Lord Russell’s Memorandum Quashed
The Lord Chief Justice sent the Home Secretary a memorandum consisting of twenty folios, in which he stated the strong opinion that “Mrs. Maybrick ought to be released at once.” The Lord Chief Justice also requested that the contents of his memorandum be made public. Yet when asked in the House of Commons to lay the document on the table of the House in order that it might be accessible to the members, the Home Secretary emphatically declined. The London Daily Mail, in a leader on this incident, said:
“The only conceivable reasons for declining to give publicity to the letter, which was actually intended for publication, are apparently official red tape and the fear of giving new life to the agitation in favor of Mrs. Maybrick’s release. This result will be almost as effectually achieved by surrounding the case with further mystery and leaving upon the public mind the grave suspicion that justice may not have been done.”