THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1887.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8007, 11 February 1887, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY).

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1887.

With which art incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845, and the New Zealander.

A rumour, has been circulated with reference to the recent murder trial that one of the jurymen wished to recommend the prisoner Hall to mercy on the ground that the post-mortem examination of the late Captain Cain’s body was conducted in a loose manner. The curiously illogical train of reasoning involved in this conclusion needs no demonstration. If the post mortem were untrustworthy Hall would be entitled to acquittal; if not, his guilt could in no way be mitigated by any carelessness on the part of the doctors who conducted the examination. But while the idea of recommending the prisoner to mercy on such a ground is self-evidently absurd, it must be confessed that the manner of conducting the examination, or rather of recording the results, was by no means so careful or methodical as one would have expected to be pursued in a case of such gravity. The practice of making no notes at the time of examination and of trusting to memory for the future record of results is utterly unscientific and unsatisfactory. Every student of science knows well how fertile a source of error in the record of observation is that human weakness called the “personalequation” ofobservers, which is so tangible an obstacle to accuracy that, in the case of astronomical observers, it is tested and registered like the diurnal error of a chronometer. But if, as is proved to be the case, no two observers see anything in exactly the same way, it is still more certain that no two people ever retain a precisely identical fecollec tion of particular circumstances. They do their best to recall exact words and appearances and incidents, but with the best intentions in the world their memory plays them false in a greater or leas degree. Hence it is an accepted axiom in scientific work that all observations must be written down at the time, and that unless so written down they are always subject to some degree of suspicion. All who have carried on scientific observations of even the mildest type—such as merely noting down the readings of the thermometer —must have noticed how often their recollection of the reading on a particular day fails, on reference, to tally with the written record. It is just the same with travellers who have timed the speed of trains or of steamers ; unless their results are written down at the time they can never be taken as really trustworthy. Surely, then, it is allimportnnt in so serious, delicate, and complex a task as a post-mortem examination that every result and appearance should be noted there and then. No subsequent appeal to the memory, which often plays us such tricks, can be so satisfactory as a simple reference to the written record made at- the . time ol observation. We care not two straws whether it be the English or the Scotch custom to make or not to make notes at the time. There was a good deal of discussion on this point during the trial,, and the . failure tq take, notes, was defended on the ground of its being the usual practice in one part of the kingdom. This seemed to ns" total irrelevance. Whether the observance of duo care in so grave a task be the custom or not matters nothing. If it be not so, than assuredly it ought to be. Questions of life and death ought not to be left to the mere chances of accurate recollections. Every thing should be plainly written down at the time, and this should be made a rule absolute in all future post-mortem examinations of _ so serious a character. In the present instance no injustice was done to the prisoner by the loose method pursued, nor, fortunately, did any miscarriage of justice result. The broad fact of the discovery of antimony was too simple to be subject to any uncertainty of recollection. It was a case of antimony or no antimony, and the result was decisively affirmative. But the case might very well have been otherwise ; and oven in this instance, had not the jury as a whole been an intelligent one, the able counsel for the defence might easily have used the defective methods adopted as a means of discrediting the case for the prosecution. The fact, if it be true, of one juror being so far influenced thus as to strive for an hour to have a recommendation to mercy appended on that ground, shows how nearly Mr Chapman : and Mr Denniston had succeeded ■ in at least preventing a conviction if only by bringing about a disagreement among the jurymen. Such a loophole ought hot to be left another time. ' "