MARY ANSELL HANGED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 208, 2 September 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

MARY ANSELL HANGED.

ENDEAVOURS TO OBTAIN A

REPRIEVE

"A MENTAL DEGENERATE."

LONDON, July 2.1, 1899. Since the present Home Secretary came into office murderers' reprieves have been few and far between. Sir Matthew White Ridley is no sentimentalist, and before he interferes with the decision of a judge and jury very special circumstances indeed have to be proved. A section of the press, headed by the "Daily Mail" and Chronicle" agitated vigorously to save the life of Mary Ansell, the servant girl who first insured her imbecile sister and then poisoned her with a cake, which she went to the asylum where she was detained. The crime was carried out with considerable cleverness and audacity, in fact for a long time the police never dreamt of associating it. with Mary Ansell. .Nevertheless no sooner was tli3 _4';ri conivicted than the inevitable sentimei'jtalists set up the cry that she was insane, and got Dr. Fo .-lies Window and other specialists to back the theory up. Dr. Winslow reported: — ! "1 have come to the conclusion Unit iMary Ansell is a mental degenerate, ] and ought to be held as irresponsible lin the eye of the law. I have based my [conclusions from a. consideration of ithe following facts: Hereditary insanjity. Of this "there is not the slightest doubt. She is a mental degenerate so [often seen in families where Insanity as in hers, to any great extrnt. Such an individual is allowed her fret: dom. being simply regarded by her family and neighbours a.a weak!minded fool, but harmless, and there being nothing objective in her condition, she is not like her sister incarcerated iv a lunatic asylum. There are [two insane sisters, and insanity inherited both on the father's ant', mother's side. Motive: There is yene-

I rally method in madness, ami one. I motive in un act of insaiity. I think that too much stress has been laid*on 'the insurance policy for £11. Al the time she was contemplating' the cited very possibly some insane idea was passing through her so-called mind. Behaviour during Trial: This is, in Imy opinion,l most import mt. There I was an absence of excitement 01 emotion during the whole, proceeding. and an inability lo real 1.13 her condition or the gravity of the act. The summing up of the judge and sentence of death did not in any way affect her. This is most unusual even m the hardened criminal," The prison doctors and Broadmoor [experts could not, however, see that Anscll was sillier or stupider than the majority of her class, and on Satur(lay the Home Secretary declined to interfere, and Under Secretary wrote •that having carefully considered all the circumstances of the ease of .Mary |Ansell, now lying under sentence of I death in St. Alban's prison, and having caused special medical inquiry to jbe made as to the convict's mental condition by Dr. D. ."Nicholson, risito. jin lunacy, and Or. It. tlrayn (superintendent of the Broadmoor asylum) [under section 2 of the Criminal Lunatics Act, 18S4, the Secretary of Stale lias been unable to find any sufficient [grounds to justify him in advising Hei- : Majesty to interfere with the due [course of the law. | A press representative who called on the parents of the condemned i;-irl on Saturday night, at their home in Tan-kerton-street, King's Cross, states that on hearing of her .laughter's, fate Mrs Ansell burst into tears. Her husband, who was quite .aim, said that he had expected all along to hear the. worst. Mrs Ansell declared That her daughter had been silly from the time that she went to school. To the father the whole affair seemed like a nightmare. The two sisters, he said, had always been friendly to each other, and he could not realise that his daughter .Mary had plotted to poison her sister. The thing seemed quite incredible, for He had never heard his daughter Mary breathe a single word of malice against her atllicted sister Caroline. During Monday and Tuesday the "Daily Mail" exercised the full extent of its influence —which is by no means small—to have the Ansell ease reopened, a special petition to this end signed by 100 members of Parliament being presented to the Home Secretary. Sir Matthew Ridley, however, wisely stood firm. The crime was abominable, cruel and unnatural. If ever woman deserved the extreme penalty of the law, Mary Ansell deserved it. As for the alleged evidence of insanity it was when-examined thin to attenuation. This the defence well knew. All that Dr. Forbes Winslow could say was that the girl seemed to be a "mental degenerate," a felicitous phrase which would apply to 50 per cent, of London slaveys, and to not a few of our own personal friends. As foi' the point which the "Mail" made so much •of, viz., that Mary's 'schoolfellows called her "Silly Old Ansell*' I don't think I ever heard anything more absurd. Every child in a board school has a nickname (often a wildly irielevant one), but they seldom bear on character.