THE ST. NEOTS CASE.
This is the last trial for murder that I presided over. The object is
not to show the horrible details of the deed, but my mode of dealing
with the facts, for it is in the elimination of the false from the
true that the work of a Judge must consist, otherwise his office is a
useless form. I shall give this case, therefore, more in detail than I
otherwise should.
The case was that of Horsford, in the year 1898, at Huntingdon
Assizes. I say now, long after the event, the murderer was not
improperly described by the _Daily News_ as the greatest monster of
our criminal annals, and yet even in that case some kind-hearted
people said I had gone quite _to the limits of a Judge's rights_ in
summing up the case. Let me say a word about circumstantial evidence.
Some writers have spoken of it as a kind of "dangerous innovation in
our criminal procedure." It is actually almost the only evidence
that is obtainable in all great crimes, and it is the best and most
reliable.
You may draw wrong impressions from it, I grant, but so you may from
the evidence of witnesses where it is _doubtful_; but you cannot fail
to draw the right ones where the facts are not doubtful. If it is
capable of a wrong inference, a Judge should be absolutely positive in
his direction to the jury not to draw it.
I have witnessed many great trials for murder, but do not remember one
where there was an eye-witness to the deed. How is it possible,
then, to bring home the charge to the culprit unless you rely on
circumstantial evidence? Circumstantial evidence is the evidence of
circumstances--facts that speak for themselves and that cannot be
contradicted. Circumstances have no motive to deceive, while human
testimony is too often the product of every kind of motive.
The history of this case is extremely simple. The accused, Walter
Horsford, aged thirty-six, was a farmer of Spaldwick. The person
murdered, Annie Holmes, was a widow whose age was thirty-eight years.
She had resided for several months at St. Neots, where she died on
the night of January 7. She had been married, and lost her husband
thirteen years ago. On his death he left two children, Annie and
Percy. The latter was sixteen years of age and the girl fourteen.
The prisoner was a cousin of the deceased woman. While she lived at
Stonely the man had been in the habit of visiting her, and had become
an intimate member of the family.
In the month of October the prisoner was married to a young woman
named Bessie ----. The widow with her two children, and a third, which
it would be idle affectation to suggest was the offspring of her late
husband, went to reside at St. Neots in a cottage rented at about £8 a
year. The prisoner wrote to Annie Holmes on at least two occasions.
Towards the close of the year Annie Holmes suspected herself to be
pregnant. She was anxious not to bring another child into the world,
and had some communication with the prisoner on the subject.
On January 5 he wrote to her that he would come and make some
arrangement. The woman was deceived as to her condition, but that made
no difference with regard to the crime. The letter went on to state:
"You must remember I paid you for what I done.... Don't write any more
letters, for I don't want Bessie to know."
On December 28 he purchased from a chemist to whom he was a stranger,
and who lived at Thrapston, a quantity of poison, alleging that he
wanted to poison rats. Prisoner called in a gentleman as a reference
to his respectability, as the chemist had refused to sell him the
poison without. At last a small parcel was supplied. It was entered in
a book with the prisoner's name, and he signed the book, as did also
the gentleman who was his introducer. The poison was strychnine,
arsenic, prussic acid, and carbolic acid. No less than 90 grains of
strychnine were supplied. He had written to say he would come over on
the Friday which followed January 5. There is no reason to suppose he
did not fulfil his promise. On the Friday the woman was suffering from
neuralgia. In the evening, however, she was in her usual health and
spirits, and did her ironing up to eight o'clock. She went to bed
between half-past nine and ten, and took with her a tumbler of water.
In ten minutes the little girl and her brother went upstairs. They
went to the mother, who was in bed with her child. The tumbler was
nearly empty. The mother asked for a "sweet," which the little girl
gave. After this Annie got into bed; the mother began to twitch her
arms and legs, and seemed in great pain. Dr. Turner was sent for, as
she got worse. His assistant, Dr. Anderson, came, and, watching the
patient, noticed that the symptoms were those of strychnine poisoning.
She was dying. Before he could get to the surgery and return with an
antidote the woman was dead. She who had been well at half-past nine
was dead before eleven!
The police were communicated with, and a constable searched the house.
Turning up the valances of the bed, he found a piece of paper crumpled
up; this was sent to an analyst on the following day. An inquest was
held and a post-mortem directed.
Horsford at the inquest swore that he had never written to the
deceased or visited her.
On the evening of Saturday the 8th, after the post-mortem, Mrs.
Hensman and another woman found between the mattress and the bed a
packet of papers. These were also submitted for analysis. One of them
contained 35 grains of strychnine; another had crystals of strychnine
upon it. There was writing on one of the packets, and it was the
handwriting of the prisoner; it said, "Take in a little water; it is
quite harmless. Will come over in a day or two." On another packet was
written: "One dose; take as told," also in the prisoner's handwriting.
The body had been buried and was exhumed. Three grains of strychnine
were found by the county analyst in such parts of the stomach as were
submitted to him. Dr. Stevenson took other parts to London, and the
conclusion he came to was that at least 10 grains must have been in
the body at the time of death, while 1/2 grain has been known to be
fatal.
There was a singular circumstance in the defence of this case, one
which I have never heard before or since, and that was a complaint
that the counsel for the prisoner was "twitted" by the Crown because
he had not called _evidence for the defence_. The jury were solemnly
asked to remember that if one jot or tittle of evidence had been put
forward, or a single document put in by him, the prisoner's counsel,
he would _lose the last word on behalf of the prisoner_! Of course,
counsel's last word may be of more value than some evidence; but the
smallest "jot or tittle" of evidence, or any document whatever that
even _tends_ to prove the innocence of the accused, is of more value
than a thousand last words of the most powerful speaker I have ever
listened to. And I would go further and say that evidence in favour of
a prisoner should never be kept back for the sake of the last word.
It is the bounden duty of counsel to produce it, especially where
evidence is so strong that no speech could save the prisoner. Neither
side should keep back evidence in a prisoner's favour. I said to the
jury,--
"We are assembled in the presence of God to fulfil one of the most
solemn obligations it is possible to fulfil, and I will to the best of
my ability assist you to arrive at an honest and just conclusion.
"The law is that if a man deliberately or designedly administers, or
causes to be administered, a fatal poison to procure abortion, whether
the woman be pregnant or not, and she dies of it, the crime is wilful
murder.
"You have been asked to form a bad opinion of this deceased woman, but
she had brought up her children respectably on her slender means, and
there was no evidence that she was a loose woman. It more than
pained me when I heard the learned counsel--_instructed by the
prisoner_--cross-examine that poor little girl, left an orphan by the
death of the mother, with a view to creating an impression that the
poor dead creature was a person of shameless character.
"Again, counsel has commented in unkind terms on the deceased woman,
and said the prisoner _had no motive_ in committing this crime on a
woman whom he valued at half a crown.
"He might not, it is true, care half a crown for her. It is not a
question as to what he valued the woman at; we are not trying that at
all; but it showed there _was_ a motive.
"I have not admitted a statement which the woman made while in her
dying state, because she may not fully have realized her condition.
Probably you will have no doubt that, by whomsoever this fatal dose
was administered, there is only known to medical science one poison
which will produce the symptoms of this woman's dying agonies. One
thing is surprising at this stage--that immediately after death the
door of the house was not locked, and while the body was upon the
bed a paper of no importance was found, and that afterwards several
relatives went in. The object of the cross-examination was to show
that some evil-disposed person had entered the house and placed things
there _without any motive_. But whoever may have gone into that house,
there was one person who _did not go_--one who, above all others, owed
deceased some respect--and that is the prisoner; and unless you can
wipe out the half-crown letter from your mind, you would have expected
a man on those intimate terms with the poor woman to have gone and
made some inquiries concerning her death. He did not go; he was at the
Falcon Hotel at Huntingdon, and a telegram was sent telling him to
fail not to be at the inquest.
"At the inquest he told a deliberate lie, for he swore he had never
written to the woman, or sent her anything, or been on familiar terms
with her. He had written to her, and if his letter did not prove
familiar terms, there was no meaning in language.
"With regard to the prisoner's alleged handwriting on the packets and
papers found under the woman's bed and elsewhere, I must point out to
you that here is one on which is written, 'Take in a little water; it
is quite harmless. Will come over in a day or two.'
"This was written on a buff paper, which Dr. Stevenson said must have
contained 35 grains of strychnine, sufficient to kill thirty-five
persons, and the direction written was, 'One dose; take as told.'
"These inscriptions were sworn to by experts as being in the
prisoner's handwriting."
Here I pointed out the alleged resemblances in the characters of the
letters, so that the jury might judge if the prisoner wrote them.
"If the prisoner wrote the words 'take as told,' you must ask
yourselves the meaning of it.
"Also, you will ask whether it was not a little strange that the death
occurred on that very Friday night when he said he would go over and
see her. Again, the word 'harmless' is of the gravest character,
seeing that within the folds of that paper were 35 grains of a deadly
powder, which even for rat-powder would be mixed with something else.
"Again, as to motive, upon which so much stress has been laid by the
defendant's counsel. If the prisoner had no motive, who else had? Is
there a human being on earth who had ill-will towards her, or anything
to gain by her death? The learned counsel carefully avoided suggesting
any one; nor could he suggest that any one in the neighbourhood wrote
the same handwriting as the prisoner. I will dismiss the theory that
some one had imitated the prisoner's writing in order to do him an
injury, and ask if you can see any reason for any one else giving the
woman the powder.
"There is one fact beyond all dispute: in December the prisoner bought
a shilling's worth of strychnine. He said he bought it for rats, but
no one on the farm had been called to prove it. What has been done
with the rest of the powder?
"Where was he on that Friday? His counsel said he could not prove an
_alibi_. But if he was at Spaldwick after saying he was going to St.
Neots to see this poor woman, he _could_ have proved it.
"The prisoner's counsel said that the accused did not speak of the
woman's murder after the inquest, and said it was not necessary; he
did not understand the 'familiar jargon' of the Law Courts.
"The familiar jargon of the Law Courts, gentlemen, is not quite the
phrase to use with reference to our judicial proceedings. The Law
Courts are the bulwark of our liberties, our life, and our property.
Our welfare would be jeopardized, indeed, if you dismiss what takes
place in them as 'familiar jargon.'
"The question is whether the charge has been so reasonably brought
home to the prisoner as to lead you in your consciences to believe
that he is guilty. If so, it is your duty to God, your duty to
society, and your duty to yourselves, to say so."
Such was the summing up that was arraigned by the humanitarian
partisans of the prisoner. If a Judge may not deal with the fallacies
of a defence by placing before the jury the true trend of the
evidence, what other business has he on the Bench? And it was for thus
clearly defining the issue that some one suggested a petition for a
reprieve, on the ground that the evidence was _purely circumstantial_,
and that my "summing up was against _the weight of the evidence_."
Truly a strange thing that circumstances by themselves shall have no
weight.
But there was another strange incident in this remarkable trial: _the
jury thanked me for the pains I had taken in the case_. I told them I
looked for no thanks, but was grateful, nevertheless.
I have learnt that the jury, on retiring, deposited every one on a
slip of paper the word "Guilty" without any previous consultation--a
sufficient indication of their opinion of the _weight_ of the
evidence.
This was the last case of any importance which I tried on circuit, and
if any trial could show the value of circumstantial evidence, it was
this one. It left the identity of the prisoner and the conclusion of
fact demonstrable almost to mathematical certainty.
A supposed eye-witness might have said: "I saw him write the paper,
and I saw him administer the poison." It would not have added to the
weight of the evidence. The witness might have lied.