The release of Oscar Slater, after serving eighteen and a
half years of his life sentence for murder, recalls public attention to a remarkable case of which nobody has any reason to be proud. In 1908 Slater was con- victed by a majority of a Scottish jury of having murdered a woman in- Glasgow. He had been arrested because he had a brooch which answered to the descriptions of a brooch that had belonged to Miss Gilchrist, the murdered woman. Before Slater was condemned it was already known, however, that the brooch found on him was not Miss Gilchrist's. This fact was not laid before the Court. Miss Gilchrist had been beaten to death and Slater had among his property when arrested a small hammer. Now, a doctor who examined Miss Gilchrist's body shortly after the murder said that the wounds : could not have been inflicted by a small hammer. This doctor was not called as a witness. Slater drew suspicion on himself by going to America after the murder and by changing his name, but the Court was not informed that he had booked his passage some time before the murder. •
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