Mr. Justice Field's sentence of eight years' penal servitude on
Miriam Jones, who had been found guilty by a Swansea jury of putting her child into a disused mine with the inten- tion of killing it, has been made the occasion of a monstrous attack upon him in the London Press. No doubt the jury recommended the girl to mercy, but they distinctly found her guilty of the intent to kill, of which, if they did not think her guilty, they would, of course, have acquitted her. The intent to kill is a very serious matter, and we do not think that the Judge, if be agreed with the verdict, could properly have inflicted any light punishment. It may be true that her seducer was, in a moral sense, more guilty than his victim ; but that is altogether irrelevant, as her seducer made no attempt to kill, and the girl, we presume, did. She could, of course, have compelled her seducer to support the child, and was not, therefore, driven to attempt its destruction by any despair of that kind. It is asserted now that she did not intend to kill the child, but expected that it would be rescued by humane passers-by, as it actually was, However, the jury found her guilty of the attempt to kill ; and that part of the question, therefore, could not be reopened. If the intent to kill was established to the satisfaction of the jury, —and there was no evidence of alienation of mind,—it is a very mischievous thing to try to reduce the popular estimate of guilt of this kind by violent attacks on the exercise of a die. cretion which the law leaves, and intends to leave, with the Judge. Before long we shall have our Judges consulting privately the editors of the more noisy journals as to the kind of sen- tence which they would recommend, before they pass it ; and when the discretion of journalists who have not watched a case begins to prevail over the discretion of Judges who have, it will be time for all reasonable persons to emigrate to some better-governed realm. Is this excessive tenderness for mothers who attempt to kill their children, consistent with even ordinary humanity for the children who are in danger of being killed P
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