A morning paper, of November--, contained the following paragraph:
"It will be remembered that in the reports of the disastrous railway
collision, which occurred at Hendon on Friday last, it was mentioned
as a ghastly accessory to the story of horror that an injured
passenger, who had been lifted from the debris of broken carriages,
and put to lie out of harm's way in a field close at hand, was
brutally assaulted and (apparently) robbed by some unknown scoundrel,
who, though detected in the act itself, tore himself from the grasp
of Police-Sergeant Cox, of the Hendon division of the metropolitan
police force, and escaped in the darkness. The authorities were
determined that their vigilance should not be eluded, and a person
named Paul Drayton is now in custody, and will be brought up at Bow
Street this morning. It turns out that Drayton is an innkeeper at
Hendon, where he has long borne a dubious character. He was arrested
at midnight in St. Pancras Station, in a daring and mad attempt to
escape by the north-bound train, and it is understood that the
incident of his capture is such as reflects the highest credit on the
resolution, energy, and intrepidity of the force."
The same paper, of the day after, contained this further paragraph:
"The man Drayton, who was yesterday formally committed to take his
trial at the Central Criminal Court, will be brought up at the Old
Bailey to-morrow; and as the evidence is said to be of a simple and
unconflicting character, it is not expected that the hearing will
extend over a single day. It is stated that the accused, who observed
a rigid silence during yesterday's proceedings, will, on his trial,
set up the extraordinary defense of mistaken identity."
An evening paper of Friday, November--, contained the following remarks
in the course of a leading note:
"It is a familiar legal maxim that a plea of alibi that breaks down
is the worst of all accusations. The scoundrel that attempted to rob
a dying man, who lay helpless and at his mercy amid the confusion of
Friday night's accident at Hendon, was audacious enough to put forth
the defense that he was not the man he was taken for. Cases of
mistaken identity are, of course, common enough in the annals of
jurisprudence, but we imagine the instances are rare indeed of
evidence of identity so exceptional and conclusive as that which
convicted the Hendon innkeeper being susceptible of error. The very
clothes he wore in the dock bore their own witness to his guilt, and
the court saw the police-sergeant produce a scrap of cloth torn from
the guilty man's back, which exactly fitted a rent in the prisoner's
ulster. The whole case would be a case of criminality too gross and
palpable to merit a syllable of comment but for the astounding
assurance with which the accused adhered to his plea in the face of
evidence that was so complete as to make denial little more than a
farce. He denied that he was Paul Drayton, and said his name was Paul
Ritson. He was identified as Drayton by several witnesses who have
known him from infancy; among others by his old mother, Martha
Drayton, whose evidence (given with reluctance, and with more tears
than a son so unnatural deserved) was at once as damning and as
painful as anything of the kind ever heard in a court of justice. The
claim to be Paul Ritson was answered by the evidence of Mr. Hugh
Ritson, mine-owner in Cumberland, and brother of the gentleman whom
the prisoner wished to personate. Mr. H. Ritson admitted a
resemblance, but had no hesitation in saying that the accused was not
his brother. The prisoner thereupon applied to the court that the
wife of Paul Ritson should be examined, but, as it was explained that
both husband and wife were at present ill in Cumberland, the court
wisely ruled against the application. As a final freak of defense,
the prisoner asked for the examination of one Mercy Fisher, who, he
said, would be able to say by what circumstances he came to wear the
clothes of the guilty man. The court adjourned for an hour in order
that this person might be produced, but on reassembling it was
explained that the girl, who turned out to be a mistress whom Drayton
had kept at his mother's house, had disappeared. Thus, with a
well-merited sentence of three years' penal servitude, ended a trial
of which the vulgarity of detail was only equalled by the audacity of
defense."
A week passed, and the public had almost forgotten the incidents of the
trial, when the following paragraph appeared in a weekly journal:
"I have heard that the man who was sentenced to three years' penal
servitude for robbery at the scene of the Hendon accident was seized
with an attack of brain fever immediately upon his arrival at
Millbank. The facts that transpire within that place of retirement
are whispered with as much reserve as guards the secrets of another
kind of confessional, but I do hear that since the admission of the
man who was known on his trial as Paul Drayton, and who is now
indicated by a numerical cognomen, certain facts have come to light
which favor the defense he set up of mistaken identity."