The convict Lamson is respited till the 18th inst., the
Presi- dent of the United States having made a request that the British Government should consider the new evidence which he is sending over to this country. Sir William Harcourt has, however, very wisely intimated that the respite is in no sense to be regarded as giving the convict any claim to a reprieve, should the evidence prove of no real significance. If the account of the new evidence volunteered in certain quarters is at all like the truth,—in other words, if the evidence only refers to the reported insanity of certain not very near relatives of Lamson, we should think it very unlikely to exert the smallest influence on the mind of the Home Secretary. But then, we can hardly believe
that evidence of the kind alleged can have been seriously repre- sented, in a formal despatch from the President of the United States, as of a kind to require the serious consideration of her Majesty's Government.
Previous page
