HUMANITY MOVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 263, 6 November 1929, Page 7

HUMANITY MOVED.

THE RIGHT TO KILL. Acquittal Of Son Who Ended Mother's Suffering. DISEASE AND MURDER. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright' LONDON, November 5. When Francis Corbett, the Englishman, charged with the murder of his mother to relieve her from intense suffering, "was acquitted, a jury of 12 temperamental Frenchmen decided that a man has the right to kill his nearest and dearest -when she is suffering agony from an incurable disease. The trial has set all Europe talking because of the uncompromising attitude of Corbett. "I did it because I had the right to do so," he said. Public opinion throughout has been sharply divided on the issue and the verdict has been responsible for an equally sharp division. Indeed opinion in England -would appear to be more against than in favour of the French interpretation of the law. The "Daily Express" says: "The trial moves humanity with equal horror and compassion. But the right to terminate a fellow creature's existence is a right which, whatever the motives, society can never recognise. To leave the awful issue of another's life or death to the play of private judgment or hysteria is to legalise anarchy." Paris messages state that Corbett spoke in a strained whisper as the questions of the President of the Court dragged out the whole story. "We ' had a specialist from Westminster Hospital, London, to examine my mother," said the accused. "He reported that nothing could save her. She might live three or four months. At the longest she could only hope for a year of agony.

"What could I do? I saw the sweat of intolerable pain on her forehead. I would wipe it away and say to her: 'My mother, it is too much for any son to bear.' On the day I killed her I had received a letter from England saying that my grandfather had died. I was upset and decided that something must be done." * The President: Did it occur to you that something more might be done? The Almighty might have intervened to spare her in His mercy. Accused: That is just a religious belief. Nothing in my heart supports it. The President suggested that accused's mind was unhinged through worry, but Corbett refused to avail himself of that loophole. He said he was clear-headed in everything he had done. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. The speech of the Public Prosecutor was relentless. "Corbett," he cried to the jury, "is a criminal and must face the fate of a criminal. The juiy should not heed his unnatural and illegal appeal for sympathy. Justice demands his conviction and a punishment of at least five years' imprisonment." The defending counsel's speech dealt with the tragic characters in the drama. He asked who among them would blame accused because he had brought certain death a little nearer. He declared that administering morphia to people in agony was a slow,. inhuman way of killing them.

Corbett had only done in one second what the doctors would have done in three months. Throughout his counsel's speech Corbett continually broke down and sobbed bitterly. Several women were carried out of the Court in hysterics. Half the jury wept unashamedly. The jury asked the President whether if they brought in a verdict of guilty he could guarantee that Corbett would not be punished. The President refused to give such a guarantee. Accordingly the jury brought in their verdict of not guilty. The newspapers recall the case of Albert Davies, who was acquitted at the Chester Assizes of murder on October 22, 1927. He had drowned his daughter, aged four, to end her agony from ,a deadly disease. There was a similar problem in the same year when Mrs. Delvigne gave arsenic to her mother who was suffering from cancer. The jury found the woman to be insane.