FOOTNOTE:
[1] The attacks upon me were so scurrilous for the evidence I had given that I wrote as follows to the editor of The Lancet, the staff there being divided in opinion whether I should be supported or condemned—
"REGINA v. WATSON.
"To the Editor of The Lancet.
"Sir,—As I have been made to occupy, through the exceptionally severe and not over-courteous cross-examination at the Old Bailey, a more conspicuous position than I had desired before the public, perhaps you will permit me to give the reasons why I held, and do hold, that the prisoner in the above case was, and is, of unsound mind; and, subsequently, to briefly comment on each head.
"1st. There were the evidences of pre-existent melancholia.
"2nd. The ferocity with which the deed was committed.
"3rd. The total absence of criminal motive.
"4th. The calmness and indifference of the prisoner's manner after the deed was done.
"5th. His justification of suicide, and the expression of his belief that God would forgive the homicide under the circumstances.
"First, as regards the proofs of mental disease prior to the act—they were deposed to by the Rev. Folliott Baugh and his wife as existing a month before the murder; by Mr. H. Rogers on the preceding day; whilst further evidence on this head, not available for the defence owing to the sickness of the deponent, has since been forwarded to the Home Secretary, the statement being that some months before he was in communication with the prisoner for the purpose of employing him in his school, but on an interview he found his mental condition to be such that he at once broke off the engagement: the evidences of aging and altered aspect deposed to by the secretary of the school a short while after his dismissal. And mark, that to him was no ordinary event: at sixty-seven he found himself suddenly without employment, without any realized money, absolute penury in the not distant prospective, whilst, during the nine months he had been thus thrown in upon himself, every attempt to add to his means or to obtain an engagement, whether literary or scholastic, had entirely failed.
"Second. Passing to my next point, the ferocity of the act, it was argued by the prosecution that it was done in a fit of rage; but, for the credit of our common human nature, I would ask, Is it conceivable that mere anger would so transform a mild, quiet old gentleman, as he was shown to be, into such a brutal criminal, so that, not content with slaying his victim, he should go on battering her head and body long after passion alone would have been exhausted? It is, I contend, explicable only as the act of a homicidal melancholic, not otherwise.
"Third. The senseless character of the deed. If done consciously and by premeditation, as the verdict would suppose, I would ask, Where could be the gain? Here, again, I argue that the act itself, done without reasonable motive, could only be the product of reason overthrown.
"Fourth. The indifference, &c. Here I would submit—can a parallel be produced from criminal records in any place (Broadmoor excepted) for the remarkable calmness (self-possession Mr. Gibson, of Newgate, phrases it) Mr. Watson maintains whenever the act is referred to, such as to lead his old friend, the Rev. J. Wallis, to state that he seemed perfectly void of shame and remorse; nay, asserting that he was an injured person by being put in prison'?
"Fifth. His justification of suicide, &c. I may here be met by the remark that he is probably an unbeliever in the Christianity he professed. To this I make reply that there is not a tittle of evidence to show that such is the case. Until the act was done, a regular attendant at church, a constant communicant, his whole moral nature must have become utterly changed and corrupt ere such a consummation could be arrived at, standing out, as it does, in direct antagonism to his previous life, as portrayed by one who knew him well and gives his opinion of his old friend in this day's Times.
"I pass over the subsequent blundering attempts to hide the act, as similar things have been done by others whose insanity has not been questioned. And as I have occupied much of your space, I subscribe myself,
"Yours obediently,
"Jos. Rogers."Dean Street, Soho,
"January 15, 1872."