THE LITTLE MOUSE AND THE PRISONER.
I come now to a small event which occurred during my judgeship, and
which I call my little mouse story.
I was presiding at the Old Bailey Sessions, and a case came before me
of a prisoner who was undergoing a term of two years' imprisonment
with hard labour for some offence against the Post Office.
The charge against him on the present occasion was attempting to
murder or do grievous bodily harm to a prison warder. This officer was
on duty in the prisoner's cell when the assault took place.
The facts relied on by the Crown were simple enough. The warder
had gone into the cell to take the man's dinner, when suddenly the
prisoner seized the knife brought for his use, and made a rush at the
warder with it in his hand, at the same time uttering threats and
imprecations.
Believing his life to be in danger, the warder ran to the door and got
outside into the adjoining corridor, pulling the cell door to after
him and closing it.
He had no sooner escaped than the prisoner struck a violent blow in
the direction the warder had gone, but the door being closed, it fell
harmlessly enough. It left such a mark, however, that no doubt could
be entertained as to the violence with which it was delivered and the
probable result had it reached the warder himself.
Thus presented, the case looked serious. Mr. Montagu Williams, who was
counsel for the Crown, felt it to be, as it undoubtedly was, his duty
in common fairness to present not only the bare facts necessary
for his own case, but also those which might be relied upon by the
prisoner as his defence, or at all events in mitigation of punishment.
In performing this duty, he elicited from his witness a very touching
little history of the origin and cause of the crime. It was this:--
A poor little mouse had, somehow or other, managed to get inside the
prisoner's cell; and one day, while the unhappy man was eating his
prison fare, he saw the mouse running timidly along the floor. At last
it came to a few crumbs of bread which the prisoner had purposely
spread, and ran away with one of them into its hiding-place. The next
day it came again, and found more crumbs; and so on from day to day,
the prisoner relieving the irksomeness and the weary solitude of his
confinement by tempting it to trust him, and become his one companion
and friend, till at last it became so tame that it formed a little
nest, and made its home in the sleeve of the prisoner's jail clothes.
During the long hours of the dreary day it was his companion and pet;
played with him, fed with him, and mitigated his solitude. It even
slept with him at night.
All this was, of course, against the prison rules. But the mouse had
no reason to obey them.
One unhappy day a warder came into the cell, when the poor mouse
peeped out from his tiny hiding-place, and the officer, I presume, as
a matter of duty, seized the little intruder on the spot and captured
it.
God help the world if every one did his strict duty in it! But--what
to the prisoner seemed inexcusable barbarity--he killed the poor
little mouse in the sight of the unhappy man whose friend and
companion it had been.
This infuriated him to such an extent that, having the dinner-knife in
his hand--the knife which would have assisted at the mouse's banquet
as well as his own--he rushed at the warder, who fortunately escaped
through the open door of the cell, the prisoner striking the knife
into the door.
In the result the prisoner was indicted on the charge of attempting
to murder the warder. The defence was that, as murder in the
circumstances was impossible, _the attempt could not be established_,
and on the authority of a case (which has, however, since been
overruled) I felt bound to direct an acquittal; and I confess _I was
not sorry_ to come to that conclusion, for it would have been a sad
thing had the prisoner been convicted of an offence committed in a
moment of such great and not unnatural excitement, and one for which
penal servitude must have been awarded.
The poor fellow had suffered enough without additional punishment. I
can conceive nothing more keen than the torture of returning to his
cell to grieve for the little friend which could never come to him
again.