THE LAW OF THE RACHEL CASE.
1 F it be true that the great majority of the jury who tried Madame Rachel were agreed on a conviction, and that one or two held out against the rest, the dispenser of peach-blossom cream and Arabian-perfume baths has had a narrow escape. Yet if she had been convicted upon the facts which were proved at the trial, we should have attributed this rather to the pre- judice that has been excited in the public mind, than to any completeness in the case made out against her. People are apt to take a simple view of the matter, which view will not bear legal examination. They say she had the money. These various sums of 270/., 800/., 1,400/. were actually paid her. It is clear, they think, that she must have swindled Mrs. Borradaile out of them in some way or other. Mrs. Borradaile says she swindled her out of them by pretending that Lord Ranelagh was in love with her. If this is not true, let Madame Rachel account for the sums and state the consideration. If Lord Ranelagh is not "William," let the real William be produced. Of course all this would be satisfactory, and the more so as no one can understand the facts brought out by the trial, but that there is one insuperable objection to this simple view. Madame Rachel was not called upon ;to account for these sums of money except on one hypothesis. Let it be granted that she had obtained them by a false statement about Lord Ranelagh's passion for Mrs. Borradaile, and she is amenable to the criminal law. Let it be granted that all the letters written to William were manifestly intended for Lord Ranelagh, while the answers might fairly have been written by Lord Ranelagh, and we have evidence in support of the theory of the prosecution. But if this second part of the case breaks down, the whole rests on Mrs. Borradaile's uncorroborated assertion, and the value of that assertion is tested by her correctness in other particulars. It is especially tested by her correctness in regard to the
letters. Therefore, when she tells us that letters ad- dressed to " William " were written not to a real person of that name, whom she knew, but to Lord Ranelagh; that in writing to Lord Ranelagh under the name of William she spoke of Lord Ranelagh in the third person ; that in a letter actually addressed to Lord Ranelagh, and calling him by his true Christian name (which also Mrs. Borradaile knew) she spoke of William in the third person, and begged Lord Ranelagh not to compromise him, we are involved in a labyrinth of contradictions. If when she wrote to William, Mrs. Borradaile supposed herself to be address- ing Lord Ranelagh, why did she give him news about her relations with Lord Ranelagh ? If when she wrote to Lord Ranelagh himself she thought that he and William were the same person, why did she tell him, as something that he would be glad to hear, what William had said about winning back money ? We must say that such inconsistencies do not point to dictation. They point to a straightforward and intelligible story, which we do not care to follow out in all its details, and which, moreover, is wholly beside the question at issue. The only thing for the jury to consider was whether Mrs. Borradaile's statement was correct. If she was ' corroborated in material particulars, her own mistakes might i not be of any importance. But if, instead of being corrobo- rated, she was contradicted in material particulars, if the false ipretence charged in the indictment rested on her evidence, land wherever that evidence could be confronted with the state- ' ments of others it was shown to be untrustworthy, a con- viction could not be justified. The whole ease must stand or fall together. It seems to us that it fell.
We must bear in mind that the subject of false pietences is one of great legal subtlety. In order to convict any one of obtaining money by false pretences, it must be shown that the money was actually paid in consequence of the pretence, and that the pretence was a wilfully false pretence of a fact already existing. What is meant by this is that no promise or undertaking to do anything now or at a future time can be brought within the law. One of the strongest cases of this kind is that of the prosecutor who had lost his horses. The prisoner promised to tell him where the horses were if he would give a sovereign. The prisoner did not know where the horses were, and had he stated that he knew where they were, and would tell if he was given a sovereign, he would have been criminally liable. As it was, he was held to have made a mere promise for future conduct. On the same principle, a pretence that a prisoner had to pay his rent on a future day was held not to be a false pretence of an existing fact. In accordance with these decisions Madame Rachel might safely have extorted money from Mrs. Borradaile, by promising to arrange a marriage between her and Lord Ranelagh. The existing fact which Madame Rachel was accused of falsely pretending was that Lord Ranelagh adored Mrs. Bor- radaile. So, too, any undertaking, however false, to "finish " Mrs. Borradaile, and make her "beautiful for ever," would not come within the jurisdiction of the Old Bailey. No doubt the majority of the jury did not see this distinction. Even the Times talks of no criminality attaching to Madame Rachel on the score of exorbitant charges, because she "made no secret of the expensive character of her process, and her client went into the bargain with open eyes." If this purely civil element be imported into the trial, there need be no wonder that the jury could not agree. Whatever sums were paid for the beautifying process, whatever was its failure, however vast Mrs. Borradaile's ignorance, and however unscrupulous the demands of Madame Rachel, there is nothing legally criminal in the case till we come to the statement about Lord Ranelagh. We must dismiss everything that hap- pened before that and a great deal that happened after. The circumstances which tell against Madame Rachel are, that she did introduce Mrs. Borradaile to Lord Ranelagh, and that letters were written and copied at her house and in her presence. Do either of these facts corrobo- rate Mrs. Borradaile's statements ? The first gives some foundation in fact for the false pretence. The second con- nects the letters with it. But then we have the most extra- ordinary story based upon this slight foundation, and the letters which are called in to help the story contradict it. Mrs. Borradaile's explanation is, that, she was bewitched by Madame Rachel. Madame Rachel made her write nonsensical letters, made her sign bonds, receipts, and other documents, made her order jewels and lace which she did not want, made her keep accounts which were all a romance, made her blacken her own character. And we are to believe that all this was done in consequence of the one false pretence, that Lord Rane- lagh was in love with Mrs. Borradaile. It is, no doubt, natural that by means of such a pretence Madame Rachel should be able to induce her victim to pay 1,000/. for being made beautiful for ever ; but the explanation of the sums
paid for lace and diamonds is less satisfactory. Mrs. Borradaile was told that she must buy 15/. worth of lace, which, it
turned out afterwards, cost 1,400/. This lace was pawned, as she understood, for Lord Ranelagh. She was then made to order 1,200/. worth of diamonds, to raise the money for them, and to pay a forfeit for not taking them. The money went to William, whom she understood to he Lord Rane- lagh, for the Volunteers. It appears, therefore, that she was willing to let the person whom she understood to be Lord Ranelagh have these two sums of 1,400/. and 1,200/. Why, then, was it necessary to go through the form of buying lace and diamonds ? Madame Rachel did not need to take such steps in order to extort the money, for the money was forthcoming without them. Was any one else to be deceived ? Were the bills for the lace and the diamonds to account for the outlay of so much money? lf so, who had any interest in accounting for it? Not Madame Rachel, for
she had a better story, and she must in any case fall back upon Lord Ranelagh. The person who might be called upon to explain the outlay is obscurely pointed at by the evidence, and to complain that no explanation was given at the trial is equivalent to admitting the failure of the prosecution.
The counsel for the Crown, indeed, maintained that the charge was negatively proved by the absence of explanatory evidence on the part of the defence. But the first question is, What was proved affirmatively ? There was a prima facie case against Madame Rachel of having obtained money under the false pretence about Lord Ranelagh, and of having eked out the false pretence by the concoction of letters which he was supposed to have written. But this second part of the case was rebutted by the letters themselves, and Mrs. Borradaile's statement about the letters discredited the rest of her evidence. What more was Madame Rachel to prove ? That there was a real William, who was not Lord Ranelagh ? But the question of William's personality never came before the jury. That neither her son Edward, nor the boy Minton, wrote or copied the letters ? But the only ques- tion as to the letters was whether Mrs. Borradaile could have attributed them to Lord Ranelagh. That Madame Rachel had paid money to Mrs. Borradaile ? But the question was not one of fraud or of cross accounts, it was one of false pre- tences. No doubt Madame Rachel might have done more than she did to clear her character, but all that was required of her was an answer to a specific charge. Had that specific charge been left to the jury in so many words, there might have been more hope of a unanimous verdict. In such cases as this it would be almost better if the jury had to give distinct answers to certain questions of fact, rather than to pronounce generally on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. Some such questions as these might have been put. Do you find that the defendant stated to Mrs. Borradaile that Lord Bane- lagh was in love with her ? Was it by means of that state- ment that the defendant obtained money from Mrs. Borradaile ? If this statement was made and acted upon, was it false ? This system of leaving distinct questions to the jury is often adopted in civil cases. There was a rather notorious action a few years ago, when the jury answered all the questions in favour of the defendant, but added that they wished to find their verdict for the plaintiff. In the Rachel case the jury would probably have negatived the false pretences, and would then have added that they wished to find the defendant guilty. Like the recommendation to mercy, this would be an expression of public feeling as represented by a jury, and would exclude the stereotyped phrase of a prisoner leaving the dock without a stain on his character. We should, at all events, have the gain of some logical consistency in our verdicts, and we should no longer have twelve well-meaning and puzzle-headed men giving a prisoner the benefit of what they call a doubt, when it is really a lack of comprehension, or making moral blame supply the want of legal evidence.
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