CAN YOU CONDEMN HER?

Otago Witness, Issue 714, 5 August 1865, Page 3

CAN YOU CONDEMN HER?

f F om th ■ Saturday Review )

We believe that the public at large are little aware of the terrible things which will happen if the evidence at the approaching trial should confirm the confession of Miss Constance Kent, and if that young lady should be convicted of the murder of her brother. It is manifest, from a multitude of signs, that a certain small but energetic portion of the manhool of this country does not mean to stand anything so shocking and painful. Already a score of pens have plunged into the most acrimonious but chivalrous ink, and protested in burning words against such an enormity, such an outrage to all manly feeling, as Miss Kent's conviction of murder would involve. What, in such an event, will become of the wretched Mr Wagner and the misguided Miss Gream, is more than can be predicted at this distance of time. It is clear that, in the eyes of many, two such offensive persons are not entitled to the least pity — we had almost said, the ieast justice; What is found to be so revolting about them is the peculiar callousness and unconsciousness of the enormity of their crime which they display. They evidently have not a notion of the detestible character in which they appear before one portion of the public. On Mr Wagner, as an odious male creature, it is hardly worth while to bestow a thought, or to maintain a tone of average decency when speaking of his proceedings. lie has manifestly scarcely a spark of manly or generous feeding left, or he would never have considered that a confession of fratricide by a tender girl of sixteen required him to act the brutal part he has done. He is a priest and a Fuse} ite, and recommends fasting and confession, with a host of other horrid un-English practices, and what can he know about the thoughts and feelings of gentle British maidens ? How does he know whether it is usual or not with them to murder their little brothers, or tell lies and say they murdered them when they did not? Ho.v should he know ? To know these things, we take it, requires a very different calibre of mind from his. And this lady who styles herself the " Superior," is she much better? Probably she is old, doubtless she has long ago forgotten " the indistinguishable tfirong" of hopes and fears and tender thoughts which visit the bosoms of her young and unfortunate sisters. Deluded by some obsolete prejudices connected with the Decalogue, she has not hesitated to drag into the glare of publicity, and before the rough and ready justice of an English jury, a sweet young thing barely one-and-twenty. She little knows the divine wrath which such conduct kindles in the bosom of frank and generous young Englishmen. Is it to be endured that aa ancient female, full of old-fashioned ideas about murder, should denounce and crush — yes, cru°h — a mere girl for cutting a boy's throat and then putting his body out.of sight down a nameless locality ? Where else was she to put it? But it is of no use attempting to

argue with two such culprits. Only let them know that they, quite as much as the fair captive now in gaol, will take their trial at the next assizes, and that if certain portions ol the press in this country have any influence, stern justice, and a trifle more, will be done them.

This is but a feeble reproduction of the E yle of discourse which, ever eiuce Miss ci Kent's appearance, at Bow Streit, has Is 2en hurled at mankind almost daily by it le or two members of the p<'nny press, rr at especially by one. The utterances of s( le paper may be justly, for aught we s? now, compared, as an acute niric su;r- ci 2sts, to " the roaring of yor.ng lions " s< r, again, such a comparison may he quite o lappropriate, and may need to be re- si laced by one referring to the voice of ai lother animal strikingly v .like a p on, whose skin he has been known s 1 > borrow. Certainly there i- nothing t' ew in having murderers an-1 their a oings thru«t upon our notice wth euch c< nquenchable pertinacity that the advent is [ a distinguished practitioner in tliat line ireatenssoon to become one of the great •ials of English social life. It is past the me for hoping that any protest • jra'nsfc a lorbid interest in ruffians will havj much Ject. We must bear as best we may the aily bulletin of the fashionable murderer's ealth and spirits, telling us at w:. it hour c rose, and whether he expressed himself itisfied with his dinner. This is an old ffliction, aud doubtless we sha'l learn to ear it in time, as we do any other pernnent and immediate nuisance, such as rgan-grinders, Home Secretarits of the umnry species, mothers-in-law, cr Irish ifficulties. But we fear we de'ect a new rial in store for us, and that is t j>j hyper - entimental treatment of prom in? Nt and iteresting culprits. There is no^enjing h?t all the honours of murder arcreocorded sut rarely to any save women, and not yen to them indiscriminately. For , woman to attain the top of he tree in this line, she must >c young, pretty, and of a decent station n life. If she has these qualities she is learly sure to become the most noticed md flattered person in Englan-3. What:ver the evidence may be against her, ;housands will rave at you and declare you ire hardly fit to live if you hint a doubt >f her innocence. Those persons whose :estimony tends to inculpate her are held ip to the scorn of an indignint public, rheir motives, their characters, their mtecsdents are discussed with an impetuous malignity which it ih quire fasiinating to set at work in the cause of innocence. Then come the rhetoric and sentimentalism, and the "grave f'oubts" connected with this " painful case " The " fearful respomibility" we are all of us running — it does not very well appear how — is dwelt upon with elaborate unction We are reminded of the horrors of that "lonely cell"— of the pale, me.k, uncomplaining victim who sits solitary there counting the " weary hours." Are we, wretches that we are, even still thirsting for the blood of that stricken deer? Have njt our brutal laws blasted that " young life" sufficiently already ? And are we determined to pursue our prey to the last hideous, awful, and irrevocable end ? Good, but rather confused, people b'-gin to feel very uncomfortable under all this. Their conscience acquits them of any " thirst for blood," but the authority of print aud the eloquence of their daily Mentor combined make them, half wonder whether they have not really allowed murderous emotions to enter their respectable and c m nonplace bosoms. In any case, the majesty of the law is more or less injured, even if a great miscarriage of justice does not take piaca. A general notion is created that pre'ty and interesting persons are dispensed from from being very good, that hanging goes by disfavor, and that right and wrong are old-fashioned words which have lost a good deal of their meaning now-a-days. We have remarked that these outbreaks never occur in their full intensity except in the case .of interesting young-lady culprits. Old and middle-aged v%o hen must not delude themselves with the idea that they will, under any circumstances, come in for a share of this gallantry to their sex. Not at all. You must be- young and pretty, or take your chance. Of course you cannot be too pretty, and, what is more, you cannot be too young. Balzac fixed on thirty as the age when all the charms and glory of womanhood reach their highest perfection. One half of that age would seem to be the ideal worshipped by a certain class of English writers. In private life ond> occasionally meets with | men who have similar tastes — men who j adore a girl when she can only simper and look silly, but who turn away with indifference from the matured thought and feeling of the adult woman; men to whom wit, accomplishments, and sobered grace

of five-and-twenty are imperceptible or insipid, but who are positively electrified by the monosyllabic prattle, the giggling awkwardness, the pouting impertinence, above all by the short frocks and the frilla of a garment quod versu dicere non est, of the bread-and-butter

Miss. We cannot help thinking that tbie, to say the least, objectionahle frame of mind is at the bottom of the tremendous, bother now being made about Constance Kent, We have been deluged with writing 1 of such heat and violence on this subject that it might be supposed that the English laws were quite inadequate to ensure justice unless the people were lashed into a state of semi-fury to demand it. Nothing but Miss Kent's innocenc3 or madness will satisfy her impassioned and self-elected advocates, and it is haid to say which hypothesis inflames thtir lerocious chivalry the most. Mr Wagner swears that in no way did he prompt or extort her confession, but we are sensible that it i 3 quite natural that a middleaged clergyman should be suspected of perjury, while it is utterly impossible to suspect a young girl of murder, even though sb.e declares she did it Although a trace of insanity has never been discovered or proclaimed, the insane theory is the oae wfcrch reconciles all difficulties; and, whether the facts will bear it or not, it is to be forced upon them. The, " diseased brain" is always a topic which will revive the spirits of some writers, however exhausted they may be. Nothing else, we are assured, could " prompt to such a bloody spasm of sin," although how this curious fact is known we are not informed, unless cacophonous alliteration be a process of discovery. We think it a pity that murder should be the only crime patronised by our srenerous and frea-hearted penny press. Several classes of criminals have ground to complain thit justice is hardly done to them. Thieves, as a rule, are most contemptuously treated. High-coloured leaders are rarely or never devoted to their merits and misfortunes. A fascinating burglar is now and then noticed, but it is usually with the sinister and unfeeling object of dwelling on his guilt and of increasing the odium against him. Possibly this may arise from the fact thit as yet young ladies have not taken to the profession of il cracking cribs" but when they do, a salutary change may be looked for. Again, the unfortunate actors in the Divorce Court rarely meet with the consideration which a magnanimous press should extend to crime. Attention of a certain kind is d^ubtle^s given to the unhappy gentlemen, and the still more unhappy ladies, who find their way there, but it has none of the frank ungrudging sympathy with guilt which, with the progress of the penny promoters of civilization, we may trust one day to see. It is partly, no doubt, the iault of the public, who crowd round the delinquents somewhat with the same feelings of uncomplimentary curiosity that, actuate the lounging cockneys who inspect the monkeys at the Zoological Gardens. This may possibly cramp the journalist m his free expression of sympathy or admiration, which might at present be ill received. But then one of the groat objects and advantages of newspapers is that they correct erroneous popular impulses, and put a check oa objectionable practices. We are, therefore in hope that even Sir J. Wilde's victims may in time have justice done them.

The French Navy.— From recent returns it appears that France possesses at the present moment 491 ships afloat and 18 in course of construction, composed aa follows: — Iron- cased steamers — Ships of the line, 2; frigates, 11, and 3 building; corvettes, 1 building; floating batteries, 13, and 5 building ; batteries which can be taken to pieces, 11. Screw vessels, not plated — Ships of the line, 36 ; frigates, 23, and one building: corvsttes, 11, and 3 building; despatch-boats, 43; smal'er vessels, 1 1 ; gunboat?, 58, aud 1 building ; transports, 46, and 3 building; special constructions, 4 ; paddle-steamers, not plated, frigates, 26; despatch -boats, 34; gun despatch-boats, 23. Sailing vessels — Ships of the line, 1; friga'es, 19; corvettes, 9; brigs, 12; smaller- ships, 65; transports, 29, and 1 building. General total, 509, of which 39 are ships of the lii.c, 89 frigates, 24 corvette^ 28 floating batteries, 77 despatch-boats, 104 smaller I vessels. 12 brigs, 59 gunboats, 79 transports, and 4 special constructions. They carry in. all 6399 gun 9, and the united force of their engines is 103 292 horse power. Independently of the ships of war above enumerated, the French navy also possesses 245 old ships of the line, frigate*, corvettes, brig?, bomb-vessels, transports, schooner.", &c, converted into barracks, guard-ship«, hulks, store-ships, towingvtssels, and others. Post office Savings Banks — At the close of the year 1864 the deposits in the Post-office Savings Banks, with the interest due upon them, had risen to the large sum of L 4.993.123. To meet trm there waa L 4,995.663 at the National Debt-office, and L 18,046 cash in the hands of the Post-master-General remaining to be paid over for investment. The charges and expenses of these savings-banks for the year 1863 amounted to L 45.856, and the sum is stated to have been recovered from the National Debt Commissioners and all but L 13,024 of it before th J ; 1 334