STORY OF A SKULL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3463, 31 March 1930, Page 2

STORY OF A SKULL.

DEEMING THE MURDERER.

Recent removals of the remains of criminals executed in the Mlebourne Gaol afforded an Opportunity for a careful examination of the skull of Frederick Bayley Deeming, the murderer, which was made by the director of the; Australian Institute of Anatomy, Professor Sir Colin Mackenzie. He was astonished, to find that in Deeming, by an extraordinary lapse of nature, a prehistoric man of the earliest primitive type kjadfvn t'6 science had-been born in the nipe-veenth century. Deeming was little less.-,than a dangerous animal. In March, 1892, the body of a woman was found under a hearthstone, embedded in cement, in a house at Windsor Melbourne. The crime was traced to Deeming, who (under the name Barron Swanson, had fled to Southern Cross, Western Australia), when he was arrested and when lie was brought back .to Melbourne. In the meantime inf*tpnides instituted • by' through its London representative brought to light the fact that Deeming had also murdered his wife and fosf children at 'Rain hi pool, in England. The bodies had been disposed of in a manner similar to that of his victim at Windsor. The,se,efisdoaures, Deemil l g‘s callous an dindiffer'erft'’behaviour alter his arrest, and the brutality of the • crimes aroused popular feeling deeply. The murdered woman proved to be Emily*-.Mather, with- whom. -.Deeming had gone through the ceremony <if marriage.in England. He . had become engaged after the murder to : a Miss llounsevell, and- at Southern ’Gross he had .already provided the cement..for Hie. disposal' of her.body.. Deeming’,s trial, which lasted for live days, was begun before the late Mr Ju.Hti'cci Thi'dges at the- end--of. April, LSLigv--.The . gyidepco . left no possible (ionof of his guilt. The only possible hope of procuring a verdict in his favor lay in a plea of insanity, widen was not upheld, .despite evidence by Dr J. W. Springthorpe and the late Dr -1. V. Fisbbourne. Deeming was an cxtrlujydinary'jglib ,liar, and Dr Spring th'efpe-' h'ad... : .'t:ie -greatest' diflicnlty 'll arriving at the truth. The vanity ol the prisoner was immeasurable, and he displayed an 'utter - lao-f-j; of remorse lor nis crimes. He pretended that when be changed ..his.... name, lie changed bis identity. ' ' " Deeming admitted that Frederick Wv-liants- —the name lie had used at Rain lull-—had' killed the women and children there, also that Frederick Deeming had killed Emily Mather at Windsor, but neither of these crimes, Ip*, insisted, could be alleged against Bivrr'&n Swanson, the. name be bad assumed ( in' Western Australia, and he vigorously dissociated himself Irom the ».<>!' Williams' and Deeming. Dr Springthorpe’s summing up ol the lile of Deeming was that it bad • been ,‘‘an extravaganza broken by lack of' funds , at intervals/L- ---\ Tkci-A-Edwn kept the medical wit- *■ nesses for the defence strictly to the ' terms of what is known as the McNaimhtcm test, namely, whether at the tune o the "crime was committed Deeming was aware of the nature and quality of 'pis actions. This test was laid down' by a committee ol the House of Lords in 1843, as determining guilt, and in 1891 it bad been mi formed ! *y the Victorian Full Court. Dr Springthorpe could not conscientiously swear to the state of Deeming’aEmind at the time he committed the crime,’in'order to overc'o-me the MeNanghton test. •■•His -persistenGC,,i.n. ■ maintaining his own ccpivictimi:.'qt n.isanitv brought him into conflict wx-a the Court, and Mr Justice Hodges somewhat abruptly terminated his .evi<lence. Tile veiaict-; efi's-gitilty * wAts «i foregone conclusion, and; detuning ,wgs sentenced to death. . The oxiumination -ol >,v Sir Colin Mackenzie revealed Some very interesting features. When man hrsl assumed the upright posture his head was ptafOd 'OH “the spinal column to-, w'ar'f. fife*back of the skull, where aho was the opening known as the toramcn through which the spinal cu i reached Abtr -‘brain. ; to keep the headTrohi sagging fdl'wivrd a bio. a bard of muscle was , attached to the •back of the -skuU; where it was anchored to a bony ridge. , When the upright posture ol man became lir.mlv established the spinal column and the foramen magnum movod forward to the centre ol the base ol the skull, where the head became balanced, and, their usefulness being passed, the heavy muscles and the bony ndgp-disappeared. These changes took placy .slowly over thousands of years. Lven in the now extinct palaeolithic ' Tasmanian native the foramen magnum ■wiTS-’m the centre of the base as in modei'n'.' man, and there was no trace of the bony ridge at the back ol the skuH. ' - ..... if' was, therefore, with no little astonishment that Sir Colin Mackenzie discovered that in Deeming’s skull the opening for the spinal cord was at the back of.'the base 'as in, the anthropoul. r l’he bony ridge at the back was also clearly in evidence. r l Ids, however, was not all. Behind each ear there is a small bony projection on the skull known as the npts.tq.ul process. In modc'rtS'-. linui..these •j-V*iut 1 'directU downward and slightly forward. In the most primitive type of man they sloped backward.

i in Deeming’s skull tne mastoid processes curve backward. The arch ol the skull is a Iso distinctly simian. A east of the oldest human relic known to •science, the .Java skull, when placed upon Deeming s (its it like q cap, Deeming had a Iso the characteristic anthropoid heavy bony structure of the brows. The. cubic content of tl’ie skull is also ' * very, low, and there is no frontal development. showing that the brain’ was of a very low and primitive) type. The skeleton of Deeming also revealed two very distinct anil typical anthropoid characteristics.The angle at which the thigh hones were set in the hip sockets gave- him the shambling ape-like gait that was so noticeable in him. and he also had immensely long arms which reached to his knees.' The, deductions to he drawn from these extraordinary peculiarities are that Deeming was a dreadful anachronism. Me was horn thousands of years too late lor the biological era to which he belonged and comapred with modern man he was hit! onp step in development from the anthropoid, will a moral and intellectual to match. ■ • .• Dike -Sir, Colin Mackenzie. Dr> Spring- . tJu>Kfie.-who.Jms. also exatninud The cast ' matte • from the sktill. ■ Tis’--astonished. iXceminlg Innsl have been totally incap aide of arppeciatil'g any moral precept. H istnind was governed only by Kis inn-, terial needs. Whatever he required he acanired by the mosfc-Mirqct-oieans. If failing wen- the easiest--method of atrtiiilifient, he killed. Deeming’s knowledge dr right or wrong was similar to that of a cat dr dog, which has no moral sense.-, hut which realises wrong-doing because ot former punishment. Just as an animal ('ldfVVlcd in theft will use cunning to eva<hd*r>hnishnicn(. sn Deeming ' used his higher order of animal cunning.' Me was not capable ol remorse for his ’ crimes* and that factor accounts for