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£££ &wfiiie a epeciai' Wtftehnian guafdea tTie premises . TJbe manner df tlie mutfojer In'diicaites a narr 6 wed class for" Suspicion . The Police are aided t > y the money being found for tftenf ; they nnd 1 the instruments With ysrlii < 5 & ,. in alt likelinood ? , the murder was comitfitfted ; and jet they fail in discovering or convicting ; the murderer . ^ Reserving our opikiori , we state the facts as they appear-ed to tlie jury . A \ murder was committed by some person who had knowledge of the railway premises , and * some knowledge of the habits of the
murdered man . Money was taken from the room where the murder was committed' , and some of this money , clearly identified ^ is found in a privy near the railway premises , and a tammer and two razors , such as might have been used by the murderer , are found in the canal near the station . The evidence connecting Spolile : ^ with t ^ is as follows :- —1 . The statement of his two young children that he was from home on the
even-Ing of the murder , and that he was engaged hading something down the chimney of an old forge . 2 . That his own account of his doings on that night , asghe alleges * that he took tea with his wife and eldest son , and afterwards took a walk with them , is false , if his children are believed . 3 . The money found and identified as stolen from Mr . Ijittxe ' s room was wrapped up in a piece of lilac calico ^ said by SpoiiIiEn ' s young daughter to have belonged to her , , and to have been used as a duster
about the house . 4 . One of the razors found in the canal is marked e Spoiling and this razor is identified by his young son as having belonged to Spoii-en ' . These were the material facts against the man accused ; but the evidence which supported them was suspicious . The two children prevaricated to a considerable dfegree ; the evidence they gave
at the police-court differed m many important fioints from their evidence oil the final trial The two most damning facts against SpoliiEir ( and they are facts which are almost entirely independent of the evidence of the suspected and prevaricating children ) are , that some of the money stolen from the room of the murdered man was found in the piece of lilac calico used as a duster about his house . But
fi dustermay disappear , and may easily pap into other hands ; and the time when the duster was last seen about his house is uncertain , for the child liTTOTf" Spoxidbw contradicts ; herself so grossly about it , that wemuste dismiss her evidence on this point ; as untrustworthy ' . Tjie razoi found in the canal with SpottElsr ' s fiamev and * marked with gaps which might nave Been given in cutting Mr . XiIttle ' b' throat ( for the razor tised was also < $ tovwn : across" the tee ; tli of the murdered man ) , Is' a fact Which would help to thicken other
proofs ,, but which , standing alone , is not sufficient evidence that the owner of the name marked on the razdir committed the miirder . 2 ft > r the * rassor may not be Spbllen ' s ( though tne evidence of identin ' catfon is nearly complet 5 e ) , and there is the fair suggestion that a man coirtmitting a imwder would not use a XMov marked' legibly with his own name . This / ft * fact , was all the evidence leading
to connect Sfoixen with the crime . The fact that- he had access to the building and jgeBtufa-r opporttinitii ( 09 of exit and entrance , Iff applicable to some- < 4 ozen other employes . a ? he fact that he U& special facilities of escape is rather worthless when we find that there was only one watchman on the premises ! , and b , e an old man , whoso vigilance might have been easily defeated . >
! jEh& Dublin authorities have' shown- in the trial another illustration of the marvellous stupidity they have displayed throughout the iawjBtigation . The Afctorney-Oeneral pleads , mexcueev that the Dublin police are not ac-
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the itEFOifcia : tfcm tnbm . J ^ outy iBEABDiNGts is understood- to have Itno ^ ghfc- ^ he ileyeflF uttered the opinion in ptfblic ^ - ^ fchat' to' be safe in indiarwe-must have more English ; soldiers and fewer Sepoys : But it does" not follow that , because the Indian revolt has a military origin , ntere ~ military reforms can re-establish the foundations of our Eastern Empire . The ultimate problem is dne of government ; and this , we believe , is a conviction to which the Cabinet has been forced by th& late" events in Bengal . It will
surprise most persons if , next session , some comprehensive proposal is not submitted to Parliament , bearing upon the whole subject of our Oriental administration- Semi-official whispers , oozing from the Treasury , are already afibat , indicating a scheme for the supercession of the East India Company , and the appointment of an Indian . Secretary of State , exercising his powers jointly with an Indian Viceroy . The time must come when the Company , framed for commercial purposes into machine
and then converted a political , will have to resign a responsibility w hich has outgrown its powers . The necessity may be regretted , but cannot be resisted . We may repine over the destruction of a huge piece of antiquity , especially one associated with a century of brilliant triumphs ; but if it stops the way it must come down- —and there can be little question that the East India Company does stop the way . We Can no _ longer govern India through a charter . It is painold servantbut
ful to part with an , corporations , no less than individuals , are liable to superannuation ; the Bengal army has broken loose from the Bengal authorities ; we must have firmer guidance for the future . Yet who without a shudder can think of British Iudia delivered over to Downing-street , to Whig cadets and Court Earls , to hereditary Baronets , to sharp practitioners in coronets , who would treat Bahar as a perquisite , and the Carnatic as a good thing for life , with four hundred salaries of six hundred a year to give away , and more than that number of
applicants whom it might be useful to conciliate ? If India is to be sinaply a Cabinet gold medal like the Irish viceroyalty , better reprieve the Company , and save the hundred and fifty millions from Sir CiiAitiiES Woods and other squires of even less capacity . We cannot afford to lose India , and we cannot afford , while we retain it , to place in the hands of the Minister , an exhaustless power of patronage and corruption . Unless some method of check be devised—a Council , perhaps , the members of which would retire by rotation—the public will be justified in suspecting any proposal to abolish the institution in keadenhall-street , and yoking the
three Presidencies with red tape . But there is one practical change which might be effected without difficulty or hazard —the transfer of the central seat of government in India to Delhi . Calcutta need not be the less powerfully fortified ; nor would tne Governor- General be less secure , since reigning with renewed prestige from the old capital of the Moguls , he might convert it into an impregnable military position , connected witii the sea by a railway and a chain of strongholds , and still further guarded by a permaconstruction
nent flotilla , on the Jumna . The of a line from Calcutta to Mirzaporo and thence to Delhi—originally planned in 1 ° * ° by the friends of Sir WiixiaM Yotjno—has long been determined upon ; had it been carried out the mail would have brought tar dirferent intelligence after forty-seven days oi military insurrection ia Bengal . It strikes us that tlie English will always be considerea aliens in India as Ipng as they rule from t&o edge of the soa ; when they do as the Moguls did , and plant their throne in the very centre
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ctistoMetf to investigatiilg'theBe Crimes ; rif s ^ , they might naver borrowedsome English tf < £ tecfesi . Tntf learned gentleman himself showed in nitf opening ; speech a stolid disregard ' of tne clearest ' way of conveying the narrative ; , and a most nnJfortunate tendency to drag into Ms statement every minute fact that , in Ms opinidii , could possibly Bear against the prisoner . He forgot the very simple ride that the ' weakest part of a chain r » f itifp . rAfirtss is if te measure of its strength ,
and' that one weak link neutralizes Itote strength of the whole . Wei shall give two instances of the want of tact displayed by the Attorney-General . Part of the stolen money wag found ! in a vessel partially filled with red lead , and embedded in this red lead was a little common padlock , without any special mark , and sucbv as are made by the thousands of the same size and pattern in every large lock factory . A padlock of the same pattern is found with the prisoner , and one of the prevaricating' children says that the padlock found in the red lead was his father ' s—identifying it by the letters ' V . K , '
and ! the word ' patent , ' which are on tens of thousands of similar padlocks all over the country . "Set on this fact the Attorney-General relied as ' most important' against the prisoner . A second statement of the learned gentleman deserves attention . Near the h iding-place where the money was found Was a hydraulic rani , used for raising water . To get to the hiding-place without being splashed with the water by the ram at work , it was necessary to stop the ram ; , which could be easily done by the hand—but to j 3 et the ram going again , Was a task-of some : difficulty and time . It was shown in evidence that the
ram had unaccountably slipped three or four times during the weeks prior to Spot-msn ' s arrest , ' "but , " said the absolute Attorney-General , " none of these unaccountable stoppages took place after Spou-ejst ' s arrest . " This acute advocate insinuates that Spoij - jj- Eur , when out of gaol , stopped the ram to go to the hiding-place , and that when in gaol he could not do it . The Attorney-General forgets that the public discovery of the money was contemporaneous with SpoiiiiEifr ' s arrest ,
and that the murderer ( supposing him not Spoiii-BN ) woul ( J not be fool enough to go to a discovered hiding-place for the sake of recovering removed money . The prosecution failed in another way . The police brought forward their witnesses , not as an array of persons able to clear up the whole case and to threw light upon the movements * of the prisoner , but they brought up every one who could' swear against Spoixw , and they kept back all who might have
testified to any fact in his favour . , Thus a great point Was to ascertain the state of Mr . j LiTTiiU ' s office and neighbourhood on the evening of the murder , yefc Cathebife GAMPBBXii , the assistant to the housekeeper , and who knew more about the matter than the housekeeper herself , was not examined . ! Another point waa to establish whether or not SpoifLBW spoke truth when he said that he took tea with hie -wife and eldest son , but the eldest son who could have been examined , was not examined . Ifc was also desirable to
have corroborated the evidence of the suspected child as to the piece of lilac calico which' she said » hei received as a present from a young girl ; but thisi young girl was not examined . The whal © case for the prosecution ) was thus tainted- with imperfection in every part / and th « r jury ( leaving out of c onsideration the information by the wife , corroborated by the finding of the money as she indicated ) were deoidedly bound to acquit SPOXIiEt f . < The mystery of the murder remains , however , a disgrace totbeo Dublin authoritiea .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 15, 1857, page 782, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2205/page/14/
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