The trial of Deeming at Melbourne ended on May 2nd.
No defence was offered for him, except a plea of instinctive criminality, founded entirely upon his crimes and his own allegations that his family had been mad, and that he was always considered so, allegations for which there is no evidence. The jury only retired for an hour, and then returned with a verdict of "Guilty," to which they added the unprece- dented rider that the prisoner was not insane. When asked if he had anything to say, Deeming replied that the jury had been influenced by the Press, that he only longed to be thought innocent by Miss Rounsevell, and that the sentence mattered nothing to him, as, had he been acquitted, he should have committed suicide. He, however, asked the Judge not to accompany his sentence with comments ; and the Judge accordingly, in passing sentence of death, confined himself to the bare legal formula. We have said enough on the case elsewhere, but may remark that this request of Deeming's was most characteristic. The man's master-passion is vanity, and the idea of a public denunciation as a monster of iniquity troubled him more than the thought of his approaching doom.
