LAST WEEK.
THE ROAD MURDER.
How is it that the daily newspapers are stuffed so full of horrors just now? If you take up one of the usual broad sheets, you will find invariably that some sixteen or twenty columns are devoted to reports of murder, and preliminary inquiries about murderers. There was one number of the “Times” last week which contained intelligence with regard to seven murders—the Stepney murder and the Road child murder being reckoned as two. Is it that in the absence of other subjects of public interest the editors of newspapers and their contributors find it indispensable to cater for the appetite for the horrible? Certainly when Parliament is sitting we are not accustomed to see so many pages of this bloody chronicle paraded before our eyes from day to day. On the other hand, it may be said that even when Parliament is sitting a Rush is more interesting to the general reader than a Debate upon Supply: and the public were far more keen for the reports of Palmer’s trial than for Ministerial explanations of the most exciting character. On the whole, it would not seem to be true that the session of the British Parliament affects crime in general—or more particularly murders. People again have said, that the long continuance of bad weather—the eternal gloom—the perennial rain of the last twelvemonths, has inspired a certain degree of moroseness and acrimony into the minds of our countrymen, thereby preparing them for deeds of violence and blood. It seems, however, not a little difficult to believe in the connection between murder and the hygrometer. Are our homicidal tendencies kept in check by great-coats and umbrellas? Has the occurrence of a wet summer commonly produced crime or really increased the tendency to acts of violence. If that were so, we should expect that in rainy districts, such an one for example as the lake district of Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, the returns of murder would stand the highest. Kendal is said to be the wettest spot in England. By this time everybody should have murdered everybody in that famous little town; or, assuming that there must have been one survivor, he in all probability would have committed suicide. It is by no means clear that there are more murders amongst the snows of Russia than amidst the orange-groves of Palermo. An Esquimaux is not swifter to shed blood than the swart dweller between the tropics. On the contrary, a lordly indifference to the destruction of life has ever been a characteristic of southern nations. The suggestion, that the untoward weather of the last twelve months has had any serious effect upon our homicidal propensities, may therefore be dismissed as unworthy of serious consideration.
The investigation into this mysterious case at Road continued throughout last week; but not, as far as we see, with much effect. Well nigh every point brought forward in evidence against Elizabeth Gough, the housemaid at Mr. Kent’s, has been urged before; but not with such success as to establish against her a case which justified the magistrates in committing her to take her trial. The medical testimony apart, which is of the highest importance, as suggesting a new theory for the murder, what points of evidence have been added to those with which we were familiar before? There are but two. Eliza Dallimore, the wife of a Wiltshire policeman has stated, before the magistrates at Trowbridge, that she put one of Elizabeth Cough’s assertions to a practical test, and that the assertion must have been a misstatement. The young woman had stated that about five o’clock in the morning she had knelt up in bed, and in this kneeling position she had looked over to the cot in which the little boy should have been lying asleep; and had then and thus become aware, for the first time, of the fact of his absence. Now, Eliza Dallimore went into the nursery accompanied by Mrs. Kent. The bed and the child’s cot were in the same position as on the night of the murder. Mrs. Kent placed one of her little children in the cot which had been occupied by the murdered boy, and covered it up with the bed-clothes in the usual way. Eliza Dallimore then kneeled up in the bed in the very same way as Elizabeth Gough must have done upon the night of the murder, and she could not see the child! She could only see a small portion of the pillow. The side of the cot was open canework, but it was lined with something inside which prevented the child from being seen through it. This, to be sure, is a suspicious fact; but, most probably, the sting of the contradiction might be much drawn, if the young woman’s original assertion were carefully handled. At any rate, what is it by the side of the tremendous fact that the child was in all likelihood murdered by her very bedside, and yet she professes to be entirely ignorant of what took place. Clearly—even if the actual murder were perpetrated elsewhere—the child (a boy within a month of four years of age, and of large size for his age) was removed from the room in which she was sleeping, and she knew nothing about it. A contradiction such as the one suggested really adds very little to our previous information. Again, a piece of flannel was discovered under the body of the child. This piece of flannel was cut in the shape of a “chest-flannel,” such as is worn by women. It was found to fit the prisoner, and to correspond in texture with one of her flannel petticoats. This notable discovery, however, does not help the inquiry forward in any great degree. The wonder is that the child should have been removed from the nurse’s room without her knowledge—not that a piece of flannel which very probably belonged to her should have got mixed up with the bed-clothes of the cot, and have been subsequently carried away in the blanket by her, him, or those who bore the child from the room. The inference presumed is—of course upon the assumption of the prisoner’s guilt—that in stooping forward to deposit the body of the child where it was found, the piece of flannel might have fallen from her person, and this would serve as good evidence of her presence at that period of the transaction. But, supposing that this chest-flannel was her property, and that she was in the habit of wearing it, is there anything to show that she used to wear it at night? If it was simply lying upon a chair, or in any other