THE SOUTH-END MURDER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1194, 18 January 1895, Page 9

THE SOUTH-END MURDER.

THE HOAD TO THE LIALTEH. A CLEVER, TOO CLEVER, CRIMINAL. From Our Special Correspondent. London, December 1. The nows of the conviction of Mr James Canham Read was received with the greatest satisfaction throughout England, and it is earnestly to be hoped that long before these lines appear in print he will have reaped the earthly reward of his cruel crimes. Of course the usual petition fora reprieve lias been promoted by tho prisoner’s friends, and being a popular person amongst his fellow-work-men, it will be numerously signed. But Mr Asquith is not the least likely to do more than read it.

The doomed man belongs, I take it, to much the same c/enus as Mr Grant Allen’s “Curate of Chirnside" in “Strange Stories." He has iron nerves, no conscience, and an absolute lack of moral responsibility. All his relations seem devoted to him. His wife, whom he deceived, his sweetheart, Miss Kempton, whom he basely seduc, d, and his brother, whom ho mixed-up with his intrigues and compromised, havo nevertheless remained absolutely faithful to him. “It is no uso," said Mrs Read on the day after her husband’s conviction, “it is no use folks keeping on saying as James were a cruel man. From the day we was married to the day he left me for that wicked minx Kempton, lie were always kind and good to me. Depend upon it, if he’ve done wrong that ’ateful Ayriss creature or that ’ussy K mpton set him on."

In the same way Miss Kempton scoffs at the idea of Read murdering Florence Dennis. “He never gave rue a hard word, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. To talk of his murdering is sheer nonsense, ’’ she said

Harry Read had a firm belief in Jim’s setting off,, not necessarily because of his innocence, but because lie was “loads ’cuter” than a lob of chump-head “coppers" (police). All his life Harry had looked up to Jim as a paragon of smartness. It was incredible anyone should be able to “land"him.

There does noc seem any reason to suppose that the convict disliked Florence Dennis Simply she was in.his way, and he removed her believing he could do so safely. The Evening News publishes two letters of Read’s written to friends whilst in prison. They give a very good idea of the flashy cleverness of the man, and also of the vanity which was the dominant note of his character. Needless to say he knew very well they would find thevr way into print. The first letter is dated October 20. It alludes at the outset to the supposed death of a friend’s child, and he says, “ I suppose it was like the unfortunate firstborn of Ei>ypt. ‘ which beasts had already succumbed, first to the murrain and then the hail.’ If this is so it was very rough on the kid." Ho makes a jocular allusion to the health and spirits of his friend, exhorts him to “ put in a healthy old time in this vale of tears," and proceeds :—When I get out of this I propose taking about four solid uninterrupted hours in the prime of the morning, in a special tote a tote with you, to tell you in the choicest and most emphatic Eng’isli at my command what a double-barrelled, fatheaded, sawdust-brained, wandering, demented, daft, irresponsible imbecile you are. A.s Falstaff says : “ Oh, for breath to utter what is like thee !" It can’t be done under four hours ! I did propose giving reasons why, but will reserve them ; pen and ink will surely fail if the smallest introspective capacity on your part has not already convinced you how thoroughly you have deserved the above “delicate hint,” of your impaired judgment! That’s what you are, you blithering idiot. Was the world as mad as this when I fust became a dweller in this agglomeration of cubicles or has it gone wrong since out of my control ? I had need to hurry up, and out of it, to have set things right once more. To measure out justice to all is, I fear, hopeless—an ordinary life is not long enough ; but I do mean to make a supreme effort, as an acknowledgment to a few chosen ones. I am stt. sj-in. in my socks, and my fighting weight is 9st 101 b, but I am one of that sort of worms “ what turns,” and don’t let some of 'em forget it. Eat the leek! Why, I’ll make ’em eat granite, and beg for hell as a relief. “They shall digest the venom of their spleen, though it do split them," as my friend Marcus Brutus says. But friends I have, and their adoption tried, “I’ll grapple to my soul with hoops of steel,” as Ophelia’s pa told us at the Lyceum. Of course, I don’t know how to weld the steel hoops to the soul arrangement, but I suppose my solicitor will know, he’s a lawyer ; and they say lawyers know everything—about bills of costs—l say what a fraud everything is; and with what little wisdom the world is governed. You only need ever so slight a peep

behind the scenes to lcnow “ how’s it’s done.” With respectable stationery, a brass plate, a brass face, and no conscience worth speaking of, you may set up as you choose —as either a solicitor, a barrister, a doctor, an architect, a notary public, an auctioneer, or even an insurance broker —for if you know absolutely nothing you may hire a ghost for 25 bob a week and mouth his technicalities—thus ’tis done. I’m out of this, into the professions—no hard work for me—high-class sweating is the card. When 1 first went to Southend I was inundated with all sorts of Paternoster Row literature, among them very many of those pretty embossed texts, with silver or gold letters, on a chocolate or sky-blue ground, with silken cords, for hanging on walls, with “God is Love," “Jesus Only," “ Thou God soe’st me," etc. As I was saved, and those around me were only policemen, and therefore past redemption, I gave them nearly all away to them, hoping against hope. I wonder if the shower will set in again when the papers begin to embellish their pages with my virtues ? Thanks for cutting—it is purely imaginative—do not post me any more of them, but keep them until I come out, for my scrap-book. I may utilise them later on in a projected autobiography to be entitled “Reminiscences of a Fathead’s Friend." Here Read makes an allusion to the fact of the detectives questioning his children as to his whereabouts, and proceeds Don’t you see what it means? Only this—that after nearly four months of hunting about all over the shop, that they don’t know now where I was. They are right dead off the rail with no screw jack on board. This to me is very amusing, but if I had been ass enough to open my mouth as wide as some people have, I should have lost the pleasure of seeing these people nosing round the back premises of Cooper and Co. They are quite 50 miles out now. I told them they were on the wrong scent in the very beginning, but they would not take my word.

In a letter dated October 30 Read writes —I got hold of the Daily Chronicle yesterday, and is it not teeming wil h news of mutual interest ? First there isGilbert’s new opera—another big success I hear. I should so like to see all the old faces together agaiu—Barrington, Grossmith, Bond, Barnett. It is quite a powerful company, with the added strength of Le Hay, Mclntosh, and Kenningham with his delightful tenor voice. In Lloyd's this week the critique of this is illustrated by young Horace Mills, who wrote “Pimple the Pirate," “Robin Hood"—for which I wrote several lyrics—and “Miss Esmeralda" for the Gaiety. If yon should be “ Lyric" way you might get me the libretto of “ His Excellency," and post along to me. How are your nerves after the “ Rosebery " thunderbolt ? Mine are all to pieces. What is it to be—evolution or revolution ? Is this to be the order of developments for our times—lß7o, Education Bill ; 1884, Reform Bill ; New Democratic Vote ; Homo Rule Bill ; House of Lords Bill ; One Man One Vote Bill ; General Chaos and Disintegration Bill—The Devil ! Let us by all means have a representative House of Commons, and the suffrage i 3 wide enough for the next ten years, seeing one-third never vote and one third don’t know how to ; but one man one vote would ruin us.. Fancy trusting “the Mob" with the Government of such an “intricate" empire as this—who know as much of the ethics of politics as my boot ! As usual I am with the cold logician Joseph, who told U 3 to stick to the Second Chamber we have “ until we get one better." CONDUCT OF THE TRIAL. Mr Lockwood’s conduct of the Read prosecution (his first criminal case since he become Solicitor-General) has been the theme of general praise at the Bar. In moderation, in good taste, and yet in all the essentials of a conclusively proved case it loft nothing to be desired. Read’s defenders, on the contrary, made, as I uggested last week in my summary of tne case, rather a mess of it. In putting forward an alibi attributing even a deeper degree of moral turpitude to the prisoner than he had previously been accused of, they blundered shockingly. It did away with the last vestige of public sympath for the man. How hopeless the poor wretch’s chance was believed to bo by experts was revealed to me at the Saville Club the other evening, where an eminent legal luminary announced in the smoking room that the defence was all wrong. “If 1 had had the case,” said he, “I would have contended that the wonirn taunted him, and that in an access of fury he fired and killed her. Verdict—manslaughter." “But ho would have got penal servitude for life," suggested someone. “ Very likely," said the luminary, “but that class of ruffian clings desperately to life. Anything is better than the halter." READ AND MRS MAYBRICK. The behaviour of the doomed convict Read is so admirably natural, and what you would expect an innocent man’s to be, that the prison authorities are said to have serious doubts whether circumstantial evidence may not (as on one or two previous occasions) have proved misleading. The man asserts that on the day before Dennis was killed ho spent the whole of the night at home, and that hia

wife might have proved this, only, of course, she couldn’t be called. There were, however, other people in the house who did not labour under this disability. Moreover, though Read’s neck seems now in imminent danger of being uncomfortably stretched, he still refuses to say where he spent the day of the murder. This man, who, according to his own account, basely betrayed Mrs Ayriss, wishes us to believe that he would rather die than compromise a woman's reputation. The audacity of tho pose is its most striking feature. But Read has always been a magnificent actor. I quite believe he will play the innocent victim to the last, and go to the scaffold with edifying simulation of calmness. It is, perhaps, worth mentioning, as a curious coincidence, that at the time of the Maybrick furore Read was one of those who wrote to the papers to urge that the capital sentence should be carried out. The Judge and jury must, he argued in words admirably suited to his own case, know more about the affair than outside critics.

Mention of the Maybrick murder reminds me that the lady has : —according to a letter from one of her staunchest supporters—petitioned Our Gracious Sovereign personally for a re hearing of her case. “As this request cannot possibly be refused,” writes the good man with cheerful ingenuousness, “it i 3 anticipated that an enquiry will at once be arranged for.”