for months ? Are such instances numerous ? Do gentlemen in the profession consent to deal with clients and with thousands sterling , under circumstances of great obscurity ; or do they sometimes receive a light upon such transactions which they abstain from communicating to tlie police ? Here , again , is a whole dark field , as dark as pitch , into which justice has just looked , without inquiry . Yet , again , we say , the punishment of a man like Palmer is very little help to those who may fall . Let Palmer be hanged to-morrow , and how many are rescued from that bottomless pit ?
We have before said that the case was exceptional only in the extreme character of the crime , in the recklessness of the criminal , and in the detection . Now there were other persons living at Rugeley , and some of them have been brought before the court of justice as parties more or less involved with Palmer . Were there any others who guessed at the
nature of his crimes ? Did they still associate with him ? Did they help him ? One helped him to the last : it was Mr . Jeremiah Smith , who , after the character of Palmer had been completely laid before the Central Criminal Court , was brought there to make statements favourable to the prisoner , and was dragged into stammering contradictions which lent a new darkness to the whole story .
JNTow , do Palmer s associates stop Jeremiah Smith ? Were there others : and what amount of knowledge had they of Palmer ' s transactions ? -What amount of profit had they ? We may safely affirm , on the statement of the evidence before the Central Criminal Court , that the murder of Cooke was not the only case in which Palmer had been criminated . We found that in that one case there n' ^ -r ^ o /^ Trr . »» oi nofcniin ninrfi or less imi ) licated
with the criminal , and in strange mysterious ways which implied conscious irregularity ; in some cases for the sake of profit . If justice had pursued ^ its investigation , it might , perhaps , have thrown more light upon every branch of this one case ; but it appears to us that still more could have been done on , discovering the existence of such a criminal in the very bosom of English society . The law should have endeavoured to have traced out all
that the criminal liad heen doing . The Coroner ' s jury , indeed , dismissed the case of Walter Palmer ; but has no new light been thrown upon that case ? Does it not invite examination ? Again , the recent conviction has given a new forco to the statements respecting the death of Anne Palmer ; and it is quite evident that some of the facts of that case still exist . There
were Palmer ' s own records ; many persons familiar with both husband and wife are still living ; documents bearing the forged name of Annb Palmer were in . court . Is it not possible that if the death of Walter Palmer and Annk Palmer had beon completely investigated , wo should have found out other persons , and othor ramificatioriH , in each transaction ? 3 f j ustico exercises any function , it is protection of the innocent ; and it proceeds , not only by punishing the guilty , but by tracing crime and detecting it- Why Uion does it arrest its inquiries in tho ease of
Cooke , simply because it has sufficient ground for punishing Palmeb ? If it has jumped over one gap in the chain of evidence which connects the death of Palmer with tho murder of Cooke , why should it reject the large mass of evidence which might enable it to expose all the subterranean channels in which the criminal has been at work , all the labours in which he has been engaged , all the people whom he has made his accomplices and all whom he has made more or less his victims . It is the crime we want exposed , as
well as the victim ; it is the approaches with which crime is undermining society that we want to see laid open , not only the miserable wretches whose existence or non-existence ia scarcely worth a thought . It may be said that the press is here the auxiliary of justice , as it is in politics the auxiliary of Parliament ; but our function is restrained by the libel law , —that mechanical attempt for protecting honesty which is so arranged as to protect principally the dishonest . The arbitrary stoppage to the exploration of Palmer's deeds constitutes a new mass of circumstantial
evidence , proving , what we have so often affirmed , that our machinery of justice is inadequate to track or expose the vast extent of crime and law-breaking w-ith w hich society is undermined .
Untitled Article
THE TRIPARTITE TREATY . Perhaps the Austrian official press -will explain why Sardinia was not admitted to a participation in the treaty of the 15 th of April . In the absence of this explanation , and in the presence of certain facts that have transpired in London and in Paris , we have some difficulty in accepting the solution volunteered at Vienna . The history of the matter is brief . After the signature of the general treaty of March 30 th , it was announced that , unknown to the Russian plenipotentiaries , a separate convention had been concluded between Great Britain ,
France , and Austria . The text declared that whereas the contracting powers had resolved upon preserving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire , they were agreed and" engngefl . to defend it from all attacks . Considered by itself , this act of tho three Powers appears a simple and necessary consequence of the negotiations of 1854 , when the same principle was established at Vienna . That , indeed , is the explanation offered by the Austrian official press . The three Powers ,
it is said , had agreed to declare the integrity of tho Ottoman Empire a necessary condition of the political balance of Europe , and to place it under their united guarantee . . Hut they had also agreed that , as the point ; was omitted from tho stipulation proposed at Vienna , and as it was useless to expect the assent of Russia to such a princip le , the negotiation should be removed to a separate ground ,
and be made tho exclusive affair of Austria , France , and Great Britain . It strikes us , in the first place , as a significant commentary on the * ' lasting peaco and friendship rut jueci at Paris , that Russia has not been bound to consider tho Ottoman Empire as inviolable , a i v 4-lw . , HiVI / - > % - » a-Hata ho etltlVOty and known b the dilomatists so entirety
was y p to spurn tho idea , that they dared not , in conference , propose it to her plenipotentiaries . But that is not now the question , thong" n is certainly a matter of serious remark tiwthe general treaty is avowedly inadequate w secure tho independence of the Porte , nnci that in tho supplementary treaty , wlll (> u supposed to complete tho guarantee , Jt »»»' does not participate . ,, Bui ; why wan Sardinia cut off from t < hc diplomatic concord of tho throo Power * f w ruiso this question because it 1 mb not . raised olsuwhoro , nnd becauno tho cxrius of Count CAVOim from the confidential tic
Untitled Article
g ^ g THE I'EADB R . [ No . 323 , S attoh ^* , ~ ' ' - i .--.... — i . ¦¦» .. i ¦¦ i ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ' _ . ' . — —__ - Li JL 1 L ^ -
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), May 31, 1856, page 518, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2143/page/14/
-