A murder has been committed at Liverpool which is almost,
though by no means quite, unique in the annals of crime, and which will greatly perplex the Judges. A coroner's jury has affirmed that Samuel Crawford, nine years old, and Robert Shearon, eight years old, have wilfully murdered a lad named Eccles, in order to steal his clothes. Crawford being an incor- rigible truant, his mother had locked up his clothes ; but he got out, and, in company with Shearon, made up the deficiency by deliberately, and after three separate efforts, drowning Eccles. It is a frightful story; but what is to be done with the criminals if convicted ? Modern opinion will not allow of their execution ; and imprisonment for life is a penalty which they will scarcely feel. They will in manhood forget the .crime, or that they ever were free. We suppose the actual penalty will be a life sentence, the Crown being left to exer- cise its prerogative in the event of the boys becoming civilised ; but, somehow, that is not wholly satisfactory. The children may practically be rewarded for being criminal. .The case, fortunately, does not often occur, but cases of cruelty betraying precisely the same callous absence of sympathy constantly do. If the children bad drowned a cat for its skin, they would, in the suburbs of Liverpool, have passed unpunished.
Previous page
