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band? - Will it be suggested to you that ted to marry Mr. Dickinson--that an being varium et mutabile semper, she desired a change? Obviously the answer to that is that she had, or took, most perfect freedom to do as she pleased. Of course, gentlemen, you will bear in mind that the ardent wording of the letters addressed by Dickinson to the prisoner is his own,-pro- voked, perhaps, to some extent,-but never- theless for which she cannot be held entirely responsible. When a man is ingratiating him. self with a woman, he is apt to use exaggerated Janguage, and so far as its excrescence goes it is not to be charged to her account.
Mrs. Carew. it must be evident to you, is not deficient in imagination, and is given largely to exag- geration; but it would be just as reasonable to charge that exaggeration to Dickinson, as to charge his to her. With regard to her moral standard, and, if it come to that, that of her husband also, perhaps the less said the better; I am not here to defend either. But in spite of that, and in spite of a passing flirtation with Dickinson, the attachment between the spouses seems to have been very sincere, and to have remained unbroken. How then, do you ask, can the Dickinson letters be explained? Gentlemen, he would be a bold man who would undertake to attempt to explain the vagaries of either woman or man in connection with sexual pas- sion. The Latin poet asks :~~
Quid levis pluma?—pulvis. Quid pulvis 7-ventus. Quid ventra?-mulier.
Quid mulier?-nihil,
Shall I venture to translate it, gentlemen, for the benefit of those of you who left school before I did? What is lighter than a feather 7-dust.
What lighter than dust?---wind. What lighter than wind?~~woman.
WES
February 11-1897
indeed
day
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
prisoner towards her husband changed, and she defend her life. She was set herself to prepare for the perpetration of ashamed. ~ Had she been the most foul, cool, deliberate murder that ever of murder, that consci was committed. Of course one cannot say that have overwhelmed and su such a thing is impossible, but I will venture in so great a degree as to hav to say that it is highly improbable. Borrowing sible for her, even on the impulse and adapting an eloquent passage from the to do a thing so obviously calculated learned Dean of Faculty in his defence of in the minds of the public- Madelene Smith, I say, he will be a bold man the minds of the public from whom must ov who will fathom the depths of human depra- tually be selected the jury who were to vity; but this at least experience teaches us, judges-the suspicion that she murderer of her that perfection, even in depravity, is not husband. Confronted, gentlemen, with this rapidly attained, he was evidently thinking of monstrous charge of murder, she had stood the Latin proverb, Nemo repense finit turpis erect, proudly conscious of her innocence. Her simus, and it is not by such short and easy courage has never failed her. You have had stages as the Crown Advocate has been able to the opportunity of regarding her, trace in the career of Edith Carew that an affec- by day, in the prisoners box; and you tionate wife passes all at once into the appalling will have no difficulty in believing me wickedness of a Borgia! Such a thing is not when I say that perhaps there is not a single possible. There is a certain progress in guilt, person in this community who has not felt and it is quite out of all human experience. her position, whilst awaiting and whilst From the tone of the letters, there should be a undergoing her trial, more keenly than she sudden transition from affection for a particular has felt it. Gentlemen, you judge of the object to the strange desire for removing one veracity of a witness as much by his de- who offered no obstruction to her wishes and meanour and bearing as by the evidence purposes. Think, gentlemen, in your own he gives; why should not the same rule minds, how foul and unnatural a murder it is be applied to the prisoner at the bar? Is her that is impated to the prisoner,-the murder demeanour, under trial for her life, when of one whom she married against the contrasted with her behaviour in endeavouring wishes of her parents, and who the to repossess herself of a letter that had been only man whom she had ever really loved stolen from her by a pilfering nursery governess, or cared for. And the object of that affection, a proof, or even an indication of a guilty consci- you are asked to believe, she suddenly conceivedence? Gentlemen, I am not afraid of the answer the purpose of murdering. Such is the theory you'll give to that question. Gentlemen, you will you are desired to believe. But, gentlemen, be relieved to hear that I have nearly finished what before you believe it, will you not ask for I wished to say to you. I sincerely thank you demonstration? Will you be content with for the great patien e with which you have
listened to me. suspicion, however pregnant, or will you be so
I have, owing to your forbear- unreasonable as to put it to me in this form, that ance, had the opportunity of putting before the deceased having died of poison, the theory of you what I had to say more concisely than the prosecution is the most probable? Oh, gen- I otherwise could have done; but in justice What lighter than woman 7-nothing. tlemen, is that the manner in which a jury should to the cause I am advocating I could not have There is one The poet thus asks and answers a question to treatsuch a case? Is that the kind of proof on which well said less than I have. which we perhaps should not have dared to offer they should convict on a capital offence? Leaving thing, however, to which I should like to call a reply. This one thing is evident, in the con- that part of the subject, I will touch on another; your attention before I sit down, and that is duct of the spouses towards each other, and that it is the evidence given in this Court by Mrs. the cruel conspiracy of silence that was main ita, here was forbearance, great forbearance, Hodges. Gentlemen, it is to be regretted that tained at a time when one word to either Mr. on both sides. But that it never degenerated the learned counsel for the prosecution should or Mrs. Carew might have been sufficient to into indifference or want of affection between have thought it necessary to call Mrs. Hodges clear her of the terrible suspicion fastened upon them is evident by the letters written to him before you to tell you of the painful incident ber by Mary Jacob and, Elsa Christoffel. Be- by her from Miyanoshita on the 28th and 30th that occurred in court during the preliminary fore noon on Wednesday, Mary Jacob has her days of September. Why, indeed, should examination of the accused. I cannot think it suspicions aroused; she also bad a message to affection have died? Each would seem to was necessary to their case, but, on the other deliver to Mrs. Carew. She did not deliver the have tolerated in the other the tendencies of hand, I cannot think it will influence your message; but in the afternoon she communicated which each was self-conscious; and if Mrs. decision in a sense adverse to the prisoner; in her suspicion to Christoffel. Christoffel, in Carew wrote or spoke of her husband as bully- which case it is not entirely to be regretted. turn, passed it on to Mr. Dunlop, by Mr. Dun- ing her, it was merely an exaggerated method What was the document she endeavoured to lop it was whispered to Dr. Wheeler, by whom of attracting the sympathy of the man with repossess herself of? It was a letter which it was told to Mr. Hall. Dr. Wheeler, irstead whom she was for the moment amusing her- had been stolen from her, and made of communicating it to Mrs. Carew, actually self. Gentlemen, I submit to you that that use of against her, for the purpose of com- charged her brother to say nothing to her correspondence affords no satisfactory evi- promising her. When she repossessed her- about it. I ask you, gentlemen, whether that
was fair treatment? dence of any desire on the part of the pri- self of it, the real purpose of its prouction was
The suspicion enter soner to free herself from chains which allowed not present to her mind. She was thinking tained was so grave, so serious, of such import her the utmost freedom. The wording of only of her own shame, "He who filches from to the person suspected, that in the commonest the letters, as I have said, are his, not hers; me my good name, robs me of that which not justice it ought to have been communicated to and though you may be of opinion that the enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." her, in order that, if possible, she might have prisoner is gifted with great mental and Until the production of these letters, her name, removed it in its very inception, by an appeal to one whose mouth was soon to be closed for physical capacity, it not unfrequently happens so far as the public were concerned, was that those acquirements are coupled with sexual untarnished. He shame was known to herself ever. Gentlemen, I have done; and I am cheered obliquity. Dickinson couldn't marry her, and alone, and one other, as she fondly hoped. It by this consideration, that however weak the she probably knew it. And why should she was about to be published to all the world; defence set up may be, a prisoner in the position want to marry him? He was simply one of a to be recorded against her in the history of of my client is never really unprotected in a series! What advantage would it be to her to this case; to be. read one day, perhaps, by the Court presided over by a British judge, assisted get rid of her husband! She was about to children in whose name she had so pathetically by a British jury. purchase a house, and about to purchase a appealed, and appealed in vain, to the cruel position for her husband in a mercantile firm Mary Jacob, who had never received anything in Yokohama. Why then kill him? The but kindness at her hands, as is shown by the whole facts seem to be that whilst she was letter written to Mrs. Carew by E. Jacob, obtaining Dickinson's sympathy under false Mary Jacob's mother but kept back by Mary pretences, for her own temporary amusement, Jacob from the person to whom it was ad- he was instigating a divorce,-as to which she dressed. And here I may remark, incidentally, did not even consult, or ask any advice from, that all the letters addressed by Mrs. Carew to Mr. Litchfield, who was then her legal adviser. Mary Jacob, as well as her own, and her brother's The conclusion I invite you to draw, gentlemen, visit to that person, were with reference to is that the Dickinson letters show no motive these letters alone. Gentlemen, she tried to for the crime charged; and that in considering repossess herself of this compromising letter; your verdict it would be the height of injustice and was it not natural that acting upon the to add inadequate motive, or absence of motive, impulse of the moment she should do so? So to insufficient fact. Let me again remind you far from its being an indication of her guilt, of of the letters written by the prisoner to the the terrible charge that was then and is still deceased from Miyanoshita, towards the end of hanging over her, I submit to you that the September I need not read them now, doubt-reverse construction is the only one to less you bear their terms in mind. But it be put upon it. Contrast her demeanour will be important for you to remember them. during the whole of the trial with her be If I understand the theory of the prosecution haviour when her shame was about to be pro- aright, from the 19th of October, the whole claimed. It was of infinitely more import character of the mind and feelings of the ance; in her eyes, to shield her honour than to
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Mr. Jephson was called and gave evidence as to a conversation with deceased in September last in the course of which the deceased said
K
of
What! arsenic; why, I have taken tons of it.
Dr. Eldridge gave technical evidence and said the symptoms of the deceased as detailed by Dr. Whooler were not so distinctly specific as to clearly indicate arsenical poisoning. They might have been due to almost any form of irritant poison, even from bad food, such as oysters or bad fish. It was not abs opposed to reason or theory that a person y commit suicide by taking repeated arsenic even though it were effects. A determined suicide might taking doses of a painful poison, hopin each one would finish him. It was a mat common experience that suicides very chose a very painful form of death even
MORE means are within. much instance, he had known a well to commit suicide by strych most painful poison of all. There
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