A POISONER'S DOOM.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

A POISONER'S DOOM.

TRAGIC DEATH SENTENCE SCENES

JUDGE'S VOICE BREAKS WITH EMOTION AT PASSING OF SENTENCE— CONDEMNED PRISONER ADMONISHED FOR BARBAROUS CRIME—MURDERER'S APPEAL AS BROTHER MASON—"BROTHERHOOD DOES NOT ENCOURAGE CRIME ,, —UNREPENTANT SLAYER BRANDED "OBSTINATE, CONCEITED, HYPOCRITICAL, COLD-BLOODED AVARICIOUS MAN."

It was on the ninth day of the trial of I Frederick Henry Scddon, tho notorious a poisoner, in March, 1912, that Marshall 3 Hall began his speech for the defence. 9 j He argued that if Seddon —his wife stood ■jj in the dock beside her husband —had been I guilty of poisoning their lodger, Miss Eliza I Barrow, with arsenic, he had been guilty I of a refinement of cruelty that was incredj: ible. Dealing with the tense scene in his :; book, "Marshall Hall's Murder Trials," I tho late Edward Marjoribanka states that j Marshal] Hall then came to his peroration. Once more he repeated, almost word ior a word and gesture for gesture, the scales i of Justice simile which had been so efi'eci.j tive in the Lawrence trial, but more eli'ec- |' tive still was his last argument of all, a j 1 reference to the scientific evidence upon I which the Crown sought to hang these '. two people. "Gentlemen," ho said, "the great scicni lists who have been hero have told us ' much of the marvels of science and of the ■ ■ deductions that can be made from science. • But there is one thing all scientists have ' never been able to find, never yet been j ; able to discover, with all their research : and with all their study, and this is how to replace the little vital spark wo call 3 life. i "Upon your verdict here depends, so ; j far as I am concerned, the life of this ; man. If your verdict is against him that . vital spark will be extinguished, and no science known to the world can ever re|j place it." Marshall Hall had pleaded for-! a little over four hours. In that space of . time he had spoken with his usual : : rapidity; altogether something above jj 37,000 words, thus averaging 0250 words , I , The Attorney-General (later Lord Head-' 1 ; ing), who followed with the final speech, j II spoke for about the same time and spoke !■ nearly 20,000 words. Thus Marshall Hall ' I packed into each hoiar_ nearly 2000 words i more than his antagonist. j Marshall Hall had said, "People do not i\ commit murders for one pound ten shilY lings a week." Rufus Isaacs (as he then

"Frederick Henry Seddon, you stand ! convicted of wilful murder. Have you : ' anything to say i'or yourself why the 1 Court should not give you judgment of j death according to law?" '! Then a surprising thing happened. "I ha.e, sir," replied the prisoner. He cleared his throat, took out some notes, and made a calm and admirable little speech in his own defence. He declared his in.iocence of the murder and denied any knowledge of it. Finally, knowing the judge to be a zealous Freemason, he made it clear to the judge that they belonged to the same brotherhood, whose members him. themselves solemnly to help each other through life, and especially in exI tremity. > "I declare," he concluded, "before the ; Great Architect of the Universe, I am . not guilty, my lord." 1 This appeal utterly unnerved the judge. His clerk arranged the black square of cloth upon his head, which seemed to overshadow and darken his whole face. The chaplain was summoned, and the usher proclaimed: ! "Oycz! Oyez! Oyez! My lords the King's justices do strictly charge and command all persons to keep silence while sentence of death is passing upon the prisoner at the bar, upon pain of imprisonment. God save the King!" Loud Sobs of Judge. But no words came from the judge; in a •I silence that could be felt there were only two sounds to be heard—the ticking of the court clock and the loud sobs of the judge about to-speak the words of condemnation. , It seemed a long time before he could pull i himself together, yet it could not have been more than a minute in all. Then, in ! a voice broken with emotion, the judge admonished the prisoner for his barbarous crime. "It is not for me to harrow your feelings," said Mr. Justice Bucknill. "It does not affect me," said Seddon; "I have a clear conscience."

I - -aa) showed that this was precisely what . v,nis man Seddon might do, and every cir- ' ; eumstance seemed' to prove that he did. ■i I To show how much thought and care had J j been spent on this epeech, one point of (detail serves. Little Ernest Grant went rto the same school as the Vonderahes j j little boya. Seddon said he sent a letter * ! to the Vonderahes to announce Miss Bari I row's death; the Crown's contention was i j thai Seddon never sent such a letter, and I T that he did everything to keep the news jj T of Miss Barrow's death from them. Kufus i I Isaacs then brought forward the seem- '■" I ingly insignificant fact that the Seddons ij had not let Ernest Grant go to school on I the morning of Miss Barrow's death, but I* ..had sent him down to Southend. Had he i j gone to school he might have met the •I littlo Vonderahes .and told them eome- % thing. Rufue Isaacs continued hour after hour, i up his terrible indictment against ] both prisoners. The speech was really !jj almost as deadly against Mrs. Seddon as .1 ! her husband. At the very end Mr. < ! Attorney gave a slight hint that tnere •-V was a distinction between the two cases. ' j "Supposing," he said, "you come to the i ■ conclusion that you have no reasonable ' doubt with regard to the male prisoner, l' but that you have some doubt—you are ■ not quite satisfied beyond all reasonable : doubt—that the woman is guilty, then it 1 would be your duty to acquit her. i . After this last speech came Mr. Justice i I Bucknill's summing up. After the ten I ! days' trial it was expected that he would 1 ! sum up for the best part of a day, actually \ he spoke something above two ■ hours. ! Many were disappointed that he did not give the jury the benefit of a more ex--1 i haustlve analysis of the evidence. Dealing with the scientific controversy, It Mr Justice Bucknill said: "I should not i I 'be 'surprised if you said that you are d ! satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that 8 I this woman died of acute arsenical pousoni ;i inff as distinct from chronic ... He gave 1 a clear hint to the jury to acquit the I woman, but his directions as regards 9 Seddon excited much comment > at the a time. After referring to his mean I character and to the fact that he did not \?' send for a doctor when the woman was I i in such agony, he said* "Do not be too ' much prejudiced." These words implied that there must be I some prejudice, and, of course, prejudice 9 in general is wrong. But Marshall Hall 9 had himself denounced Seddon s meanI ness in the strongest language, and the I judge's language was moderate and senI sible: he could have used these circumI stances in a far more deadly fashion 0 against the prisoner, had he so chosen, 1 and remained strictly within the proper ;i limits. The jury retired at 3.58 and returned \ into court exactly an hour later. They i found Seddon guilty. His face flushed, J but otherwise he maintained his comj posure. Accused Kiss in the Dock. Immediately afterwards they pronounced i his wife not guilty. Seddou went across, • embraced her, and kissed her on the lips. I 1 So silent was the court that every one ; present must have heard the sound of I that tragic gesture of farewell. Immedii .ately afterwards Mrs. Seddon was taken j ! away to be discharged. Much of the pre--18 judiee that had gathered round the !|- prisoner was dissipated by this one in- •■ I cident. Many were "moved to tears by I] it. Then the formal question was asked 9 iby the officer of the court, to which very r ] seldom is an answer Riven by the prisoner, k ! at any rate in capital cases, where no a words of his can aiicct hie sentence.

"Try to make peace with your Maker," the judge continued. "I am at peace," said Seddon. Then the judge continued: "You and I know we both belong to the same brotherhood, and it is all the more painful to me to have to say what I am saying. But our brotherhood does not encourage crime; on the contrary, it condemns it. I pray you again to make your peace with the Great Architect of the Universe. Mercy—pray for -it, ask for it. ... And now I have to pass sentence. The sentence of the Court is that you be taken from hence to a lawful prison, and from thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that your body be buried within the precincts t of the prison in which you shall have been 'confined after your conviction. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul." Great Battle Won and Lost. The great battle had been'both won and lost; it needed the most athletic advocacy to conduct the defence of both prisoners without prejudicing either of them, ami for this reason, perhaps, Marshall Hall s oration for the Seddons was the most artistic of all his speeches. Marshall Hall had expected the. verdict to be as it was. He regarded the appeal as hopeless, but for two days he argued for Seddon in the Court of Criminal Appeal. Although this court had been founded in 1908, this was the first appeal of importance which Marshall Hall had argued. He hated appearing in any court of appeal, but he argued this case splendidly, the chief argument being that there was not sufficient evidence to go to a jury.

After Seddon-'s appeal had failed, the public conscience began to grow uneasy; it was widely known that Seddon had been convicted on scientific evidence, and, with the usual British distrust and dislike of science, more than 300,000 people signed the petition for his reprieve. But the Home Secretary did not reprieve him, and Seddon was executed on April 18, 1912. When he knew all was over, Seddon seemed quite unmoved. "This is nothing to me," he said, in his last interview with his solicitor, and went on to discuss the sale of his property. He could not be made to talk of anything else. When he heard how little his goods had fetched at the auction, Seddon said, "That's finished it." And he was really upset when he heard that his motor car, of which he had been inordinately proud, had gone for a smaller price than he had paid for it. No Question of Confession. Seddon would. not talk of his wife or family, or their prospects. Perhaps this was from indifference, or perhaps from some more human reason he found himself unable to do so. Who shall say? "There is no question of my confessing," he said. "If you hear it, do not believe it." He wrote to the same effect to his wife and family, expressing his absolute innocence and his trust in Jesus Christ.' So he died, an obstinate, conceited, hypocritical, cold-blooded, avaricious man. In him all the common virtues of the Anglo-Saxon were distorted into vices; he had but one real virtue, and this was courage; yet, if he had not had that one great temptation, the arrival of a helpless, well-to-do old maid to lodge in his house, he might to-day be a pillar of Islington municipal life, a director of an insurance company, hated as a hard taskmaster by his subordinates, but high in the favour of his board. His best epitaph, and one of which he would have been proud, was one given to him by Marshall Hall: "The ablest man ' I ever defended on the capital charge. , -