1959-03-28 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH · 28,· 1959.:

THE DEATH OF EDITH

IT has been said many times that the British, more than any other race, have a genius for compromise. There are occasions, however, when this adaptability to circumstance gets them into an unholy mess, and certainly this is true of the Homicide Bill which was born out of much travail in the House of Commons and has now become an Act of the Realm.

Let me assure you that I am not going to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom of the death penalty. It is true that twice I led a minority group of Tory abolitionists into the Voting Lobby where we made common cause with a large number of Socialists and thus did away with the death penalty-but the House of Peers ultimately reversed the decision on both occasions.

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station where he was charged with murder,

the

Nor do I doubt that their fordships more truly expressed the feelings of the people than After a short inquiry Edith we abolitionists in the Commons, Thompson was also arrested

However, the Government and taken into custody. could

Understandably not totally ignore the

news decision of the Commons so the papers made a big story of it Attorney General, with the although the drab suburban of the Home background alightly reduced the Secretary laboured and brought public interest. It had all the forth the legislation which is trappings of a first rade crime now in force.

story

the except that principals were no one in part cular. However, newspapers have to take the material which events supply to them and they did their best with this subar

version ban

of the eternal triangle.

Let us see what can happen under the existing law today, It Bil Sykes kill Mr Smith, the grocer with a blow while robbing him of the money in his cash register, and can prove that he only intended to com- mit a robbery with quick Ketaway, he would serve a long sentence but would not hang. But there is a catch in it. If the unfortunate grocer sounds the alarm before he is murdered and Sykes kills a policeman in an attempt to make a getaway then Sykes does hang.

Just to show the diffculty and even the absurdity of classifying the act of murder a poisoner who has not even the excuse of uncontrollable fear does not hang. Yet of all murderers surely the poisoner Is the most vile and cruel.

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in due course Bywaters the Eatth Thompson were brought for trial to the Old Bailey, which is London's Criminal Court, to face the charge of murder, and I went to the grim, old pluce 10 watch the proceedings.

There they were in the dock together-the haggard woman looking years older than her age, and the youthful, ship's steward with the health of the open sea still on his checks.

A few weeks ugo after the new law had come into force the London Evening Standard scht a reporter to see me, fe explained that his newspaper was going to recall and review the execution of Edith Thomp son which took place in the early 1920's.

In doing so they wanted to check up on the part 1 played, as Editor of the Sunday Express, in trying to and it was unfortunate for her Eecure a Fast minute reprieve

for the condemned woman.

This was the case put forward by the Prosecution. Thompson, the murdered man, was a clerk In an office, married to a woman who was a complete romanticist, a woman who was the victimi of her own emotionalism. Bored by the monolany of her drab life with a faithful, unexelling husband, she entered into an adulterous intrigue

with Bywaters who Was much younger than herself, She was a profuso letter writer during the long absences of her lover, that he kept her letters, The jury would learn from this cor- respondence that she was trying to bring about the death of her husband by feeding him with ground glass in his food.

Let there be no misunder- standing about the matter. The hanging of Edith Thomp son is the classic example of the death penalty being used' Here was in fact an adultress by society as an instrument living in pretended amity with of revenge. Undoubtedly her faithful husband while try was also the origin of the all

ing to get him out of the way Party coalitions which twice by slowly killing him. On the abolished the death penalty evidence a cold, cruel murder in the British Parliament,

Therefore I now suggest that you, the readers, constitute yourselves a jury to decide in retrospect whether the hanging of Edith Thompson was accord- ing to the law or whether it was carried out because of the Falure of her counsel to do full justice to her case, whether the jury could not dis- tinguish between the catwing and the committing of a murder.

Here then is the story.

Theatre.

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its Intent and culminations. Yet she did not actually commit the cet of murder. That was left in the young men over whom she exerted an undoubted fascination. But the jury would be in no doubt as to her desire. her png,ose and her connivance.

On the evidence there was only one possible verdict-the sentence of death. There could have been none else,

that he always carried à jock. knife for culling string and rope on luggage at sea. All he knows is that when he saw Edith and her husband together he saw red and the next thing he remembered was the blond 011 the pavement and Mr Thompson lying dead. Edith knew nothing about it and shricked for help."

What could i do? I phoned the Home Office, and asked where I could get in touch with the Home Secretary. The answer was that he was staying for the weekend at a country houSE Wales. When I pressed for the name and place of the bouse they demurred but at last gave me the information,

My news-editor tried to get through to the country house on the telephone but either the line was blocked or the icle- phone was not being answered. So we did what was then on almost unheard of thing in journalism. We chartered a private neroplane and sent the news-edlior and the chief crime reporter to Waies,

Somehow the plane made a landing The grounds the country house but it was during the Sinn Fein outrages and they would not open the door. We could do nothing more.

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At -elght o'clock In the morning at the beginning of the week `n sliant mass people Food outside the prison walls waiting for the posting of the notice on the mates that the double execu= tion had taken place. There was a hush of horror when the notice appeared,

Lord

Beaverbrook culled me on the telephone a few minutes after eight. "Did they hang the woman?" he asked. I answered that they had duly hanged them both. O God! O God!" he muttered. That was all. Later in the day there were rumours that the woman had collapsed and almost disintegrated as a human being, and had to be carried to the gallows. It may or may not have been true but London had become a city of horror, and wild rumour,

-London Letter -

by SIK BEVERLEY BAXTER, M.P.

purchased the publication rights affections. In the world - of of the letters from the Bywaters imagination she pretended to be family. When it became known, a murderess without pity. In that the Sunday Express had actuality she was a good subur bought the rights from the ban wife looking after her sickly Thompson relatives the Sunday husband's health and comfort

Dispatch suggested that both like countless other women new papers. should publish There was never any groundi simultaneously Then I made glass-yet it hanged her.. enquiries and discovered, what I had not previously known- that the copyright of a letter belongs not to the recipient but to the writer thereof, so we had the exclusive rights,

Therefore, let us be perfectly frank We published the letters serially in the Sunday Expres and thereby increased our cir- culation considerably. As un editor I was glad to have secured a running feature that was of absorbing interest,

Dul as I read those letters which told over and over again of how Edith Thompson the ulteress tried to murder her husband with endless Insertions of ground glass in his food I asked our crime reporter to try to get a record of the murdered man's health during this long sustained crucity.

The report that my stoff gave me was to the effect that al- though Thompson was a man of poor health he had not been work at any absent from his time during the period when, according to the evidence in the trial, hë was cating ground glass in endless quantities.

In other words it was nothing but play acting and invention. by an older woman trying to keep her hold on her lover's

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Again I must submit to you, the Jury of renders, that this women was an adulterers and that she undoubiedly caused the death of her husband and her lover.

That a drunken man may cause a motorist to kill a pedestrian In trying to avoid killing the drunkard. But It is not murder.

A

Therefore, you Indies und gentlemen, who have read my account of this tragedy of suburbia. I claim that Edith: *Thompson was guitiess of murder or the Intent to marder, that she lived In world of frustrated, romance and found Expression in endless love felters. And further I claim that she was hanged by socioly in revenge and not according to the laws of England.

It was this legallsed taking of life, unjustified by the true facts, that mode me twice lead the Conservative breakaway group which, in alliance with a largo stellon of the Socialist Party, tbolshed hanging in Brittin.

There 1 rest my case. Should Edith Thompson have been executed? It is for you to give your verdier now that the full evidence has been put before you.

A British Crossword Puzzle

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Some time later the execu tioner committed suiride. People who knew him eats that the memory of Edith 28 Thompson's death had robbed him of the power of sleep. It They or may not have been true but he did take his own life.

ACROSS

1 Young salmon (4),

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4 Considered numerically (7).

6 York handicap (4).

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On the Saturday before the Now comes a curious twist to double execution which was to the story. What had happened take place on Monday I was to the endless letters which preparing the current issue of Edith Thompson had written to One evening a woman named the Sunday Express when my her lover? Those that had been Edith Thompson, together with scerctory Bald that Bywaters' read during the trial had of Per husband, left their modest young sister wanted to see me course been published but what suburban home in East London urgently. I raid that I would of the others? My staff got in to see a play in a West End see her at once and a few touch with the woman's brother On returning to their moments later the commission- and I went down to meet him home they were stopped in the aire brought her to my office. Ata puts in the East End, strect by a friend of theirs a

He was gentle and some- good looking young fellow who

steward on an Oriental Adam We

DANSECÍ -semi-cockney – prgent,

414 Glock groups (5) Shipping Line.

She was a sweet and gentle "They shouldn't have hanged is Cleans daily? (5). There were words between girl of some seventeen years of Edith," he said, but there was 22 It's disgraceful! (0). the men and then a shrick from age but when she tried to speak no bitterness in his words.

The 20 Drop (4), the Wamanse. "Don't Don't she burst into tears..Amin and little world that he knew, and 2 Disreputable people, (4), The young man had driven a avain she made the effort, and understood had cracker to ruins 22 Solo performance (7) knite into the husband's heart then through her sobs she asked and he could not piece 29 Another drop (4). and then run away. A few my forgiveness for being so together. hours later he was caught by much trouble. the police and taken to a police

CROSSWORD

what romantte young man with

"They

shouldn't have hanged" Edith," he repeated. "She wouldn't hurt anyone. She really wouldn't." The other people 17 the pub stopped in their talk and gazed at us. The brother had become a national figure to them

At last she gained control of herself and in a volcg that was almost inaudible she said that she had been to the prison to saya Inst good-bye to her brother. Then, trying to keep control of her tears, she said: "My brother asked me to tell you that he knows he must die By a strange coincidence our but he never meant to kill Mir chler Sunday newspaper rival. Thompson. He said to tell you "The Sunday Dispatch" had

14 Defeat, or just the opposite,

(7)

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YESTERDAY'S CROSSWORD.---Across: 1 The-Ism, & A- head, & Cupro (-nickel), 9 Radius, 10 Major, 11 Minor, 12 Aunt, 13 U.S.A.-ge, 16 Burred, 18 Earley, 20 Norse, 22 Anon, Sages, 25 Coanet, 20 Recipe, 27 Shave, 28 Geese, 20 Eranes. Down; Tarragon, 2 Endanger, 3 Seum, 4 Mualcal, 5 Arm- cur-y, & Hourse, 7 Among, 14 Adenolds, 15 Evenness, 16 Breathe,

Reserve, 19 Ass-ess, 21 Oz-one, 24 Seer.

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