In the House of Commons and out of it sympathy was, of course, aroused, not for the unhappy girl who had been sent suddenly to her account, but for the lustful brute who had murdered her. A question was asked of the Secretary of State for the Home Department as to the prisoner being insane, and whether there was not abundant evidence of insanity at the trial.
The counsel for the prosecution wrote to the Home Secretary and requested him to lay his letter before the prisoner's counsel to ascertain whether he agreed with it. The letter was to this effect: "Not only was there no evidence of insanity, but the prisoner's counsel based his defence entirely upon the fact that there was no suggestion that the man was or ever had been insane. He must have been insane, argued the counsel, if he had committed a brutal murder of that kind; there was no insanity, and therefore it was an accident."
The humane questioner of the Home Secretary left the prisoner after that statement to his well-deserved fate.
* * * * *
I recollect at one Gloucester Assize a man was tried before me for the murder of a woman near Bristol.
The prisoner had given his account of the tragedy, and said he had made up his mind to kill the first woman he met alone and unprotected; that is to say, he had made up his mind to kill somebody when there was no witness of the deed. Humanitarians for murderers might call this insanity.
He went forth on his mission, and saw a woman coming towards him with a baby.
He instantly resolved to kill both, and probably would have done so but for the fact that some one was seen coming towards him in the distance.
The woman and child therefore escaped, the person he had seen in the distance also passed by, and then he waited in the lane alone. In a little time a poor woman came along.
The ruffian instantly seized her, cut her throat, and killed her on the spot.