THE DEFENCE.
As has already been said, the purpose of this review is not to set out
the evidence on either side and ask the public to weigh it. That was
the function of the jury, and if they did their work unskilfully there
is no redress in this world. The main purpose has been to set out the
Crown case, and to show, by an analysis of it, that Ross’s guilt could
not, as a matter of logic, be deduced from it with the certainty which
the law requires in criminal cases. How far that has been done the
reader must judge.
None the less it is right to show that Ross, from first to last, did
what was humanly possible to establish his innocence.
As far as his evidence is concerned, it simply followed the lines
of his written statement made on January 5, and his answers to
questions given on that and other dates. His cross-examination left
him absolutely unshaken as to his story, though it has to be admitted
that his demeanour in the box, his unveiled hostility to the police,
his direct allegations against them, his blunt affirmation that what
Harding knew he had been told by “the coppers,” and his assertion that
the hairs on the blanket had been put there by the detectives, were not
calculated to make a favourable impression on the jury. He admitted
that he had spoken to Harding about the case, had told Harding that
he was in prison to keep the public’s mouth closed, and had mentioned
to him that he was with “his girl” that afternoon and evening, but he
denied strongly that he had ever confessed to Harding. He said, also,
that he knew Harding’s reputation as a “shelf,” and defined a “shelf”
as a man who not merely tells tales on prisoners, but makes them up
as well—a man “who hears one thing and builds on it.” It is well,
however, that Ross’s outline of his movements, both on the fatal day
and on January 5, when he is supposed to have made damaging admissions
to Olive Maddox during a chance meeting at Jolimont, should be
recapitulated in order to see how it was borne out by the long string
of witnesses who were called to support him.
ROSS IN THE BOX.
Ross said that when he got into the saloon at about 2 o’clock on the
Friday, he saw there, besides his brother Stanley and others, two
men named Albert Allen and Lewis. He did not see Ivy Matthews that
afternoon, and had not seen her since a couple of days before his trial
for robbery under arms in the November previous. He did see a little
girl “answering the description” of Alma Tirtschke. It should be borne
in mind, in view of Ross’s dying speech, that that was the furthest
he ever went, viz., that he saw a girl, between 14 and 15 years of
age, whose dress answered the description of Alma, but he never spoke
to her, and she had never been in his saloon. She was, when he saw
her first, walking towards Bourke Street, and at his next glance was
looking in the window of a fancy goods shop next to Madame Ghurka’s.
He remained about the saloon all the afternoon, talked to Gladys Wain
for a long time, made an appointment with her to meet him again at 9
o’clock, and left the saloon about ten minutes past 6. He then went
home. When he got home about 7 he met his eldest brother, Ronald,
coming out of the gate. At home he met his mother and his brother Tom,
with whom he had tea. He cleaned himself up, and left home again with
his brother Tom about 8. They went by the tram to Footscray, and saw
and spoke to Mrs. Kee and George Dawsey on the tram. The brothers took
the train together at Footscray, and Tom left him at North Melbourne,
to go to his (Tom’s) wife’s people, the Ballantynes, at West Melbourne.
He got to the Eastern Arcade about a quarter to 9, and waited about
the Little Collins Street entrance until a little after 9, when he
was joined by Gladys Wain. They went into the saloon, and remained
there until half-past 10 or a quarter to 11. They came out into
Little Collins Street, went along Russell Street to Lonsdale Street,
along Lonsdale Street to King Street, where they remained talking for
about ten minutes, close to the girl’s home. He left her at about ten
minutes past 11, and went to Spencer Street, where he took train to
Footscray. He got to Footscray about fourteen minutes to 12. He there
took the tram, and on the tram he met a friend named Herbert Studd,
who introduced him to a man named James Patterson. He got off the
tram at the terminus, and walked from the terminus to his home with
a young fellow named Frederick George Bradley, who was a very casual
acquaintance living further along in Ross’s street. He reached home
about 12, his mother being still up. He went almost straight into the
room, where his brother Ronald was in bed, but awake, and went to bed.
He never left his room that night. His brother, Tom, who was working in
the neighbourhood, and had come back for breakfast, came into the room
about twenty minutes to 7 next morning. He himself had breakfast later
on with his mother and Ronald. He then went in to the Arcade, where he
was told by Stanley of the murder, and was later on interviewed by the
detectives. To them he gave offhand this account of his movements, not
with all these details as to meetings with persons, but exactly the
same account of his main doings on the previous day and night. Stanley,
in the meantime, had given to the detectives his own account of his
own and Colin’s movements, and it exactly corresponded with Colin’s
account, so far as the movements of the two impinged on one another.
In addition to that, the detectives later saw Gladys Wain and got her
independent account, and it, too, exactly coincided with Ross’s account.
Turning to his movements on January 5, Ross said that he was seen by
the detectives at 11 a.m., and detained until 7 p.m. About that there
is no doubt. From the Detective Office he went to Mrs. Linderman’s
(Gladys Wain’s mother), in King Street, saw there the Linderman family,
Mrs. Kennedy, his own mother, and Mrs. Tom Ross, his sister-in-law,
Mrs. Kennedy and his mother arriving soon after him. His mother and
Mrs. Kennedy left before him to go down to the “Age” Office. Mrs. Tom
Ross also left to go to the house of her mother (Mrs. Ballantyne),
some twenty minutes’ walk away, and about 9 he left and went to
Ballantyne’s, where he remained, with several others, until about
half-past 10, when he left, with his brother Stanley and others, to
catch the train at North Melbourne.
STRONG CORROBORATION.
Stanley Gordon Ross said that Colin arrived at the saloon about 2
o’clock on Friday, December 30. He remembered Allen being there at the
time, sitting in the corner, and Lewis coming in a little after. Ivy
Matthews he had not seen that afternoon, and had not spoken to since
about eight or ten days before Christmas. No girl answering to the
description of Alma Tirtschke was in the saloon that afternoon, or
could possibly have been there without him seeing her. His brother was
talking at the door for a good while that afternoon, the first person
he noticed him talking to being a lady in an Assam coat, whose name he
gave. Shortly after 4 o’clock he noticed Colin talking to Gladys Wain,
and about 5 Gladys came into the “cubicle” (though he had never heard
it called by that name before), and remained for about ten minutes or
a quarter of an hour. He remained in the bar until about 6 o’clock,
or a little after, and Colin left before him. Stanley then locked up,
went and had tea at the Commercial Cafe, in Elizabeth Street, had a
shave, and came back into the Arcade at about half-past 7, and got the
lavatory key. He went to the lavatory and returned the key soon after.
There was no person in the saloon at this time. He returned to the
saloon on the following morning, and opened it up according to custom,
swept and scrubbed it out, and saw no signs of it having been scrubbed
on the previous night. Early in the forenoon he was seen by Piggott and
Brophy, who gave him, so he says (though this is denied by Piggott)
a description of the dress worn by the murdered girl, a description
which he, in turn, gave to Colin when Colin arrived soon after.
Stanley and Colin were not, at the time, living in the same house, and
between 6 o’clock on the Friday night and Colin’s arrival at the saloon
on the Saturday morning they had not seen one another.
It is noteworthy that Stanley gave a full account of his movements to
the detectives before they had seen Colin. The evidence he gave exactly
agreed with the statement, except that he told the detectives that he
got back to the saloon on the Friday evening at about 7, whereas in
his evidence he said it was about half-past 7. He explained this very
slight discrepancy by saying that he spoke offhand to the police, but
that, on reckoning up afterwards the time he had spent having tea and
the time he was in the barber’s saloon, he thought it would be about
half-past 7 when he returned to the saloon. The cross-examination of
Stanley on this point was directed to show that he had made the time
half-past 7 because he had heard in the meantime that the witness
Alberts had sworn that he saw Colin Ross in the Arcade at half-past 7.
This was another of the incidents that pointed to the honesty of the
evidence for Ross. Counsel for the defence were under the impression,
owing to some misapprehension, that the answer to Alberts’s evidence
was that he had spoken to Stanley, and had mistaken him for Colin, the
two brothers being very much alike. Alberts, therefore, was not very
strongly cross-examined on the point. He was given permission, after
his evidence had been taken, to leave the court, as he had to go to New
South Wales. In his evidence-in-chief Stanley was asked: “Did you talk
to any person in the Arcade?” (when he returned at half-past 7). The
unexpected answer was “No.” Alberts could not then be got for further
cross-examination. But if the Rosses had desired to make a case on this
point, they could have easily done so by getting Stanley to say that it
was he who had asked Alberts for the lead pencil.
Turning to the events of January 5, Stanley said that, pursuant to a
message left for him where he was boarding, he went to the Detective
Office about a quarter to 7, and found that Colin was still there. He
went by train to Footscray, and he came back to Ballantyne’s, in West
Melbourne (the family of Mrs. Tom Ross), at about half-past 9. There
he met Colin and several other persons, and about half-past 10 he and
Colin and two others left the house for Footscray.
Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell Ross, the mother, said she remembered her son
leaving home on Friday, December 30, after lunch. At about 7 that night
he came home for tea. Her eldest son, Ronald, her married son, Tom, and
herself had had tea when he arrived. She got him his tea, and he left
the house afterwards with Tom. She herself left home, and went down
to Footscray to do some shopping, it being the late shopping night.
She returned at about 10, Ronald arrived soon after, and Colin came in
at midnight and went to bed. She locked up the house and went to bed,
Colin then being in his own and his brother’s room. She got up at 6, to
get Tom’s breakfast at 7, and she closed the door of her son’s room,
as Ronald was a sufferer from malaria, and a light sleeper. Colin and
Ronald were then both in bed. She got them their breakfast later on,
and Colin left to go to the cafe.
On Thursday, January 5, the detectives called and took Colin away at
about 11 a.m. At about 7 o’clock, Mrs. Ross said, accompanied by her
son Tom, she went to the Detective Office, calling at Mrs. Linderman’s
on the way. At the Detective Office they were told that Colin had just
been released. They returned to Mrs. Linderman’s, and saw there the
people mentioned in Colin’s evidence. She and Mrs. Kennedy, in about an
hour’s time, went to the “Age” Office, and from there she went home.
AN UNBROKEN PHALANX.
It is needless to set out in detail the evidence called to support
the story told by the three foregoing witnesses. Suffice it to say
that Tom Ross, Ronald Ross, Gladys Wain, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Kee, Oscar
Dawsey, Herbert Studd, James Patterson, F. G. Bradley, Mrs. Tom Ross,
Mrs. Linderman, and Miss Alice Ballantyne were all called, and each
testified to his or her own portion of the story. There were some
persons at Ballantyne’s house on Thursday, January 5, who were not
called, for the reason that the evidence seemed overwhelming that
Colin Ross was at Ballantyne’s soon after 9 on that date. They would
have been called had it been known that Olive Maddox was going to say
that it was about half-past 9 that she saw Colin at Jolimont. But that
was not said until after the case for the defence was closed. The
Crown Prosecutor then asked leave to recall Olive Maddox to get from
her the time that she said she met Ross at Jolimont. She had been in
court while the evidence for the defence was being given, and knew its
effect. Being recalled, she was questioned as follows:—
Mr. Macindoe: Do you remember the 5th January last—you told us you saw
the accused that night?—Yes.
What time was it?—It may have been—it was—any time after 10 to
half-past 10, when I first seen him.
From 10 to half-past 10!—From 9 to half-past 9—any time until then.
Assuming, however, that Maddox got into the box intending to say that
the time was from 9 to half-past 9, and merely made a slip, it will
be noticed that the time she fixes is significant. It only conflicts
with the witnesses who deposed to seeing Ross at Ballantyne’s, and
is consistent with the testimony of those who swore to seeing him at
Linderman’s, for it was possible, apart from the evidence, that Ross,
after leaving Linderman’s, went to Jolimont. The inherent improbability
that, after having been detained for eight hours by the police, and
questioned about the tragedy, he should have gone to Jolimont, and
should have happened, when there, to meet quite accidentally, one of
the only two people in the world who say they saw the child in the
saloon, would still stand out, even if the poor street-stroller’s
testimony were not confuted by a host of unbroken and unshaken
witnesses.
It is not going too far to describe the whole of the evidence for
the defence as unbroken and unshaken. The test to which it was
subjected was remarkable. The other witnesses were all out of court
while a particular witness was being examined. Some deposed to all
the time covered by Ross, some to part only. Their evidence locked
and interlocked in a remarkable way. All were ably and severely
cross-examined, but with the exception of one slight disagreement as
to which two of three blankets were in the saloon—a natural mistake,
seeing that all the blankets were of the same type, though differing
slightly in colour—not the smallest flaw was revealed in the story
told by any of them. It is true that Ross swore that, when he and
Gladys Wain were in the saloon on the Friday night, the lights were out
some of the time, whereas Gladys Wain swore they were alight “every
minute of the time,” but Gladys Wain knew what Ross had sworn on the
point, and she went into the box insisting on her right to put her own
account of the matter. It was not a case of revealing a conflict by
cross-examination.
The different pieces of evidence were like a mosaic which, when put
together, form a complete and harmonious pattern. From its nature it
was full of pitfalls if concocted. The Crown Prosecutor skilfully
searched the witnesses to find some break in the completed pattern, but
failed signally to do so, and the whole story stood, as every one of
the witnesses stood, absolutely unimpeached before the jury. But the
weakness seems to have been in the jury rather than in the story.
The criticism usually levelled against an alibi is that the witnesses
are either honestly mistaken about the day or have deliberately taken
the movements of another day and applied them to the vital day. The
alibi, if it can be properly called an alibi, in this case was not
open to either criticism. The Friday was the late shopping night,
just before the New Year. It was a day that could be easily recalled
after the lapse of a week or two. The Thursday following was the day
that Ross had been detained by the detectives for eight hours, and was
not likely to be soon forgotten by the members or friends of the Ross
family. Mrs. Ross could be making no mistake about the day, because it
was in regard to her son’s detention that she went to the “Age” Office.
The theory that the wrong day was deliberately chosen by the witnesses
involves the inference that independent witnesses, like Mrs. Kee, Mr.
Dawsey, Mr. Studd, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Bradley, and Mrs. Kennedy, all
took part in a conspiracy with the object of saving a man who, if
guilty, did not deserve to be saved. Anyone who had the advantage of
conferring with them, or of hearing their testimony in the box, could
not fail to be impressed by the story they told.
ROSS’S FIRMNESS.
As far as Ross himself is concerned, he not merely stoutly maintained
his innocence from the day he was arrested to the day he was hanged,
but his conduct and bearing throughout was that of an innocent man. It
was not tactful or amiable. It was blustering and bad-tempered, and
at times aggressive. But it was, throughout, that of a sullen man,
suffering under a sense of wrong.
He made a free statement to the police on the day that the body
was recovered, admitting that he had seen a girl answering to the
description of the murdered girl. On January 5, after, or in the course
of, a detention of eight hours, he made a full statement to the police
which was committed to writing. Not one word of that statement is
shown to have been false, by evidence that is worth a moment’s serious
consideration. A great deal of it the police did not dispute. A solid
phalanx of witnesses, as has been shown, was called on the trial to
bear out the statement, and not the smallest flaw was revealed by a
skilful cross-examination in that long chain of evidence.
But more than that, on Thursday, January 6, the day following his eight
hours’ detention and interrogation, like a man suffering from a sense
of wrong and indignity at the questions put to him and the suggestions
made against him, Ross went boldly back to the Detective Office and
said to Piggott: “Who has been saying these things to you about me?”
Piggott said: “I won’t tell you.” “Well, I want to know,” said Ross.
Piggott replied: “Well, you won’t know. I never divulge where I get my
information. Why are you so anxious to know?” “Because,” said Ross, “I
will warm them up,” and he went so far as to tell Piggott that he did
not believe anyone had told him. Piggott himself gave this in evidence.
It was all very foolish and impudent on Ross’s part, no doubt. It was
characteristic of his quite fearless and “cheeky” attitude throughout.
But a guilty man, who had just escaped from an eight-hour ordeal with
the detectives, might surely be expected to keep as far away from
Russell Street as possible.
Again, on the 12th, the day he was arrested, Ross answered: “That’s
a lie,” “That’s a lie,” to each new allegation made against him. On
the following day he was brought before the Police Court. He was
undefended, and was asked if he had any objection to a remand. “Yes,”
he said, “I don’t require a remand. There is no reason why I should be
here. I can prove my whereabouts on that night. I strongly object to a
remand. I have all my witnesses here.” As he left the dock, remanded,
he called out: “That’s the country’s law,” and then he added, in his
characteristic, blustering tone: “This is a great country, there’s no
doubt about it.” It may have been all simulated, but it did not sound
like simulated indignation.
It is worth recording, too, that his mother, unable to restrain
herself, rose in court that day and said: “I can prove where my son was
that night.”
On the morning of February 25th he was found guilty of murder. Asked if
he had anything to say why the death sentence should not be pronounced,
he stood forward, and, without a quiver on his lip or in his voice,
he answered: “Yes, sir; I still maintain that I am an innocent man,
and that my evidence is correct. If I am hanged, I will be hanged an
innocent man. My life has been sworn away by desperate people.” He
listened calmly to the death sentence, and repeated: “I am an innocent
man.”
Hanged he duly was, or, rather, he was hanged with more than usual
expedition. Within less than a week of his doom being sealed by the
High Court, a special meeting of the Cabinet was called, and his
execution was fixed to take place in a fortnight. The Government,
notwithstanding strong representations, supported by affidavits of new
facts, declined to allow time for an appeal to the Privy Council. Ross
went to the gallows. He was attended by his minister throughout, and
he accepted the ministrations in the most worthy spirit. But he never
wavered for a moment in his profession of innocence, either to his
minister or to his solicitor. Standing on the scaffold, with the rope
around his neck, he delivered a final protestation of his innocence in
words which have rung through Australia.
“~I am now face to face with my Maker~,” he
said, “~and I swear by Almighty God that I am an
innocent man. I never saw the child. I never committed
the crime, and I don’t know who did it. I never
confessed to anyone. I ask God to forgive those who
swore my life away, and I pray God to have mercy on my
poor, darling mother and my family.~”
Some sticklers for accuracy, who have never made a public speech, and
who, it may be hoped, will not have to make a start with a hangman’s
rope around their neck, and the gallows for a platform, have fastened
on to the words, “I never saw the girl,” as being the assertion of
an untruth. Ross signed a statement that he saw a girl answering the
description of Alma Tirtschke; he went into the witness box and swore
that he had seen such a girl. The words, therefore, at the worst, could
only mean, and could only be read by an intelligent man as meaning,
that he had never spoken to the girl or seen her otherwise than as he
had already said. He was not given much time for correction, or for
second thoughts, because within a moment or two of uttering the words
he had passed to eternity.
But it is now known that Ross’s words were deliberately chosen, and
that he meant to tell the world with his dying breath that he never, as
far as he knew, set eyes on Alma Tirtschke. That being his intention,
his actual words, it must be admitted, went too far, or not far enough,
for from the description he gave of the girl, combined with the other
facts, it appears certain that the girl he saw and described was Alma
Tirtschke. But that he did not mean to recede from the position he had
all along taken up seems so clear as to be beyond the realm of argument
or the reach of adverse comment.
ROSS AND HIS FAMILY.
Cowards, who have sought to steel their consciences against the effects
of Ross’s dying speech, have circulated the story that Ross’s brother
begged him, whatever he did, not to make a confession on the scaffold.
It is part of the same policy of easing the public conscience as the
base and baseless statements about the letters written to Harding
before his execution and to Matthews before his trial. The story of the
farewell injunction to the brother can be most fittingly described as a
dastardly lie. Whether Ross be guilty or innocent, the brothers never
wavered in their belief in his innocence. The idea of a confession
would never be present to the minds of any of them.
There was another thing Ross did on the last night of his life which
has affected many people even more than his dying speech. His family,
including his mother, took farewell of him on the Sunday afternoon.
When they had left him, when all hope of mercy was gone, he sat down
in his cell and wrote to his mother a letter which was not delivered
to her, and was not intended to be delivered to her, until after his
death. It is well worth giving, because it is so strongly in accord
with the attitude he maintained throughout. It is almost impossible to
believe that it is a tremendous piece of hypocrisy. The letter was as
follows:—
“Good-bye, my darling mother and brothers. On this,
the last night of my life, I want to tell you that I
love you all more than ever. Do not fear for to-morrow,
for I know God will be with me. Try to forgive my
enemies—let God deal with them. I want you, dear
mother, and Ronald, to thank all the friends who have
been so kind to you and me during our trouble. I have
received nothing but kindness since I have been in
gaol. Say good-bye to Gladdie for me, and I wish for
her a happy life. Dear ones, do not fret too much for
me. The day is coming when my innocence will be proved.
Good-bye, all my dear ones. Some day you will meet
again your loving son and brother.
“COLIN, x x x x x x x x x x”
Ross has been described as inscrutable, and his conduct as puzzling.
His firmness or obstinacy—it has been called indifferently either—has
been criticised as suggesting a curious nature. But Ross and his
conduct are only inscrutable if one starts with the assumption that he
was a guilty man. Concede that he was innocent, and everything that he
did, or said, or failed to say, not merely ceases to be inscrutable,
but becomes quite natural. It is that, amongst other things, which has
caused the widespread feeling that his life has been “sworn away by
desperate people.”
IS THE MYSTERY SOLVED?
If Ross is innocent, the mystery of the death of Alma Tirtschke
remains. It was, however, no part of Ross’s duty to solve it. In
this connection it is doubtful whether sufficient attention has been
ever paid to the evidence tendered by Joseph Thomas Graham. He is a
cab driver by occupation, middle-aged, respectable, intelligent, and
thoroughly level-headed. On Friday afternoon, December 30, at about
half-past 3, he was in Little Collins Street, nearly opposite the Adam
and Eve lodging-house, when his attention was arrested by a series of
heartrending screams coming apparently from a young girl. They became
higher in pitch as they succeeded one another, to the number of five or
six, and then they died away. They were so noticeable that Graham and a
man on the opposite side of the street both stopped and listened, but
as the screams faded out each man went about his business. On or about
Saturday, January 7, Graham saw a notice in the paper saying that, as
the girl had been throttled, she was probably throttled to stop her
screams, and asking anyone who had heard screams to communicate with
the Detective Office. He went on the Monday to the Detective Office
and reported what he had heard, but his reception does not appear to
have been sympathetic. Graham was never called at the inquest. The
police explanation is that he was not sure whether it was Thursday or
Friday that he heard the screams, and that, in any case, he placed them
as coming from higher up Little Collins Street. Neither explanation
can be accepted, for Graham was absolutely definite as to his every
movement on the Friday, and absolutely definite as to time and place.
An absurd story was told by Detective Brophy about making inquiries in
the neighbourhood, and learning of some child that had a reputation for
screaming, as though an intelligent man could not tell the difference
between the bad-tempered screaming of a naughty child and the agonised
death screams of an adolescent girl. When Ross was condemned Graham
went to his solicitor and repeated his story. That was the first the
defence knew of it. The Full Court heard his evidence, but it declined
to allow a jury to hear it.
Whether it would have had any effect on the jury can now be only a
matter of conjecture. There is this to be said of it, however, that
it fits in with the medical evidence, for it suggests a struggle, and
the medical evidence of the abrasions suggests a struggle. It fits
in, also, with all we know of Alma Tirtschke’s nature. The fact must
be faced that, if the Matthews confession is true, the girl was not
what her relatives believed her. She boldly went to Ross, and boldly
remained in Ross’s saloon for three hours, like a pert and forward
youngster, not to put it any further. If it comes to a choice, most
people will prefer to think of the child as good and innocent and
retiring, rather than to accept anything to the contrary which comes
unsupported from the lips of Ivy Matthews. If the Harding confession is
accepted the matter is very little better, for you then have the girl
walking deliberately back into the Arcade after she was seen in Little
Collins Street by the Youngs, accepting the invitation of a stranger
to come into his wine saloon, and taking wine at his hands—wine of
which no trace could be found when the stomach was opened less than
eighteen hours afterwards. The attractive feature of Graham’s evidence,
if the screams he heard were connected with Alma Tirtschke, is that it
allows us to think of the little girl as we would all like to think
of her—pure, innocent, and modest. That little girl met her death,
in all human probability, within a few minutes of the time she was
last seen alive by the Youngs, she met it in some place which was
much handier to Gun Alley than Ross’s wine saloon, and she met it in
a house provided with a fireplace or other conveniences for disposing
of incriminating evidence. If anyone would like to see one other
improbability in connection with the Crown case against Ross, he should
visit the Little Collins Street entrance of the Arcade by night, and
ask himself whether it is likely that any man would carry the dead
body of a murdered child such a long distance up a brilliantly lighted
thoroughfare even at 1 o’clock in the morning.
[Illustration]
APPENDIX.
During the progress of the trial numberless letters, anonymous and
bearing signatures, were received by Ross’s legal advisers. They were
of all classes—helpful criticism, incoherent comment, threatening,
laudatory, and censorious. One received on the eve of Ross’s execution,
with a covering note asking that it should be handed to him, and saying
that it would have been sent direct only the writer had doubts whether
the prison regulations would allow Ross to get it, bore on its face
some suggestion of genuineness. No one, of course, can say definitely,
but the letter may perhaps be given as possessing some public interest.
The envelope bore the postmark of a small country town, but there was
nothing otherwise to indicate whence or from whom it came. With the
elision of a sentence or two, rather Zola-esque for publication, it was
as follows:—
“Colin C. Ross,
“Melbourne Gaol.
“You have been condemned for a crime which you have
never committed, and are to suffer for another’s fault.
Since your conviction you have, no doubt, wondered what
manner of man the real murderer is who could not only
encompass the girl’s death, but allow you to suffer in
his stead.
“My dear Ross, if it is any satisfaction for you to
know it, believe me that you die but once, but he will
continue to die for the rest of his life. Honoured and
fawned upon by those who know him, the smile upon his
lips but hides the canker eating into his soul. Day and
night his life is a hell without the hope of reprieve.
Gladly would he take your place on Monday next if he had
himself alone to consider. His reason, then, briefly
stated, is this: A devoted and loving mother is ill—a
shock would be fatal. Three loving married sisters,
whose whole life would be wrecked, to say nothing of
brothers who have been accustomed to take him as a
pattern. He cannot sacrifice these. Himself he will
sacrifice when his mother passes away. He will do it
by his own hand. He will board the ferry across the
Styx with a lie on his lips, with the only hope that
religion is a myth and death annihilation.
“It is too painful for him to go into the details of
the crime. It is simply a Jekyll and Hyde existence.
By a freak of nature, he was not made as other men....
This girl was not the first.... With a procuress all
things are possible.... In this case there was no
intention of murder—the victim unexpectedly collapsed.
The hands of the woman, in her frenzy, did the rest.
“May it be some satisfaction to yourself, your
devoted mother, and the members of your family to know
that at least one of the legion of the damned, who is
the cause of your death, is suffering the pangs of
hell. He may not ask your forgiveness or sympathy, but
he asks your understanding.”
[Illustration: FINIS.]