MADDOX IN THE SALOON.
Another very important thing is now known which was not known on the trial. It concerns Olive Maddox’s visit to the saloon on the afternoon of Friday, December 30, when she is supposed to have seen Alma Tirtschke in the beaded room with a glass before her. (At this time, according to the Harding confession, the little girl was asleep in the cubicle.) Maddox, it will be remembered, said that, when she went into the saloon on that afternoon, at five minutes past 5, there were two girls whom she knew in the parlour, and one whom she did not know. She left, she said, at a quarter past 5, and returned to the saloon at five minutes to 6, but did not see either Colin or the little girl on that visit. The girl whom Maddox did not know came forward voluntarily after Ross had been condemned. She went out on the Saturday night of his conviction to Ross’s house at Maidstone and told what she knew. She was brought to Ross’s solicitor on the Monday, and made a statement as to what took place in the saloon on the fatal Friday afternoon. Her name need not now be mentioned. Suffice it to say she is a respectable girl, a tailoress by occupation, who has never been out of employment a day during the three years she has been in Melbourne. She has no relatives in Melbourne, and she used occasionally to go to the wine shop because it was in a quiet spot, and as she was on holidays at the time she remained on this occasion for over an hour, arriving before 5 and stopping until after 6. She was there when Maddox came in at about 5 o’clock, and she is positive that Alma Tirtschke was not in the saloon at the time. Maddox was under the influence of drink, and was talking excitedly to her two friends. The tailoress sat listening to her, but taking no part in the conversation, and, indeed, refusing to be drawn into it.
Maddox’s story that she left soon after coming in, and returned shortly before 6, is not true, the tailoress says—her stay was unbroken. This girl was cross-examined by Ross’s advisers before she made her declaration, and she remained unshaken in her story. If Maddox’s evidence is fabricated, her reason for saying that she left the place for three-quarters of an hour is obvious. It saves her having to explain how the murdered girl got out of the room and where she went to. This evidence of the tailoress was rejected by the Full Court on the ground that it was not shown that it could not have been procured on the trial. It was dismissed by the Attorney-General as evidence that “would not, and ought not,” to have affected the jury. It is hard to follow this observation, since if the declaration were true it proved that the main part of the case against Ross was false.