Mary Ansell, a domestic servant of twenty-two, was executed at
St. Albans on Wednesday. She had committed a pecu- liarly cruel murder. Her sister had gone mad in conse- quence of a bereavement, and had been placed under restraint. Mary insured her life, and sent her cakes of phosphorus. paste to do her good, which eating, she died. Mary not only applied for the insurance money, but forged a letter from her mother to those who had the care of her sister begging them to forbid a post-mortem. There never was a clearer case and seldom a worse one, but a portion of the Press chose fa:: believe that the criminal was irresponsible, a "degenerate," as one mad-doctor called her, and tried to bully the Home Secretary into a remission of the sentence. Sir Matthew Ridley, however, though sometimes too impressionable, refused to interfere for the poisoner simply because some of her relatives might have been mad, and after an inquiry into her mental health, signified that the law must be carried out. If it had not been every woman with an imbecile grandfather or aunt would have been invested with a right to poison for gain without fear of anything except detention in Broadmoor, which is, very properly, the most kindly managed of prisons. "Victorious analysis" is taking sense as well as nerve out of a good many people.
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