How, it may be asked, could Ivy Matthews and Harding become possessed of the information the police had? That question is not difficult to answer. It will be shown later that Ivy Matthews was driving around with the police on January 9, assisting them to get evidence in the case, and that she, on her part, was trying to get it manufactured. If that is so (and a sworn declaration to that effect has gone unchallenged) then she was not likely to lack any information that the police thought it might be useful to them for her to have. It has been stated in the Press that the police employed Chinese spies to see if evidence could be got against any of the Chinese in the neighbourhood. The statement, though it ill accords with Piggott’s evidence that “we had the case well in hand” on December 31, has not been denied. If Chinese spies were called in to assist in the unravelling of the crime—and that course of action may have been quite justifiable—the detectives are not likely to have cried “non tali auxilio” when Matthews volunteered her services.

As to Sydney Harding, the source of his knowledge can be guessed if not inferred. Harding was a criminal with a record, like one of the Arbitration Court disputes, extending beyond the limits of one State. He was “wanted” in Sydney, when he favoured Melbourne with his society on January 4. At that time, Detective Walsh, of Sydney, was doing duty in Melbourne as an exchange officer. He was one of the detectives engaged on the Ross case and was present at the arrest. On Sunday, January 22, according to statements since made to Ross’s advisers, Harding sent for Walsh, whom he knew, and Walsh visited him at the gaol and had a long interview with him. On Monday, January 23, Ross made the “confession” to Harding, and that night Harding again sent for Walsh, as is admitted, and recounted the confession to the Governor in the presence of the detective.

Neither of these facts—that Ivy Matthews was acting as assistant detective on January 9, and that Detective Walsh had visited Harding in the gaol by invitation on January 22—was known at the trial. Had they been so, they would have provided excellent material for cross-examination, and would have given the jury something to consider which was never present to their minds.

It has been suggested that it would be a dreadful thing if the police had prompted Harding in this matter. It certainly would have been a dreadful thing if they had prompted him or anybody else to manufacture a confession, and nobody suggests for a moment that they would do, or did do, such a thing. But believing Ross guilty, as they no doubt did believe him guilty, and yet not having sufficient evidence to prove it, they would have been merely following a commonplace practice if they had employed Harding to endeavour to get a confession of his guilt. In one of the daily papers, Mr. Brennan was represented as having said in argument before the Appeal Court that it would have been a very dreadful thing for the police so to employ Harding. In fact, he said the exact opposite. But Harding was a very dangerous agent to employ on this task. Some at least of the Detective Force knew that he had volunteered for this kind of duty on a former occasion, and that his services had been declined. There would have been nothing wrong from the point of view of anyone engaged in unravelling a mysterious crime for a detective to have said: “We know this, and that, and the other; see if you can get from him information on the points we know nothing about.” And whether that is, or is not, what they did, the simple fact remains that if they had done so, they would have told him the things in which the Harding and Matthews “confessions” agree, and would have assigned to him the duty of filling in the gaps which are filled in by Harding and Matthews in a manner absolutely at variance the one with the other.

AN EXPERT ON HAIR.

Nothing could point more strongly to the guilt of Ross than satisfactory proof that hairs from the head of the murdered girl were found on a blanket in his private room. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine Mr. Price’s evidence, to see whether it does establish this important fact. It will be seen by a reference to that evidence, that Mr. Price uses very guarded language. He “came to a conclusion” about certain things and he “formed the conclusion” about others, but he at no time definitely stated that the hairs taken from the blankets were from the same head as the hairs in the envelope. None the less, the fact cannot be blinked that the tendency of Mr. Price’s evidence was in that direction, or that in that direction lay the bent of his mind.

A word of caution as to expert evidence generally may, therefore, appropriately be given, and if a quotation from “Taylor on Evidence” is selected, no one who knows anything of the subject, will question the weight of the authority.

“Perhaps the testimony which least deserves credit with a jury,” says the author, “is that of skilled witnesses. These gentlemen are usually required to speak, not to facts, but to opinions; and when this is the case it is often quite surprising to see with what facility, and to what an extent, their views can be made to correspond with the wishes or the interests of the parties who call them. They do not, indeed, wilfully misrepresent what they think, but their judgments become so warped by regarding the subject in one point of view, that even when conscientiously disposed, they are incapable of forming an independent opinion. Being zealous partisans, their Belief becomes synonymous with Faith as defined by the Apostle, and it too often is but ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ To adopt the language of Lord Campbell, ‘skilled witnesses come with such a bias on their minds to support the cause in which they are embarked, that hardly any weight should be given to their evidence.’”

The first criticism of Mr. Price’s evidence is that he is not an expert on the subject, and indeed he made no pretence of being one. He knew nothing about the subject beforehand, and his experiments and reading were principally done after the event. For all he knows to the contrary, the pith of all hairs may be identical. He made one admission in the course of his cross-examination which absolutely destroyed the probative force of his evidence. In his post-factum observations he had examined hairs from several auburn heads, and he admitted that he had found some hair as like Alma Tirtschke’s as the hairs from the blankets. The “proof,” therefore, resulting from Mr. Price’s evidence may be reduced to an elementary syllogism as follows:—