One hundred years ago
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 incorrigible 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 exercise its preroga- tive in the event of the boys becoming civilised; but, somehow, that is not wholly satisfactory. The children may practically be rewarded for being cri- minal. The case, fortunately, does not often occur, but cases of cruelty bet- raying precisely the same callous abs- ence of sympathy constantly do. If the children had drowned a cat for its skin, they would, in the suburbs of Liverpool, have passed unpunished.
The Spectator, 26 September 1891
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