Startling Case of Mistaken Identity.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 202, 28 August 1886, Page 5

Startling Case of Mistaken Identity.

Sceno nt a Coro.ior's Inquest.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

London, July 9. A strange and startling scons relieved tho

monotony of an otherwiee corfimC-placo coroner's inquostatthoEastEnd of London last week. The enquiry had reference to the identity of an unfortunate man " found drowned," gcnorally believed to have committed aulcido. Tho principal witneea, says a commentator on the case in the " Daily Telegraph,'' was onoThomas Kirby, a clerk in the employ of Messrs Carter and Co., tho seed merchants, who identified the deceased as a fellow-clork of the name of Wilson, who was engaged temporarily from Decembor last to tho beginning of June for tho work of packing samples and sending them off by post for advertising purposes. Kjrby recognised him, among other reasons, btcause of "a peculiarity in the fingers of tho right hand"—a mark to tbe exiatonco of which Dr. Howard, who had examined the body, also testified To comploto tho evidence establishing the identity of the decoasod. Inspector Hodaon, of the Thames police, stated that a metal box, answering to the description given by tbe witnoss Kirby, was found in tho drowned inanß pocket. In short, the theory that tho corpse waa that of Charles John Wilson, lato clork in tho employment of Messrs Carter, seemed to bo unanswerably made out. Thoro could be only ono eppoaing fact which would avail to overthrow it) but at this stago of tho inquiry that fact proßCnted itself in the person of Charles John Wilson himself, who walked into court in company with Inspector Hodaon. What effect ho' produced by this dramatic ontrance-too dramatic' to' need tho asaiatanco of lowered lights or the Ghoat music from "ThoCorsican Brothors "—the reporter roportoth not; but it muat have been more profound than would appear from tho observations, Bolf contained to the point of frigidity, with which his narrative concludes. Tho coroner, who eooma to have admirably retuinod his preßenne of mind, remarked that " this was a startling case of mi-taken identity," to which the foreman of the jury added that "many a man had boon handed on less circumstantial ovidonco." What Kirby said Is not stated, and imagination shrinks from attempting to divino hia unutterable thoughts. It is to his credit that he made no attSminb to rebilt the evidonco which disposed co conclusively Of hia own testimony. There are disputant. among us—principally, it i 3 true, politicians —who would have atood manfully to their guns, even in the face of this most formidable of hostilo arguments. Not so Kirby. So far aa can bo gathered from the report, he accepted tbo demolition of his theory without resistance thereby establishing his claim to tho possession of that gift on which the Ministerial sponsors of the " found drowned" Separation Bill especially pride themselves - to wit, " an open mind."

Apart, however* from itn personal interest for Mr Kirby, the incident is ono of n rather , disquieting character, and tho criticism which it elicited from the foreman of the jury was, wo toar, but too well justified Many a man ha 3 beon hanged, as he remarked, on lesa circumstantial evidence. Had somebody beon prosent who waslast seen in Wilson's company, and who might have had a concoivable motive for putting him out of the way, and had it occurred to Wilson himsolf at thia juncture to take a trip to the Antipodes, it ie ouito possible and even likoly that it migfit have gone hard with that somebody on a prosecution for murder. In a former period of our criminal jurisprudence, when ovidoncoas to the existence of what lawyers call tho " corpus delicti," waa loaa strictly insietod on than it is nowadays, iuetnncea.of persona being condemned and executed for murders which had never, ia fact, boen committed at all, wore by no meotiß unknown. Tbe disappearance of A., who was last seen in the company of B , has on more than one occasion led judges and juries to tho conclusion that A. hud been murdered, and that B. was his murderer. It was oxtremely unsafe to have been tho recent companion of any man who had beon carried off by a press-gang. Muoh fuller preliminary proof that a missing maD is a murdered man is in these days deemed requisite, and thore would consequently bo much less dangor than formerly in consorting with men who looked likely recruits foi her Majesty's Navy, if the fine old custom of pressing for that service still survived, Boloro wo proceod to convict and hang men for murder in these scrupuloua times, wo are more careful to ascertain whether a unlrdor had been com mitted ; although, when the fact of the crime is once established, we must all of ue toko our chance of boing mistaken for tho criminal. In case of suspicion we may often succeed in establishing that "alleybi", which the elder Mr Woller regarded as so conclusive a defence to an action for breach of promise of marriage; and, at tho worst, tho accused can call witnesses te hia re spectability. When, however, proof, of tho " corpus delicti" itaolf ia based, aa it might woll havo been in Wilson c case, on a mistake of identity ; when the murder of a cortain man is assumed from the fact of some other man's corpse being mistaken for hia, tho position of tho prisonor might become oxtrcmoly critical. Suppose, too, that (ho man's reputed body is sworn to by ono of his most familiar acquaintances ; that ho himsolf is on his way to tho Australian bush, there to be cut off for many months or years from the nowspapera of ha nativo land; and that the only defence consisted in an earnest obviously interested contention that the. dead man's identity hud been mistaken. In such a conjecture of circumstances, tho remark of the foreman of Mr St. Clare Bedford's jury would, we fear, recur as somewhat distressingly opt. It is not every one who can count upon a corpse presenting itsolf in the very nick of time to procure his acquittal, It might miss its train, or anything. The court might be too full for it to obtain admittance, or it might insist upon forcing its way through tho passagos reserved for counsel or witnesses, and bo removed by the police at the very moment when the jury are returning their vordict of guilty, and the Judge is feeling for tho block cop. Another reflection calculated to add to tho public uneasiness is suggested by the apparently extreme facility with which mistakes of identity can arise, Kirby it should seem, had for some montha past been in the daily habit of seeing the man for whom he hae just mistaken somebody else. From Decomber until the end of last June he muat hore been constantly in Wilson'a company ; yet he no sooner sees the body of n total stranger than he at once pronounces it to be that of his fellow-clerk. It may be said that his mistake was largely due to tho strange coincidence of both men having a " peculiarity, of the fingers," but was thia co straago a coincidence ? That dependp, surely, upon what the peculiarity was. If both Wilson ond the unknown had moro or lesa than tho regulation number of digits, thatof course wouldbe a truly remarkI able concurrence of phenomena Nothing, however appears from the report to warrant tbe supposition that the two men resembled either thePhilistino giant on theonehand—or rather on bothhands and feet toboot—or the too famous "Jack " on the other. Thoir common " peculiarity of the fingera " was probably something much less marked than this ; nnd as most of us, no doubt, have some slight digital peculiarity or other, a caso of coincidence in this respect would not bo so very surprißing. That tho motal seed-box was found in the pocket of tho deceased ia a circumstance calculated in some measure to rolieveanxioty as to the frequent recurrence of similar errors ; for we cortainly do not all carry metal socd boxes about with us. Kirby, however, it ia to be presumed, would havo pronouncod with much tho same confidence on tho idontity of tho deceased, if this little piece of apparently confirmatory ovidonco had not bean forthcoming ; and his confidence was obviously in excess of what was warranted. Ir, is pretty clear that he could not have studied tho appearance of his fellow-c'erk during tho six montha of their daily intercourse as minutely and mindfully as he might have been expected to do, and examples of a similar habit of incorrect and "incurious observation are only too common. Those who havo had much experience of our criminal courts muat be well aware of the frequency with which witnesses swear positively to the identity of persons whom collateral circumstances indubitably prove them to have mistaken for other people. Nothing, indeed ia more rare than that faculty of accurate observation on which the value of thia class of evidence so much depends ; and S3 a rule it will be found that tho confid.nco with which a witness will back the t.rustwoithinessof his memory for faces with Ibis oath, is in the inver.o proportion to his capacity as an observer. The witness who insists the most indignantly on his right to believe bis own eyoa" la usually just the

sort of man who is least entitled to put Implicit faith in them. It has been said that there is nothing so fallacious as facts ex_ copt figures. It would be scarcely more of _ paradox to say that there is nothing so decoptivo as the testimony ot the momory unless it be tho evidence of the senses.