THE CROWN’S NEW EVIDENCE.
When the agitation was on foot for Ross’s reprieve the Attorney-General was reported to have said that he was in possession of evidence which would convict Ross in five minutes. That statement was officially denied, but it was always maintained that the Crown were, after the trial, put in possession of facts which were most damaging against Ross. All that the present writer can say as to that is this, that he was made acquainted with the facts in the possession of the Government, and that those facts were not such as would have the slightest weight with him in confirming the guilt of Ross.
It has further been publicly said that Ross wrote to Ivy Matthews a letter which incriminated him, and that Mrs. Ross called on her and begged her not to use the letter. Matthews is said to have given the promise not to use it, and in consequence of the visit to have torn it up. This has appeared in print, but whether Matthews herself ever said it the present writer does not profess to know. Matthews’s character was bitterly assailed, both at the inquest and on the trial, and she never even hinted at such a letter. That she should have destroyed it, if she received it, is incredible, and Mrs. Ross’s answer to the allegation that she ever waited on Matthews has already been given in her own words.
Harding, too, is said to have received from Ross, while Ross was awaiting execution, a letter which impliedly admitted his guilt, and he, too, is supposed to have torn it up. In the witness box Harding was attacked for what he is—the most oily and odious scoundrel that ever polluted a court of justice. If he had, or had ever received, a letter from Ross which would have done anything to rehabilitate his tattered reputation, he would have used it. But, in fact, there is in Melbourne one man at least whose lightest word would carry more weight than Harding’s most solemn oath, who knows that Ross did write a letter to Harding, knows its contents, and knows that, so far from it containing an implied admission of guilt, it contained exactly the opposite.
PART V.
⸻
THE DEFENCE.
As has already been said, the purpose of this review is not to set out the evidence on either side and ask the public to weigh it. That was the function of the jury, and if they did their work unskilfully there is no redress in this world. The main purpose has been to set out the Crown case, and to show, by an analysis of it, that Ross’s guilt could not, as a matter of logic, be deduced from it with the certainty which the law requires in criminal cases. How far that has been done the reader must judge.
None the less it is right to show that Ross, from first to last, did what was humanly possible to establish his innocence.
As far as his evidence is concerned, it simply followed the lines of his written statement made on January 5, and his answers to questions given on that and other dates. His cross-examination left him absolutely unshaken as to his story, though it has to be admitted that his demeanour in the box, his unveiled hostility to the police, his direct allegations against them, his blunt affirmation that what Harding knew he had been told by “the coppers,” and his assertion that the hairs on the blanket had been put there by the detectives, were not calculated to make a favourable impression on the jury. He admitted that he had spoken to Harding about the case, had told Harding that he was in prison to keep the public’s mouth closed, and had mentioned to him that he was with “his girl” that afternoon and evening, but he denied strongly that he had ever confessed to Harding. He said, also, that he knew Harding’s reputation as a “shelf,” and defined a “shelf” as a man who not merely tells tales on prisoners, but makes them up as well—a man “who hears one thing and builds on it.” It is well, however, that Ross’s outline of his movements, both on the fatal day and on January 5, when he is supposed to have made damaging admissions to Olive Maddox during a chance meeting at Jolimont, should be recapitulated in order to see how it was borne out by the long string of witnesses who were called to support him.