PROBABLE RESPITE OF SMETHURST.
OuR impressions with regard to such actions as have been but too distinctly proved against Smethnrst have not been concealed, and we cannot be suspected of having any sympathy with pur- poses such as those actions implied. We can have little " sym- pathy " with him ; but it is difficult to imagine any more appalling infliction upon such a man, any more real hell upon earth, than his conviction and public execution as a murderer, if in fact he did not murder the woman who died under his care. And there is something still more important than the sufferings of. any one criminal, however frightful they may be : it is the pure and strict administration of public justice. In this country, it is held that no man shall be punished unless he be proved guilty ; and there are those who hold that without some further consideration of the evidence which has satisfied the jury,—and net unnaturally satisfied the jury I at the first aspeet,—Smethurst's guilt cannot be held proved in absolute logic. We are well aware of the re- pugnance which the man's character has created, but this is only
one of the difficulties in the ease ; for it is necessary even that a hardened criminal, against whom certain misdeeds have been proved, should not be unjustly punished for a crime which is not es- tablished against him. Anything revolting in Srciethurst's conduct, which has either been. established against him on evidence or de- tected in his manner, must be eliminated from the consideration, if we are to perform our acknowledged duty, in protecting even the vilest criminal against unjust sentence ; and above all if we are to protect the law from that worst of all abuses—the being " stretched." Those who have at heart the sacred purity of Eng- lish law will be even more anxious for strict accuracy in a ease like the present, than in that of a convict who might engage public sympathy. Smethurst is proved to have treated Isabella Bankes in &manner revolting to every sense of decency or feeling. The facts that he had drawn her into an illegal marriage, that he induced her to make her will in a covert manner, and that he appears to havaa played the part of a tyrant nurse at the bedside, are incidents as revolting as they are suggestive of bad motives. But they do not necessarily prove that the man who was guilty of them would ba guilty of murder ; and there are some of his actions which are in their nature inconsistent with the conduct of a murderer. Un- asked, and of his own accord, he drew the attention of Doctor Julius to circumstanees and symptoms which would have directly suggested the fact of poisoning, and would even have brought out the evidences of the crime. This is a very strong point of doubt.. In one instance poison was discovered ; but the scientific, accom- plished chemist who discovered it afterwards admitted the pos- sibility that it might have been in the bismuth and other medicine legitimately administered. There was an absence of poison when it should have been found ; and the poison which was found might have been there from legitimate sources. Such are the broadest facts, after the accused had himself actually called in the highest medical authorities in the neighbourhood, though he might have covered himself with medical attendants of an inferior and more manageable kind. Whatever there may be of revolting in the proved conduct of the man, these are doubts which deprive the evidence of any absolute force to convict him of the crime charged against him; and down to the very verdict of the jury, there was no positive evidence calculated to overrule these doubts. In this statement we are not expressing only our own opinion ; we know that the doubts which have suggested themselves to our own reflections have occurred to far higher authority in judicial subjects, and that they have forced themselves even upon the at- tention of men upon the bench of justiee. The case proves more powerfully than some which have perhaps more excited the public sympathy, the crying want of a court of criminal appeal to revise doubtful judgments. If there has been an error in this case, there are a thousand reasons to account for it, and humanly speaking, to excuse it ; but not to diminish the mischievous effect., both upon the administration of law, and upon the public appreciation of legal sentences. As it is, . supposing —what is logically possible—that the man is innocent, it is _an undeniable fact that his innocence cannot be distinctly es- tablished. All that can be done is to lay the grounds of doubt before the Home Office, and to obtain a commutation of sentence ; a duty on behalf of the public imposed upon those persons who may happen to possess the attainments, the coolness of judgment, the zeal, and the official influence to set the machinery of the Home Office in motion.
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