Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

After a short retirement the jury gave their verdict in the following curious form: “According to the evidence before us, not guilty.”

For many years after these trials sides were taken for and against the Perreaus, and an appeal even was made to Mrs. Rudd to “discover the secrets of a transaction concerning which public opinion has been so much divided.” It was plausibly suggested that a declaration of the fact if she was guilty could not then affect her since she had been acquitted by the laws of her country.

Two years after the trial of the Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd came another notorious forgery trial, which created a still greater sensation, owing to the fame of the prisoner as a clergyman and an author.

On the 8th of February the Reverend Dr. Dodd, editor of Dodd’s Beauties of Shakespeare, once one of the King’s Chaplains, and a preacher whom Sunday after Sunday fashionable London had flocked to hear, was arrested on the charge of forging the signature of his former pupil, the Earl of Chesterfield.

For years he had been attempting to live in the style which he thought his position required, and had been in constant difficulties with his trades-people. At length to satisfy some of the more importunate, he borrowed £4,000 in the name of Lord Chesterfield, whose agent he represented himself to be, and gave a false bond for the sum.

The manner in which the forgery was discovered is especially interesting, as being one of the earliest cases in which the appearance of the ink led to the detection of a fraud.

The bond had been left with a Mr. Manly, who was the attorney for Messrs. Fletcher and Peach, who had advanced the money, and, according to the evidence which he gave at the trial, he observed “a very remarkable blot in the first letter E in the word SEVEN, which did not seem to be the effect of chance but done with design. He thought it remarkable but did not suspect a forgery; yet he showed Mr. Fletcher the bond and blot, and advised him to have a clean bond filled up, and carried to Lord Chesterfield for execution.”

When this was done Lord Chesterfield immediately disowned the bond, and Dr. Dodd was thereupon arrested. The attorney advised him that if he returned the money it would be the only means of saving him. Accordingly he raised the £4,000, on the understanding that the bond should be returned to him cancelled, but the charge was not withdrawn, and he was committed for trial at the Old Bailey.

His defence was little more than a confession of guilt and a plea for mercy, and after an absence of only a few minutes the jury found that he was guilty, but recommended him to the royal mercy.

After the conviction unexampled efforts were made to gain a reprieve. In every newspaper there were letters pleading for the life of the prisoner, and the most distinguished men of the day, including Dr. Johnson, then the foremost English man of letters, used their influence on his behalf. Officers of the parish, dressed in deep mourning went from door to door, gaining signatures for long petitions to the king, and the names thus collected filled twenty-three rolls of parchment. Finally, the Lord Mayor and Council went in state to St. James’s Palace imploring mercy for the prisoner. But all was to no purpose, for the king obstinately refused to show any favour to the divine whom he had formerly dismissed from his chaplaincy. His constant reply to all these petitions was, “If I save Dodd I shall have murdered the Perreaus.”