OUR HOMICIDAL INSTITUTIONS.
Ir is the rule to construe penal lawe strictly in favenr of the ac- cused; that is, the penalty shall not be enforced except upon the strictest construction of the law applicable to the, case. Society extends this rule to the warning effect of the laws, and it will not hold itself precluded from anything 'Prohibited by the . ten com- mandments, except upon the. most literal, construction of the tables. Particularly is the indulgence prohibited. by the.sixth, enforced only in individual and limited cases ; it is enjoyed in a variety of forms, especially by wholesale ; and amongst us we have some methods which may be considered as. permanently es- tablished, if not for the purpose of calming death, yet with the known effect and the deliberate resolve not to disContinue it. In this sense railways must be considered as an apparatus, os- tensibly for the conveyance of human beings and goods, but oc- casionally applicable to the destrUction of humanheings. We have long since pointed out the fact that the manner of construct- ing railways is such as must from its nature certainly end in death,—as certainly as if the -whole machineiy were specifi- cally designed for that purposes A blunderbuss is nothing more than a combination . of metal and wood-, so placed that if given proportions of powder and missiles be put in the inside, the expulsion of the bullets will kill anybody who happens to be in the way. It is, however,. by ito.means necessary that instruments of death • should consist of hollow tubes filled with explosives ; they may consist of large hollow boilers tilled with explosives of a different kind. There is another form. If human beings be packed together in boxes ; if the boxes be lifted upon wheels, and then placed upon an incline, and suddenly al- lowed to run down theincline, we cditain circumstances highly favourable to the infliction of death. Another circumstance ad- vantageous to that object would be te7-place a second series of boxes on the plane below the likelin,e, so thtt the one set might run against the other. The conthaonHaa,d itj'ary would probably be aggravated if the first set of boxes—were to run down the incline unexpectedly ; and this can easily be managed. The stringof boxes before they are let down the incline must be fasten to some fixed object : should the -fastening be defective in itself ; should it have some kind of flaw, the desired uncertainty in,the 'whir moment of letting go would be .positively secured. ow this description of what we have imagined as the arrange- ments for killing'some person or persons unknown is strictly ap- plicable to the case of the accident on the Oxford. and Worcester line. The Government Inspector of Railways-has come to the conclusion- that the guard, Cook, did not use his break ; but he has also ascertained that there was a defective, welding in the strap of the bow of the screw coupling, by which it would only bear one third of the strain which it would otherwise have borne. : The quality of the link," said Mr. lii`Conuell, the engineer, .! is Inferior, or as I am now inclined to think it might have been overheated in the welding." " It was probably impossible," says Captain Tyler, " for the officials to discover, the inefficient weld by sight merely ; but they might have done so by actual strain." Another kind of mantrap which will take effect much more ex- tensively than spring-guns, and which can be rendered almost self-supporting, is described by Dr. Letheby. He has entered into a minute chemical and mechanical examination of the drain- age of the metropolis, and has ascertained that the floating water, which contains certain proportions of organic matter in suspension or solution, daily gives forth certain proportions of sulphuretted hydrogen, light carbonic acid gas, nitrogen, marsh gas, dm. ; ex- halations which produce headache, nausea, marsh fever, typhus, typhoid, and a variety of other diseases reducing the amount of life in the population resident around, and inflicting death in pro- portions that statistics have ascertained. Mr. John Simon has investigating the nature of fever, and his researches tend to the conclusion that " the common cause is a defective defeca- tion of the system ; " in other words, that the circumstances around prevent a prompt removal of the natural excretions. For example, the skin is one of the organs which gets rid of large pro- portions of matter that has been used in the organization and should be done with; but if the atmosphere of a li- mited space be overcharged with these excretions, it seems to become incapable of taking up any more, and the bodies placed in that atmosphere continue to poison themselves and those who go near. We have known this, perhaps with a less artistic precision than John Simon and Letheby have
conferred upon us, any time these last twenty or thirty years-; the arrangements by which these causes of death are produced remain unaltered ; the extensions of the City which are going on in all directions continue of the same pattern with those that have produced the same causes. In other wards, we deliberately, and with complete knowledge, make arrangements for so many thousands of deaths within the year.
Another institution,, not so constant in its operations, but very striking when it is put, to work, is illustrated by the accident at Sheffield. It is a cause which may be so far called " aoeitlental,!' that it can only be brought into operation by casual circumstance —the assembling of a large crowd in a great building and sudden alarm. These favourable circumstances were combined in the Music Hall at Sheffield. on Monday last. The most probable ver- sion of the story is, that a youth amongst the andience, who perceived an escape of gas, lighted his cigar with a lucifer match, and there was a consequent explosion. This was fol- lowed by cries of fire, which appear to have been justified, since part of a woman's dress was found burnt. But nei- ther the gas nor the burning—though escaping gas is a very efficient " lethal weapon '—would have killed anybody on this occasion, but for calling into operation the more powerful cause. This is the construction of our public buildings, which, with some few exceptions, are so built that if large crowds col- lected in them be incited suddenly to disperse, the human beings become active agents in killing one another In the narrow and precipitous modes of egress. I lights of stone steps, tali winding stair-cases passages gradually growing narrower, are circum- stances -which contributed to this congestion and compression of agitated human beings. Again, we have perfectly understood this cause of death for some generations. One of the latest public buildings that has been erected—the new Covent Garden Opera- house—is understood to be provided with so many passages of egress that the entire audience could disperse through the walls of the building without crowding or difficulty. Is it so certain that some newer buildings present the same facility for dispersing. If not they do but continue the series of deadly engines belong- ing to this class. The Italian Operahouse is an exception ; every new public building, chapel, music-hall, lecture-room, or theatre, ought to be suspected until it be proved innocent.
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