THE SOUTHEND MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9711, 5 January 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SOUTHEND MURDER.

A STUDY OF THE CHIEF ACTOR IN THE TRAGEDY. Last week we published a summary of the evidence of the trial of James Canham Read - for the murder of Florence Dennis Read at Southend on Jane 24. The following interesting sketch of the condemned man is given by a writer in a recent London paper There is a natural tendency on the part of those who have just sat through a famous criminal trial to exalt it above all other criminal trials While I bear this weakness in mind, I have no hesitation in saying that the Read case, every word of which I followed closely and carefully, is in many respects unsurpassed. First of all let me say a word or two about the personality of some of the actors in the drama—beginning, of course, with the prisoner. James Canham Read was no vulgar insensate ruffian. Many —nay, most —murderers are brutes with no more intelligence than a leg of mutton, and they listen to the record of their villainies unmoved. Read was a brute, if you like, but he had brains and education enough to appreciate the logic and the overwhelming case which the Solicitor-Ueneral presented against him. When a particularly damning fact was established there was an instant response on the part of the prisoner. Despite his long training in deceit and double dealing, and despite a more than ordinary amount of self-control,

HE SHOWJSD HIS AGITATION instantly by the convulsive heaving of his chest, the nervous twitching of his hands, and the repeated wiping of his brow and lips. Everyone in court seemed to recognise bhab the man had no case, and no one appreciated the beggarly poverty of the case for the defence more thoroughly and more absolutely than the prisoner himself. Another thing which made Read an intensely interesting study for the psychologist was the amazing record of his complicated deceits. The case was simply stuffed with elaborate fictions, false names, feigned addresses, and disguised handwriting. Head could, on the slightest provocation, and sometimes apparently without reason, spin a plausible yarn about cousins who never existed, could mourn over the illness of a child whom he named, but who existed only in his imagination, and could describe with a wealth of detail yachting expeditions which were equally non-existent. He lived with success nob only a double bub EVEN A TREBLE LIFE. He deceived his wife altogether. Miss Kempton he also deceived basely, bub he shared deceits with her on some point?, and chuckled in his letters to her over their success in taking in their friends—all the time chuckling over the fact that he was taking in her also. He deceived Mr. Ayriss as regards his wife, Mrs. Ayriss as regards her sister, the victim, and also the victim herself. How he remembered to play all these different parts correctly—keeping the tales he was telling different people carefully distinct, which name was known to this victim and which to that, the names of fictitious cousins and imaginary journeys and business calamitiesstruck those who heard the whole tale of constant plotting and intrigue as positively wonderful. Another impressive feature in the case was the

TRIUMPH OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. It is one of the mouldy commonplaces of the intellectually lost to say thac circumstantial evidence is unreliable. If anyone were to say that after following the Head case as anxiously as I did, then he is fit for Bedlam. The case against Bead was not only proved, but it was proved again and again, and this brings me to another striking personality in the trial— mean the Solicitor-General. Mr. Lock wood's reply to the defence was a masterpiece. As he went on every possible avenue or even loophole for escape was shut up one after the other. The prisoner had no longer to deal with silly or lovesick women, and when once his tricks and dodges were submitted to the cold-trained scrutiny of alert de tectives and keen counsel, the whole amazing superstructure tottered and fell. His conviction did nob depend upon any one issue. The prosecution could afford to give points and yet win easily. Another feature of the case which deeply impressed me was the melancholy succession of heartbroken or ruined women who followed each other through the witness-box, all of whom can trace their misery to him. There was something positively loathsome in the DAPPER, WELL-DRESSED SCOUNDREL, evidently still consumed by conceit, as he sab in court apparently unabashed while poor Miss Kempton told her sad tale, wretched Mrs. Ayriss had again to make her confession, and two other sisters and the mother of the murdered girl had to come forward to testify against the murderer. James Read seems to have resembled on a paltry ucale that historic villain—was it nob the Duke of Alva?—of whom it has been said that he bad no virtues and only a few vices, but the vices were colossal. For it is significant that the condemned man was not a hard drinker, he was not a gambler, he was not lazy as regards business, and until there was an overwhelming cause he was not dishonest. He had nearly £1200 passing through his hands every week at the docks, while his salary was but £140 a year, and yet the monthly audit always showed his accounts to be perfectly straight. His vices were in another direction. He was, as the judge put it, a man of licentious and foul life, and when one of his victims began to become troublesome he did not hesitate to lure her out for a quiet Sunday evening walk and then to coolly shoot her through the head. Nothing' was more thrilling in Mr. Lock wood's speech than that part in' which he showed that the spot where the crime was committed

HAD BEEN CAREFULLY SELECTED. The scoundrel was seen strolling about at the very place on Sunday afternoon some six hours before the deed was done. He was beyond all doubt coolly choosing a good site. He had arrauged the meeting first by a telegram, and then by a preliminary meeting the night before. The revolver was in his pocket loaded and ready. Everything that cunning could suggest had been done, and if only he had been right in his conjecture that no one knew of his intimacy between Florence Dennis he would probably never have been so much as suspected. It was the gradual unravelling of all this complicated villainy that made the case so fascinating to the onlooker. The very precautions ho had taken when they were revealed and explained made his damnation deeper. And then the crowning impudence of his defence was the tale that he could easily explain his whereabouts on the fatal night, bub that to do so would involve the disgrace of some other woman nob mentioned in the case. After his career had been shown to have been strewn with betrayed and heartbroken women he actually wished the jury to believe that ha was a model of chivalry who would sacrifice his neck rather than smirch a girl's fair fame ! I have said that Read was a man of intelligence. How horribly conscious he must have been of the paltry feebleness of

SUCH A DEFENCE ! I shall nob soon forgeb the furtive glances he darted at the jury to see how they took tho amazing suggestion, and the manner in which he writhed as the Solicitor-General disposed of it with scorn. I don't think Read will confess. The traib of tricky deceit is too deeply ingrained into his character for that. Bub none of the jury need feel any qualms about the verdict, for uot only did the judge express entire concurrence with it, but it will also have the concurrence of every man who has followed the case and who has a grain of intelligence.

READ'S BROTHER INTERVIEWED. Harry Read, the brother of the condemned man, on being interviewed by the Morning was in high spirits and confident of his brothera's ultimate liberation. He said:—" Despite the whole of the evidence put forward by the prosecution, and the theories propounded by the SolicitorGeneral, my brother will be able to prove to the Home Secretary, to whom an appeal will be made, a most convincing alibi. I am certain from my knowledge of the case, and from interviews that I have had with my brother during his temporary incarceration in gaol, that he will be able to demonstrate that he was many miles distant from Southend on the night that Florence Dennis was done to death. He (i.e., my brother) can, if he chooses, absolutely prove bho statomeub that be

made to the judge that he was fifty miles distant from the scene of the murder on the night that it occurred. Up to the present | time & kind of fanatical heroism has per- i vaded his intellect, and be has declined, even to his solicitor, *to give away' the name and address of the latesb woman with whom he was oh familiar terms, and with whom I understand from him that he stayed on the night he was alleged to have been at Southend. In the interest of his friends, and for the protection of his own life, he is now bound to depart from his chivalrous attitude and speak the truth. _ I have little doubt that once he complies with these not unnecessary demands on behalf of his friends, the whole troth will be forthcoming, and the Home Secretary will grant him, so far as the charge of murder is concerned, a free pardon. From what 1 know, I have no hesitation in saying that the verdict of the jury at Chelmsford today is against the facts that could have been produced if it had nob been for my brother's absurd ideas of honour where woman is concerned."' The Morning Leader says that when Mrs. Ayriaa left the court, escorted by Sergeant Warden, she was loudly hissed, and even assailed by such disgracefully foolish cries as " That's her that really fired the shot." To avoid the crowd, the officers took the witnesses through some private premises into another street, and ultimately got them away by train without unpleasant incidents. All the afternoon, however, a gradually diminishing crowd surrounded the Shire Hall, misled by the mistaken impression that Mrs. Ayriss was still in the building. After dark there were still people waiting in the expectation of seeing the unfortunate woman.