THE TRIAL OF THE STA.UNTONS.f
THE series of "Notable English Trials" begins well with Mr. Atlay's volume. He is far the best popular writer on legal subjects now alive; for to wide knowledge of law and great lucidity in argument he joins a style of remarkable urbanity and grace. He can write of a sordid drama of the law courts as if it were an unrecorded adventure of Prince Florizel of Bohemia. Take the opening sentence of the introduction : "On the evening of Friday, the 13th April, 1877, a gentleman, bearing the historic but unusual name of Casablanca, was in a small shop in Forbes Road, Penge." It is like the beginning of a very good romance. The Penge mystery, however, had no romance to it. An unfortunate lady, weak in mind and cursed with a little property, married, against the wishes of her family, an adven- turer called Louis Staunton. He had a brother called Patrick Staunton, with a sister of whose wife—one Alice Rhodes—he formed a liaison. The whole family lived together in one colony, and the wretched wife, after disappearing for two years from her relatives' ken, died in a house at Penge under circumstances which suggested foul play. The Stauntons and Alice Rhodes were arrested and indicted for murder, and the • Christ in the Church : a VOLU7114 of Rei4ious Asap. By Robert Hugh
Benson. London: Longmans and Co. . 6d. net.]
t The Trial of the Steuetens. Edited by J. B. Atlas. London. W. Hodge and Co. (33. net.) squalor of the story roused violent popular feeling against the prisoners. No traces of poison were discovered in the body, and the doctors at the post-mortem decided that death was due to starvation and .neglect. The trial at the Old Bailey was remarkable for many reasons. It made the reputation of Sir Edward Clarke, then a rising junior, who was the chief counsel for the defence. He called some of the foremost medical experts of the day to prove that the cause of death was tubercular meningitis (a disease at that time but recently diagnosed), and that the condition of the stomach was incon- sistent with the starvation theory. His speech made a pro- found impression and nearly doubled his income. The judge was Sir Henry Hawkins, who, in a summing-up of eleven hours, set the seal upon his popular reputation as a hanging judge. He disregarded the expert medical evidence and pressed every point against the prisoners with the brilliance of an advocate rather than the sobriety of a judge. The jury found the Stauntons and Alice Rhodes guilty, and all were sentenced to death. A revulsion soon took place in popular feeling. The ordinary man felt that the evidence of the doctors could not be so lightly set aside, and he could not understand how Alice Rhodes, whatever her moral turpitude, could be held legally guilty of murder. Charles Reade began a vigorous Press campaign, the medical profession memorial- ized the Home Secretary, and the result was that Alice Rhodes was pardoned and the sentences on the others commuted to penal servitude for life. It seems certain that tubercular meningitis was the true cause of death, but it is at least highly probable that, if death had not come from the illness, the Stauntons intended to procure it by other means. Mr. Atlay prints the full records of the trial, which provides magnificent examples of what advocacy should be and what the role of a judge should not be.
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