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THE FRENCH AT GAETA.
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MURDER: ONE MYSTERY THE LESS.
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Untitled Article
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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.
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THE culpable act of interference with Admiral JfERSANO . at Gaeta has brought the French Empire very painful y before Europe ; and it is absolutely impossible to invent any excuse for conduct so meddling and treacherous . We are . not , however , going to assume that Napoleon is going to overthrow the services he has rendered the Italians , or pursue his meddling intervention to an . extent that would alienate the good-will of this country . From the . earliest portion of his career he has been distinguished as a deceiver . He can do nothing good or ill in a straightforward way ; but he has , nevertheless , done many useful things , and Europe owes to him the depression of Austria , as well as the previous depression of Russia , which he effected in conjunction with ourselves . Had he intended to take a reactionary part , and make the support of Francis II . the means of ingratiating himself with the absolutist Monarchs , he would have taken care that more should come out of the Conference at Warsaw ,- which would not have been a failure had he been prepared to desert the English alliance and agree to revise the Treaty of Paris in the interest of the Czab . The probable explanation of the G-aeta business is , that he wishes to promote doubt and confusion , and has hopes of leading Austria into another mess . That he ^ denies the consolidation of Italy is difficult to believe . He seems to wish that Victor Emmanuel should proceed in a direction that must terminate in a quarrel with Austria , but that he should not be strong enough to fight his battles alone . There are more " ratifications of boundary " behind the G-aeta interference , and we are both anxious and curious to know how Lord J . Russell will treat this glaring infringement of the non-intervention principle . To be consistent he must abandon his desire to prevent the independence of Hungary , for if Louis Navoleon must not meddle on behalf of Francis II . at Gaeta , neither German nor Russian should meddle on behalf of the other Francis at Pesth . Our remarks on the Austrian Constitution scheme have been justified by events . At Pesth the police provoked riots by endeavouring to ^ enforce demonstrations of satisfaction which no sane Hungarian could feel , and KLAri £ A . has only spoken the natural and inevitable sentiments of his countrymen when he denounces a scheme which woula deprive them of their legal right to control , through their own Diet , all questions of taxation and levying of troops . It is unfortunate that the folly of the Court of Vienna should once more offer Louis Napoleon- a fair prospect of interfering with Italian concerns , and the demonstrations at Wilna and Warsaw show him that . in the event of a quarrel with Russia , he could summon a Polish rebellion to bis aid . England is the only power that can effectually avert the dangers which threaten Europe from France ; but she is shorn of half her legitimate influence so long as our Government clings to the delusion that any good can come from giving Austria support . The Hungarian question is the real key to European politics at the present moment , and if Lord John Russell could be persuaded to treat Hungary as he has treated Italy , we should see a much speedier ending of international troubles . We cannot too often repeat our conviction that it is foolish and dangerous to let France bo the only friend of the nationalities . Lord John Husskll ' s liberalism has been all along too late . He has objected to every movement in Italy which he has afterwards sanctioned , and this conduct has been favourable to Bonapartist tricks and designs . Let us be determined not to quarrel with France for the benefit of the absolutist Sovereigns ; but let xis mako our views of nonintervention the condition of a good iwderstanding . Louis Napoleon will not quarrel -with us if we support the right of the Italians and Hungarians to break loose from Austria , if they can ; but the attempt of the Whigs to be expedient without principle is neither honourable nor safe .
Untitled Article
Nov . 3 , I 860 ] The Saturday Analyst and Leader . 907
The French At Gaeta.
THE FRENCH AT GAETA .
Murder: One Mystery The Less.
MURDER : ONE MYSTERY THE LESS .
Untitled Article
« -m M- UltDER " is the ominous heading of a more than i > JL usually numerous quantity of reports in the newspapers this year . The faot is curious in a statistical and physiological point of view . The season haa been unusually temperate and moderate as regards heat , and thus some of the main causes havo been absent which tend , to excite and irritate the brain and nerves , -which , according to Biohat , constitute " the man . " Notwithstanding this , the crime in question has prevailed , to a fearful extent . The clue to the Stepney murder , alluded to in our artiolo of the 15 th September , has been followed to as full a disoovery as circumstantial evidence oaa afford . Assuming that Mw-hnb
committed the murder of which the jury found him guilty , he has virtually and in intention been a double murderer . His attempt , in cold blood , to criminate an innocent man ; to get an innocent man hung , in cold blood , on the charge o having perpetrated the deed of which he himself was the author , not merely amounts to an ordinary murder , committed in the hot excitement of a robbery ( though this is deserving of the highest penalty the law can inflict" ) , but it assumes a peculiarly atrocious , and , so to speak , abnormal character of heinousness . And this brings us to the motive which prompted the latter crime . It was evidently the desire of obtaining the reward . There is a theory , well deserving of serious consideration , that all such rewards for the detection of crime are contrary to public policy and morality , as they hold out a premium for false accusations against the innocent . It must , however , be remembered , that , by a curious retributive congeries of circumstances , it was , in fact , the reward which was offered that has led to the detection of the criminal . Had there been no reward offered , Mtjllins would have had no motive to take that step which has led on by a regular concatenation to his own conviction . We do not mean to urge this as a general argument in favour of rewards 5 we simply note it as a curious coincidence . The expediency of rewards resolves itself entm > ly into a choice of evils , —^ whether in the long run the detection of the guilt thereby effected is outweighed by their mischievous consequences . It must not be lost sight- of that it is not in all cases that the real culprit is able to point out as the offender an innocent person , in whom the necessary circumstances of probability are found to concur ; it is but seldom that an innocent person could be found near the scene of the deed under circumstances that would enable the real offender to fix the guilt upon him . What has happened in the Stepney murder is exceptional When , however , there is some innocent person who , from being in the neighbourhood , and having had time and opportunity to commit the act , is open to the charge , there certainly is a temptation held out by the reward to any illdisposed person , whether the real criminal or somebody else , to trump up a charge , and weave a semblanee of proof in a chain of circumstantial evidence against him . We can only compute the expediency of rewards by setting the number of detections they have effected against the number of false charges to which they have given rise . Their direct tendency is supposed to stimulate efforts to discover the actual offender rather than invent a fictitious one . Still we know that in this , as in many other things where interest or passion is concerned , in default of realities , people will have recourse to imaginary substitutes . There are the police , and that section of the force emphatically termed " detectives , " but the discovery of a murder , or other serious crime , involves considerable extra labour beyond what they consider their ordinary duties , besides , in many cases , considerable bodily risk . AH difficult and dangerous undertakings have ultimately to be resolved into a question of money ; men will not incur risk , or do work they can avoid , for nothing ; and there seems to be no special peculiarity in the present case to take it out of the ordinary category . In all such matters the exigencies and circumstances of the peculiar case must determine what course is most expedient for the authorities to follow . The Stepney case suggests a few remarks on the nature of the evidence . It is urged in favour of circumstantial evidence , that witnesses may lie or be mistaken ; but that facts are , in this respect , impeccable . Still , one chain of circumstances may sometimes fit more than one individual . A murderer , fresh from his butchery , falls in with a passenger going the same road , and contrives to place in the pocket of the latter a portion of his booty . Here is strong circumstantial evidence against an innocent man . He was known to be coming from the very scene of the murder shortly after its commission , and some of the victim ' property is found upon him . Innocent persons have ere now suffered the penalties of the law on such evidence as this . Though facts cannot lie or make mistakes , they often admit of false inferences . On the other hand , direot human testimony is very far from 1 infallible . There may be concatenations of facts that would as surely convince a mind accustomed to deal with the dimculties of evidence , that a particular person did a particu £ ™ ; « 9 any amount of testimony whatever . The truth is . that what people see and hoar grows in their minds , so toaM g it becomes something different from the ""^ " * ^ ^ give forth this magnified and altered "" P ^^ orv nobody
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1860, page 907, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2372/page/3/
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