from a world to which they were a disgrace, was marked by shouts of
execration from the assembled thousands. It was an honest feeling that
prompted men to rejoice in the destruction of beings, from the deep
damnation of whose iniquity even a Thurtell might have shrunk appalled.
The most profligate among the lower orders of the English people abhor
the crime of murder,--even the daring gangs of thieves by whom the
metropolis is infested, though they live by daily robberies, invariably
refrain from destroying life. Ours is not a blood-thirsty population;
theft is unfortunately of common occurrence, and peculations of almost
every description are continually practised amongst us; but happily
murder is, comparatively, of very rare occurrence, and we have no doubt
that all who witnessed the execution of these human boas rejoiced in
their punishment. Nor ought mistaken pity nor affected sentiment to
silence the expression of indignation to which we have referred. No
man will say that the punishment of hanging was commensurate with the
offences committed, according to their own confessions alone, by Bishop
and Williams; but whilst we would not subject even such creatures to
bodily torture, we cannot regret that the mental agony of their last
moments was increased by the unequivocal tokens of detestation that
assailed their ears on the scaffold. The great end of all punishment
is example, to deter others; and surely the death of these cowardly
murderers, signalized by the audibly-expressed hatred of all men, both
good and bad, must operate as the most effectual warning that could
possibly be devised, to prevent any other human being from imitating
these atrocities, to die like them amid shouts of detestation, and to
purchase an immortality of infamy.
We shall now proceed to the investigation of another part of this most
horrid transaction, and we particularly allude to the acquittal of May,
or, more properly speaking, to his being respited during his Majesty's
pleasure. Connected, however, with this part of our subject, we will
previously insert a sketch of the speech made by the Duke of Sussex
to the Lord Mayor at the close of the trial,--which, although in some
respects conferring high honour upon him, is not wholly borne out in
its sentiments, by the result which afterwards took place.
After the trial had concluded, and the judges, nobility, and other
visitors had retired to a private room, the Duke of Sussex (who had
remained in Court the whole day, paying the most marked attention
to the evidence) took occasion to express the gratification he had
experienced at the manner in which the prosecution had been arranged
and conducted. 'I have,' said his Royal Highness, addressing himself
to the Lord Mayor, 'always made it a point of attending every trial
of national interest that has occurred in the metropolis, and I have
done so, not only from a desire to become acquainted, as far as I
could, with the laws of my country and their practical application, but
because in the station I fill, I feel it to be a sacred duty to take
a personal interest in everything calculated to affect the character
or the security of the people of this country. I have never, my Lord
Mayor, been present at such inquiries without increasing the admiration
with which I regard the criminal jurisprudence of England;--the most
perfect, the most intelligent, and the most humane system that human
ingenuity or wisdom ever devised. Upon the present occasion, whatever
pain I may have felt at the sad necessity for taking away the lives
of the wretched persons whose crimes have excited so powerfully the
indignation of the public, I cannot help feeling proud of being the
native of a country where such a sentiment of indignation has been
universally evinced, and where such disinterested exertions have
been made to expose and bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes
happily, I trust, rare amongst us. In what other part of the world,
indeed, could such a scene be witnessed as that which we have this day
contemplated? The judges of our land, the learned in our law, nobility,
magistrates, merchants, medical professors, and individuals of every
rank in society, anxiously devoting themselves, and co-operating in
the one common object of redressing, as far as human power can do so,
an injury inflicted upon a pauper child, wandering friendless and
unknown in a foreign land. Seeing this, I am indeed proud of being an
Englishman, and prouder still to be a prince in such a country and of
such a people.'
In the first place, however, taking the respite of May into our
consideration, some very serious reflections present themselves to
our mind, and we are induced to give publicity to them, with the sole
view of preserving the purity of our courts of law, and, by pointing
out their existing errors and defects, remove that stigma, which
certain persons are too prone to attach to them. We dispute not the
integrity or the principles of the jury who pronounced the verdict
of guilty upon May, but having ourselves paid the closest attention
to the evidence during the whole of the trial, we were always led to
draw the conclusion, that neither the commission of the crime, nor any
participation in it, was actually so definitely brought home to him, as
to render his life a sacrifice to the laws. We never could discover the
reason of the distrust of the testimony as given by two females, who
clearly proved an alibi on the part of May, on the very night in which
the murder, as stated in the indictment, was supposed to be committed.
Their questionable mode of life might have had some influence in
throwing discredit over their testimony in the opinion of the court;
but we enter our protest decidedly against the deduction, that, because
a female has been driven to prostitution for her support, her testimony
is not to be believed on her oath. In some respects, indeed, the
principle appears to be acted upon, that certain parts of the evidence
of such witnesses may be received, whilst other parts are to be wholly
rejected.
The stains of blood on the jacket of May, which was found in the
lodgings of one of these women, was brought forward as corroborative
of the participation of May in the act of murder, and it cannot be
denied that it was a circumstance which had its weight in influencing
the minds of the jury respecting the guilt of May. This woman in her
evidence states the hours when May came to her lodgings, and which, if
credited, would have gone a great way towards his entire exculpation;
it was, however, impugned on the ground of _her profession_: and
we cannot here conceal our censure at the manner in which these
females were examined by Mr. Adolphus, who seemed to think that if
he could extract from their own lips the confession that they lived
by prostitution, it would follow as a natural conclusion that their
evidence was unworthy of belief. It however, happened, that one of
these women proved, and to the satisfaction of the court, the manner in
which the blood came upon the jacket of May, which happened to issue
from the wounded leg of a jackdaw; and Mr. Thomas himself mounted the
witness-box, after the woman had given her evidence, and declared his
belief, that in that particular the woman spoke the truth, for he
was satisfied that the blood was too fresh to have been cast upon it
previously to the committal of May. Thus one link in the chain of the
evidence against May was broken; but our chief objection was upon the
principle, that if credibility is to be attached to one part of the
evidence of a witness, it should not be optional in the opposite party
to reject any other part which is confirmatory of the innocence of the
accused. We see no more cogent reason why the evidence of the woman
respecting the cause of the stains of the blood should be believed,
and if we may be allowed a mercantile expression, placed to the credit
of May, than that her evidence ought not also to have been received
touching the alibi. The question of immaculacy of character has little
to do in the witness-box, for were that principle to be acted upon, we
suspect that many witnesses, who are believed upon their oath, would
never be put into it at all. It is a very probable case, that a poor
unfortunate girl, whose only crime perhaps is her prostitution, may
in her mind be impressed with the solemn obligations of an oath, and
the consequences which would result to her, morally and religiously,
from the infraction of it; but it by no means follows, that because a
blustering counsel has extracted from her the confession of the mode
of life by which she gains her livelihood, that her testimony is to be
wholly rejected or only partially received, especially when the life
of a human being is dependent upon it. Station in life ought not to
form any distinction in the exercise of these principles; but we could
allude to many instances in which the evidence of titled demireps has
been received, without the smallest disposition being shown to call
into question its truth and credibility. It happened, however, in the
case of the evidence of these women,--that from the confession of both
Bishop and Williams, and on which the highest authority of the nation
was called upon to act, such evidence was in fact substantially true,
and that May was not in the company of those two sanguinary wretches
when the murder was committed. With great truth might May write the
following doggrel rhymes, which were penned on the Sunday morning
previously to the arrival of the respite:--
'James May is doomed to die,
And is condemned most innocently;
The God above he knows the same,
And will send a mitigation for his pain.'
The paper on which the above rhymes were written, contained also some
notes in the prisoner's hand-writing, which appeared to be private
notes to assist the memory in some communications that he intended
to make relative to the manner in which subjects are obtained at the
hospitals, the conduct of watchmen, &c.
The evidence of May's guilt we never considered on the trial to
be conclusive; and, in fact, so general was the opinion, that his
acquittal was considered as put beyond a doubt. His subsequent escape
from an ignominious death may, in reality, be ascribed to the joint
statements of Bishop and Williams; and this leads us to the discussion
of the justice of the punishment, which has been subsequently inflicted
on May. We espouse his cause on the abstract principle of right and
justice, and in accordance with that principle, we would punish the
guilty, and pardon the innocent. The indictment against May stated,
that, in conjunction with Bishop and Williams, he had murdered an
Italian boy, of the name of Carlo Ferrari; and another count stated,
that he had been an accomplice in the murder of some other person
unknown. On this indictment he was found guilty, and sentenced to be
executed. On the confession, however, of the murderers themselves,
it appeared that May had no participation whatever in the crime, and
that he was wholly ignorant of the manner in which the body of the
boy had been procured, but supposed that it had been obtained by the
usual method of exhumation. It was acknowledged that he assisted in
the attempt to dispose of it, on the ground that he was enabled to
obtain a higher price, and that, in the attempt to dispose of it at the
King's College, he was apprehended, and finally committed to prison
to take his trial as an accomplice in the murder. The sequel of that
trial is already known; and his life was spared, it having been made
evident to the competent authorities that he was neither a principal
in the murder nor an accessory after it. The great question, then, is,
and which involves a very important point in the administration of
justice of this country, for what crime has May been sentenced to the
severest punishment, with the exception of death, which our sanguinary
code exhibits, namely, transportation for life? He was either guilty
or innocent of the murder,--the most cogent and valid testimony was
adduced in favour of the latter, and it was considered so conclusive,
that a respite was granted. In the eye of the law he therefore stood
assoilzed from the crime for which he was tried, and therefore not
subject to any punishment. If it be urged that his participation
in the attempt to dispose of the body of the murdered boy rendered
him amenable to the laws, and, being taken in _delicto flagrante_,
to the punishment attached to that act, we perfectly coincide in the
proposition; but then, as the law now stands, the having a dead body
in our possession is not a felony, but simply a misdemeanour, and
punishable, as all other misdemeanours, by imprisonment, hard labour,
or whipping. Of what crime then, we repeat it, has May been found
guilty, to subject him to the punishment of transportation for life.
The confessions of both Bishop and Williams distinctly negatived the
fact that May had the slightest participation in any of the murders
committed by them, and that he even did not know in what manner they
had procured the body, in the attempted sale of which he gave his
assistance. If the simple fact of rendering that assistance rendered
him subject to punishment, how, then, comes it to pass, that no
punishment has been inflicted on Shields, who, with the exception
of negotiating with the purchasers of the body, was, setting the
murder out of the question, as deeply implicated in the affair as May
himself. The entire gist of this extraordinary business lies simply in
the following question,--After the respite was sent to May, for the
commission of what crime was he then detained in prison, for which
he had been tried, or was yet to be tried? We know it may be urged
that it is a rule, that if, through the royal clemency, the life of a
criminal sentenced to death be spared, his punishment is commuted to
transportation for life; but then these general cases do not apply to
the individual one of May. The respited criminals still stand convicted
of the crime for which, by the laws of their country, their lives
became forfeit; and although the royal clemency steps in to prevent the
sacrifice of human life, their offended country still demands their
punishment, and the next severest to death itself is inflicted upon
them. Those cases will not, however, apply to May. He was tried at the
bar of his country for murder, and a jury of that country, on account
of a long chain of circumstantial evidence, many of the links of which
snapped in the attempt to force them to their utmost influence, found
him guilty of the crime charged in the indictment;--he received the
usual sentence of death, and, according to all human calculation, his
hours on earth were numbered. As it has frequently happened in the
cases of criminals sentenced to death, a subsequent investigation took
place in regard to the guilt of May, or, indeed, to any participation
on his part in the murder of the individual for which he was indicted.
From the coincident testimony of the real murderers, it was most
distinctly made to appear that May was wholly innocent, not only of
any participation in the crime, but that he was actually ignorant of
the manner in which the body of the boy had been procured. The judge
himself who tried the prisoners fully coincided in the propriety of
granting a respite to May, founded on the confessions of Bishop and
Williams; and his innocence was at length so strongly confirmed, that
his life was spared. But we now come to the great question,--On what
condition?--That he should be transported for life. Here, then, in the
most enlightened nation of the world, whose courts of judicature are
held up as the pattern for all surrounding nations--whose laws are
boasted of as being founded on mercy, clemency, and truth,--here we
have the example of an individual tried, condemned--found innocent, and
respited--but still punished with the next severest punishment after
death which the criminal code of his country could inflict upon him!
May could not be deemed, in the eye of the law, innocent and guilty at
the same time; but if he was declared to be the former, he had a right
to expect all the benefits and advantages of that innocence. There was
no intermediate state of guilt; he was either guilty of the murder, or
not guilty; and as his innocence was made manifest, he ought to have
been placed in the same situation as he would have been had the verdict
of Not Guilty been pronounced upon him by his Jury.
It was owing to these sentiments operating so powerfully on our mind,
that we were led to analyze a little more closely than we might
otherwise have done, the speech of the Duke of Sussex, in which he
enlarges in such laudatory terms on the enviable superiority of our
courts of law, and the manner in which justice is administered in them;
and all this on an occasion in which a man, afterwards discovered to be
innocent, is condemned to death, and who would certainly have suffered
but for the concurrent testimony of his associates, on which his
innocence was established.
We are aware that not one of our contemporaries has taken this view
of the case of May; and until we are informed of the crime which
May committed, and for which he was tried and convicted at the bar
of his country, we shall always consider that his transportation is
an indelible stain upon the judicature of this country, and that an
irreparable injury has been done to the individual, for which no after
redress can be sufficient.
The public mind, in the mean time, was by no means at rest respecting
the identity of the body of Carlo Ferrari; and as it involved some very
nice points connected with the manner in which the prosecution was got
up, Mr. Corder, on the 8th of December, appeared at Bow-street, before
Sir Richard Birnie and Mr. Minshull, attended by Joseph Paragalli and
Andrew Colla, the two Italian witnesses who gave evidence on the trial
of Bishop, Williams, and May, at the Old Bailey, on Friday, the 5th
instant, and stated, that in consequence of the confessions made by
Bishop and Williams, denying that the body found and sworn to was that
of the Italian boy, the two witnesses now present were most anxious
to remove an impression which had gone abroad, in consequence of the
confessions referred to, and wished to reiterate their firm belief that
the body of the boy brought to King's College for sale was that of
Carlo Ferrari.
Paragalli and Colla then came forward and reasserted their former
evidence.
Mr. Corder said that there were strong grounds for believing that
the confessions of Bishop and Williams, so far as related to their
statement that the body found in their possession was not that of the
Italian boy, was wholly untrue; and in consequence of the denial put
forth in their confessions, which appeared in some degree to cast
discredit upon the whole prosecution, the parish of St. Paul, Covent
Garden, had determined to publish a statement in a few days of the
whole transaction, in order to relieve the public mind from the doubts
occasioned by the confessions of Bishop and Williams. He was perfectly
satisfied, that when that statement was submitted to the public, there
would no longer be any doubt upon the subject, and that the body found
in the possession of Bishop, Williams, and May, was not that of the
drover's boy, but the body of Carlo Ferrari.
Mr. Minshull said he had no doubt but such was the fact, and expressed
his desire that the public mind should be set at rest with respect to
the identity of the body.
Mr. Corder said he would lose no time in drawing up the statement to
which he had alluded.
He then retired, accompanied by the witnesses.
In a few days afterwards, Mr. Corder transmitted the following
statement to the editor of the _Times_, but which still leaves the
identity of the boy as mystical as before.
'SIR,
'Without travelling through a very long statement which has
recently appeared in most of the public journals, purporting to be
"the confession of the murderers," and signed "John Bishop," there
are two points contained in it which appear to me to require some
notice, and upon which the public have some right to be satisfied.
The points are, first--"That the boy, supposed to be the Italian
boy, was a Lincolnshire boy;" and second--"That the death of
the deceased was caused by drowning him in the well, into which
Bishop and Williams put him head-foremost, and where he remained
about three-quarters of an hour." Upon the first point I beg to
trouble you with one or two observations, and in reference to the
second, I shall content myself with the written report, which the
surgeons, who examined the body, both at and previous to the _post
mortem_ examination, have been kind enough, at the request of the
prosecutors, to furnish, and which will be open to the opinions of
all medical and scientific men, as to the probable cause of the
death of the deceased.
'Regarding the identity of the deceased, his person, as Charles
Ferrier, is positively sworn to by several witnesses of
unimpeachable integrity, some of whom were his fellow-countrymen,
and knew him intimately. Two of them had lived for some time in
the same street with him, and one of them (Colla) had actually
made the cage for him in which he carried about his white mice.
All these witnesses saw the body of the deceased within two or
three days after his death, and unhesitatingly recognized him
as the same. Two of them had seen him alive and well the same
week; and one of them accurately described the trousers worn by
the deceased, (which precisely correspond with those found in the
garden,) before he was allowed to see them. In addition to this,
we have it in evidence that an Italian boy with a cage and white
mice was seen close to Bishop's house on the day of the murder;
wearing a cap similar to the one found on the premises, and which
Bishop endeavoured in vain to account for. We then find the
white mice and cage at Bishop's house, in the possession of his
children, on Friday, the 4th instant, the day after the murder,
as proved by a very young witness, but who gave his evidence with
all the simplicity characteristic of truth. And, lastly, we find
the clothes of the deceased in Bishop's garden, the lower buttons
being cut off the jacket, apparently to admit the revolution of
his cage; the tapes also stitched to the lower part of the same
garment for the passage of the strap or riband by which the cage
was confined to his body. And against this body of evidence what
is set up? The unsupported assertion of the wretched culprits,
who, to the latest hour of existence, evinced no penitent or
religious feeling, and who, during their short passage to the
scaffold, on the morning of their execution, execrated the jury
who so justly condemned them. A Lincolnshire boy! Where are his
friends or relations? It is now nearly six weeks since the murder,
and no inquiries are made for him. On the contrary, where is
Charles Ferrier? Why does he not appear? It is a fact that the
body of the deceased was recognized by at least a hundred persons
as a poor Italian boy, whom they had seen carrying white mice
about the streets of London. But were there any appearances to
indicate that the deceased was a Lincolnshire drover boy? None.
His hands were smooth and soft, and no horny substance upon them,
as though he had been used to manual labour. These facts, and
this evidence, together with the verdict of a jury, after a long
and patient trial, before a humane and discerning judge, stand
at present alone opposed by the statement of the murderers, and
between them the public must judge.
'On the second point, as to the mode of death of the deceased,
which is described in the confessions as that of drowning, it will
be only necessary to read the following report which the surgeons
have been requested to prepare on the appearances of the body,
both at and previous to the _post mortem_ examination, and it will
then be for medical and scientific persons to say whether it is
morally possible that the heart should have been perfectly empty
and contracted, and that the other appearances described should
have manifested themselves, if death had been produced as the
murderers allege.