THE HALL CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 7162, 16 March 1887, Page 2

THE HALL CASE.

The only persons who are likely to be particularly dissatisfied with the general reaiil£ are people of spirits pi' or Imaginative discernment—people who, mixing all the cir ; cumstanoes of the case with their positive and their intuitional knowledge of humat} nature—are morally and philosophically convinced of Hall’s guilt, and who find the con tapt qf their conviction with those ruling principles and practices of English law which stand in the way of its supreme legal gratification resulting-in a most rasping sense of the eternal unfitness of guch things"; These, however, are the yery people who are entitled to chief consideration in the matter. They are to be met with in every section of the community. With thpm resides the highest sense of justice at present in existence, and what is likely to be the highest sense of justice for a considerable portion of the future. It was this sense of justice which found expression in the conviction of Hall. . . . The obvious duty is to make the law harmonise with what is admittedly the highest sense of justice in such matters. If this is not done, unparalleled blackguards will not only be able to commit unparalleled crimes with impunity, but to live on in society, like terrible disease germs in the earth, liable at any moment to become the malignant causers of agony and horror.— * Nortk Otago Times.’ . A late issue of the ‘ American Reporter ’ contains a reference to an extraordinary case decided by the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas, the Court affirming a conviction for murder founded on very slight evidence. The facts were shortly these : In November, 1884, J. W. Baldwin died in Atchison, Kas., leaving a small estate, a widow, and two children—a son (William, the" convict) and a daughter (the deceased). The mother was made administratrix of the estate, and performed her duties to the satisfaction of her children, and betwen them all the most kind and harmonious relations existed. In June' 1885, the mother went to Bloomfield, lowk) for Let health, jeaving ‘‘daughter in charge'’ of the house in which they lived —the brother residing only a few blocks away with his family. The brother was financially embarrassed. By the law of Kansas the mother inherited the daughter’s property, and of these laws the prisoner had been informed by the Judge of Probate. On the evening of July 7, 1885, the deceased was at a neighboring ice-cream swoon, Und returned to 'her'home 1 at half- • East nine o’clock in company tyitb'a Mt . «wis, her accepted'suitor. Gn the following evenjng she yas found dead In her bed, 'lit her nightdress, with a pillow

lying on her face and a small _ bottle labelled “ poison ” was found in the bed. It was discovered that one of the panels of the outer door had been removed, apparently with a knife. The brother was charged with having caused her death by administering chloroform. The facts relied on by the prosecution were exceedingly slender—viz., that prisoner had said he was going to St. Joseph ; that while in that city he bought two bottles simil irly labelled to theonefound in his sister’s room, butevidenee of identification by the druggist was very weak; that the marks on the door-panel seemed to have been made by a knife-blade like one belonging to the prisoner, who had admitted being out that night. No motive for the commission of the crime was proved. The ‘ Reporter ’ says the case ought never to have gone to the jury, but should have been dismissed by the trial Judge on his own motion. Presumably, though not expressly stated, the prisoner was convicted, because the * Reporter,’ asserting it to be a case of complete failure of inculpatory evidence, expects that the Appeal Court will do whatithe trial Court should have done, viz., declare that there was no evidence whatever to warrant a conviction. Hie most remarkable feature of the case is the dictum of the Judge, who told the jury:—“lt must bo admitted that the evidence of the defendant’s guilt is not entirely conclusive, but it is of such a nature that honest and intelligent men might differ in opinions as to its sufficiency to justify a verdict of guilty.” .