What the Judge Saw: Being Twenty-Five Years in Manchester by One Who Has Done It

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

“I cannot. A lady bought it. She packed some things in it, and locked it and took the key.”

“Then burst it open. It’s mine. Burst it open.”

There seemed no doubt what the old man expected to see. A police officer prized the door. It flew readily upward, disclosing its horrid, huddled contents. Meyer flew at Dukes’s throat, crying, “You have murdered my brother!” But the police pulled him off, and saved Dukes for the law.

Early in December the case was heard, and we pieced together by a large number of witnesses the story of the murder. The prisoner made a statement to the effect that he had been attacked by Gordon and killed him in self-defence. It was a lame effort, and even Cottingham’s eloquence could not endow it with probability. It was a callous and brutal murder, almost excusing the brutal comment which I heard as I passed through the crowded hall where the result was being discussed.

“Well, ’e won’t get any Christmas dinner, chuse ’ow.”

Dukes was hanged at Strangeways Gaol on Christmas Eve.

I agree that there was little pity shown for Dukes, who was a sodden, heartless creature, and a criminal of the most degraded type. But the interest in the

trial swept away any sympathy or thought for the victim and the unfortunate relatives who had been plunged into sorrow by the act of the criminal.

Just as I have no doubt that the sentence of death for theft and other offences, well and reasonably and sensibly defended by the more cautious property-owning minds of the eighteenth century, was ultimately abolished in deference to the sentiments of the weaker-minded of the community and the real necessities of society that they understood better than their opponents, so I have no doubt the sentence of death will pass away from our administration of the law altogether before many years are past. I do not suggest the question is a very burning one from the point of view of criminal law, but from the point of view of education and the evolution of right action and conduct in the community, it seems to me to be of importance. I am certainly far from believing that anything I may say or write will hasten matters, nor, indeed, is there any hurry about the affair. It is only some three hundred years since that good Christian gentleman, Sir Henry Wotton, laid down the principle that the hanging of men was an uncitizen-like act. True, the principle has long been accepted by the majority, but we are a cautious and conservative race. I have long ago ceased expecting to see reforms come about in my own day. I hear the statesman calling upon me to “Wait and see!” and although I shall certainly wait as long as I can, I shall not worry if it is not my lot to see. I

have very clear visions from my own little mountain of the promised land that my great-grandchildren and their youngsters will live in. It will be as far removed from us as we are from the days of Sir Henry Wotton, but what was good common-sense in his day will be good common-sense in theirs, as it is in ours, and ever shall be, world without end.