Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

A few hours later the horse was missed, and handbills describing it and offering a reward for the capture of the thief were hurriedly printed and sent out of Ipswich by every vehicle that left the town.

Two men were also despatched in pursuit along the London road, but being falsely directed were about to turn off in the direction of Maldon, when they chanced to meet a man who had seen Margaret riding to London. But for this chance meeting Margaret would probably have escaped capture.

As it was, the pursuers reached London the following day and Margaret was arrested just as she had concluded a sale of the horse with a dealer.

She was tried at the Bury Assizes and sentenced to death, but through the influence of her former master the sentence was commuted to a term of imprisonment.

Three years later her lover, Laud, who was a smuggler, assisted her to escape from Ipswich gaol, and again handbills for her arrest were issued. She was captured on the beach while in the act of embarking in Laud’s boat, and Laud himself was killed in the fight. For the second time she was sentenced to death, and was once more reprieved, her sentence now being transportation to Botany Bay. There she married, and died many years later.

The introduction of the railway did not materially change the relative position of pursuer and pursued; for although the fugitive could travel more rapidly than before, and thus when chance favoured him could get to the coast and on board a ship about to sail, he had against him the more speedy notification of the crime in all directions, which was also rendered possible by the railway.

It was not until a means of communication infinitely more rapid than the steam engine had been discovered, that the balance turned decisively against the man endeavouring to elude the grasp of the law.

It is strange to reflect that it was not until it had been employed in the capture of a criminal that it was recognised in how many directions the electric telegraph might be of service to mankind.

Prior to that time the invention had been little better than a failure from a commercial point of view, for, although the railway companies had some time before this realised the advantages of the new system of communication, the Government had refused to have anything to say to it.

It was thus little short of a revelation to the public when, in 1845, the news was made known that a suspected murderer had been arrested through the agency of the telegraph.