THE MURDER OF MR. BRIGGS.
"ES, it is all true as you say, and my name is Herman--
YSwiss, of a German Canton, and I will tell you all about it. I was at Bow, on the station, and I saw this old gentleman, and I wanted money much, very much. No, I am not a thief, but I wanted money very much, and the old gentleman took out his watch, and I saw his bag, and I thought how pleasant it would be to take both, and as I was taking my seat I saw him get into a carriage alone, and I got out and went to his carriage, and sat opposite him. He sat in his corner and dozed. I thought I would take his watch, and to prevent his crying out I would stun him, so I dropped my glove, and he stooped kindly enough to pick it up, and I hit him on the back of his skull with a little life-preserver I carry, and snatched the watch. But the blow was not hard enough, and he revived and looked at me, and said he should know me again, and I thought of a prison, and hit him again, and again, and again, till the blood spurted all over me, and he lay dead. Then I got horribly frightened, and thought only how to get rid of his body, and I seized him and stretched out my hand over the door, and opened the handle, making it all bloody, and lifted him up, and struck my knee forward and threw him out on to the next set of rails, thinking all in a moment the next train would run over him. I was in a dreadful fright, and did not search him or take off his diamond ring?—how was I to take his ring with the hand so clutched with the pain—but when he was gone I tried to open his leather bag, and made it bloody, but it was empty. Then I looked out, and the body was not on the rails but between them, and I looked in and saw the blood on the cushion and the matting, and I got still more frightened, and when the train reached Hackney I jumped out, and the porter was looking for sixpences, and the ticket man worried by people passing him, and I ran down the embankment in the dark, and buttoned my coat over the bloody shirt, and put on my gloves over my bloody hands, and got safe away. Next day I wanted to get rid of the watch and chain, for I wanted money very much, but I thought every pawnbroker's shop would be visited, and being a foreigner I did not know any receivers, so I went to Mr. Death's and changed the chain, and took another and an old ring with a head on it. I didn't want that, but I was afraid to resist too much, so I took it and stood in the shadow, and walked away rapidly. No, nobody assisted me, for I am not English, and I didn't want to murder the man. No, I don't regret it very much, I wanted money so much, and he threatened me. Why did I pitch out the body ? Because I was in a fright, and it was almost dark. Why did I try for the watch before we reached the station f' Because I thought if I stunned him I could say he was in a fit, and slip away quietly in the confusion, and you see afterwards I hadn't many wits, the blood frightened me so. How did I know that region so well? I didn't know it, but I wanted to avoid the door, and so I jumped down there, and got away. Yes, I took his hat in my fright, and I should have taken his money, only I had no time, and I thought his leather bag was sure to have money."
That imaginary confession meets, we believe, in one consistent narrative, every fact yet known about the murder of Mr. Briggs on Saturday, on the North London Railway, which no other hypothesis as yet produced does. The writer approached the study of the evidencewitha strong presumption against the theory of a mur- der for plunder derived from tivee circumstances. First, that the body was not plundered, as no habitual thief would leave either gold or diamond ring. Secondly, from the clear evidence that the mur- derer was in appearance a gentleman, as no one else would have entered a first-class carriage without remark, or have left it without attention, or have been able to exchange the chain without inquiry or arrest. Thirdly, from the dim suspicion raised in the mind of most persons who read it by a remark in the first report of the murder. We should have a scruple in alluding to this, but that we have also the reply. " On the arrival at Hackney," says the Daily News, " of the 9.45 train from Fenchurch-street station, a gentleman called the attention of Haines, the guard, to the state of a compartment of a first-class carriage, No 69. He had opened the door at Hackney with the in- tention of getting in, and had placed his hand on one of the cushions, which he found to be covered with blood." That person who laid his hand on the cushion, an unusual action, but the precise one which would conceal, by accounting for, the bloody hand of a
murderer—• this is not a figure of speech, blood was on the handle,— was stated to be a fellow clerk of the victim, a coincidence as singular as any in the whole history of crime. He was, however, buyond suspicion, having that moment reached the station from the river, as proved by conclusive testimony, and the evidence beats down the presumption, as, to any, other enemy, for on no conceivable theory of private murder can it herniae to satisfy all the facts. Sup- posing the murderer a private foe, he must have had one of two motives, either vengeance or, an absolute necessity for getting at the contents of Mr. Briggs' bag, say to remove documentary evidence. Vengeance, despite the romantic story of the Stock Exchange about the returned convict.transported by Mr. Briggs' evidence, a tale suspiciously like one of "Waters' " detective stories, is violently improbable. That kind of vindictiveness,—vide Mr. Chesterton's account of his life as governor of a great prison,—is only felt when the victim is unjustly accused, and poor Mr. Briggs seems to have belonged to the highest class of bank employe, one of the most decidedly respectable bodies in existence. Then, as to the bag, the motive is very nearly inconceivable, but granting it, how account for the remaining facts, the foreign hat, the seizure of the watch before the murder,--the microscope shows no blood,—or the ex- change of the chain. No man not wanting money would have changed the chain, or sold the chain, or done anything with the chain except kept it in his own pocket till he could get rid of it un- °Ilse' yeti, dropped it, say, into the river from a bridge. It is under any hypothesis a curious fact that changing, but it is at least more probable Viet the criminal feared the pawnbrokers than that any man not previously criminal should, during the reaction of a great crime, needlessly endanger himself by an operation which brought him nothing. There may be of course, and indeed must be, some other narrative which will fit or correct all the facts in evidence, but the confession we have suggested is the only one which fits them as they stand,—a foreigner of gentlemanly appearance, not an habitual thief, but evil and in great want of, money, who struck first to stun, and then to get rid of evidence ; flung out the body in a mad fright ; then examined the bag, then jumped out at the station and down the embankment, and then devised a scheme for realizing his plunder without risking the police. The chance of detection is, we fear, very small, for a foreigner, as from the jeweller's evidence he is presumed to be, would leave England, and once out of 'it would be exceedingly difficult to trace, particularly if he went to Ostend and not to France.
Naturally the excitement caused by a crime like this is very considerable, for apart from the hunting instinct common to all men, respectability carries gold watches, and travels by train, and is altogether very much inclined at this moment to keep glancing over its own shoulder and speak disrespectfully of detectives. There is some reason in the panic, too, for of all places frequented by men a ifirst-class compartment on a railway is next to a mountain top the most secluded. Once shut up in an express train, say the Great Northern, which stops at intervals of an hour and a half, and the passenger is as far from assistance as he would be on the most desolate moor or in some parts of London. He cannot com- municate with the guard or other travellers, or they with him, and is, in fact, at the mercy of any villain or madman stronger than himself. Not two days ago a gentleman, whose name is forthcoming, travelled for half an hour with a raving lunatic, who amused himself during that time by frightening a third passenger, a lady, almost into fits, by shrieking out statements of his own lunacy, and the way he would have killed Mr. Briggs. Our friend is six feet high, and as apathetic as six-feet men usually are, but he uaight have been small, or an invalid, or a timid person, and still no assistance would have been forthcoming. Murderers and madmen are not very frequent companions, but there is a serious and growing evil in railway travelling,—in the danger to women from drunk or licentious men, and to men from unprincipled women. We hardly know which is the more serious, the risk every unprotected girl runs of gross insult, or the danger to which every man is exposed of having his character utterly destroyed, perhaps himself sent to prison, unless he will " compound." The girl may be as modest as possible, and her modesty will only in- crease the ruffian's courage by suggesting that he will get off without exposure; the man may be of the highest char- acter, and the fact will only increase the woman's confidence in his readiness to pay black mail. Our newspapers are filled with such stories,' now of a poor young woman who leaps out of a train, facing almost certain death, to prevent her clothes being thrown over her head, then of a woman who exaggerates blameable fami- liarity into rape, and again of a girl made so hysterical by fear that she honestly imagines a story which cross-examination makes incredible. The evil, despite Mr. Milner Gibson's official insou- ciance and Ministerial fear of the 105 Directors said to be in Parlia- ment, must be remedied, and only two plans of the hundred suggested seem to meet it fully. A signal between carriages and driver is too dangerous a device. Trains pass some spots at the rate of one every two minutes, and if passengers could check a train we should have a collision every three days. Neither can we adopt American carriages, and so change English habits and some millions worth pf rolling stock all at once. Nor can all compute ments be made half high, for then first-class passengers would be exposed to the serious annoyance which now affects those of the third class,—the talk of half-drunken men in the presence of modest girls, a danger of the reality of which one journey in the third- class will convince any reasonable being. Nor, finally, wilit do to add a ladies' carriage to every train. The reason is a feminine mystery, but nothing will induce the majority of women to travel by any such conveyance. The best device would be the French one, the foot-step widened. till it covered the breadth of the carriages and enabled the guard to walk round at will. Then a handkerchief waved from the window would summon him at once, and he and not the passenger would ' stop the train. If that arrangement is impossible—a mere assump- tion as yet—the next best is the idea suggested by the Telegraph, that of placing a third window between the compartments, so that unless the whole carriage is empty there would always be witnesses. to any deed of violence. Assistance would still be far off, but ruffians do not commit murder or insult women in the presence of angry spectators, each one of whom may for anything they know be a convincing witness before a Court. This change would not be a costly one, and though it might not protect us from murderers by night or from madmen by day, still it would diminish the chances of insult in a very perceptible degree.
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