The Lambeth Poisoning Case. Justice Hawkins to prepare his charge. Up to this time Mill confidently expected an ac quittal. He expressed the most unbounded admiration for his counsel, and said that he thought very little of Sir Charles Russell, and was surprised that such a feeble advo cate should ever have been made AttorneyGeneral of England. But Mill's hopes of escape visibly disappeared, when on the following day Sir Henry Hawkins summed up the case to the jury. His lordship was evidently determined to make a great effort; he had carefully arranged his materials; he spoke for three hours in that clear, incisive, beautiful voice with which the Tichborne claimant was painfully familiar, and — prin cipally because there was no defence — his charge was a speech for the prosecution far abler and more effective than that which Sir Charles Russell had delivered on the previous day. Then comes the closing scene. The jury retire; the prisoner is led downstairs to spend the awful interval in which his life is hanging in the balance out of sight of the eager eyes and away from the hum of the hushed voices of the great crowd with which the court is thronged. Mr. Justice Hawkins leaves the bench for a few minutes' rest. Suddenly and within a quarter of an hour after the judge has finished his charge, it is whispered that the jury are coming back. Man by man they file into the box; and one glance at their grave, resolute faces suffices to tell the most casual observer what their verdict will be. Sir Henry Hawkins returns to the bench. The prisoner is brought to the bar; he leans his right arm upon
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it and gazes intently, but hopelessly, at the faces of those on whose word his fate depends. "Gentlemen, are you agreed on your ver dict? " says the clerk of court. "We are," replies the foreman. "Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?" "Guilty," is the answer. "Thomas Mill," the clerk of court goes on, " you stand convicted of the crime of wilful murder. What have you to say why the court should not pass judgment of death upon you according to law?" Mill had privately, I believe, expressed the intention to " give it to Haw kins," but had evidently thought better of this useless resolve, and now he merely shakes his head without saying a word. The judge assumes the black cap, and passes sentence of death in those old dread words which have sounded the knell of so many generations of criminals. The warders close around the condemned man as the chaplain says, " Amen." The chief warder touches him lightly on the shoulder, and the Lambeth poisoner turns and descends the steps toward the condemned cell. The pomp and circumstance of the trial are over; the spectators disperse to their several duties or pleasures; the voices of the outer world die away; and the wretched convict is left alone, to reflect on his life of forlorn makeshifts, infamy, and crime. No one deplores his fate. Indeed, the existence of such monsters as Mill is the standing and unanswerable argument for the punishment of death.
