THE SEDDON MURDER.

Southland Times, Issue 17244, 15 January 1913, Page 2

THE SEDDON MURDER.

WIFE'S ALLEGED CONFESSION’. (From Our Own Correspondent). LONDON'. December fi. One of the greatest journalistic outrages within the memory of living man has been perpetrated by the London “Weekly Dispatch.” in publishing the disgusting “confession” of Mrs Cameron, the erstwhile widow of the man Seddon, who was executed last April for Hie deliberate, cold-blooded murder of Miss Barrow, an elderly spinster who was a “paying guest” in the Sodden menage. Mrs Seddon was arraigned with her busban 1 for the murder, but was acquitted. Seddon was hanged. He protested his innocence to the last, and his widov. invoked the name of God in witness of the innocence of her husband, rind paraded heart-broken grief and undying devotion and fidelity to him. ithin set on months the heart-broken widow had found another partner (a Mr Cameron), and the fact that she had done so was paraded in practically every paper published in the United Kingdom. This speedy discarding of widow’s weeds came as a 'bit of a shock to those who had been lavishing their sympathies on the grief-stricken relict of the murderer, but it was nothing compared to the shock they experienced when they found she had. for the sake of a few pieces of gold, branded her helpless children for all time as the offspring of a particularly cold-blooded and callous murderer, whose wife —according to her own confession—was an accessory before and after the crime, a self-confessed perjurer. a hypocrite, and a blasphemer. In the box at the Old Bailey Mrs .Seddon represented herself as a ministering angel attending nnweariedly through the long hours of night on the dying Miss Barrow, but an angel quite Ignorant of the fact that death was near. Then a few days after Seddon's conviction she wrote a pathetic letter— evidently designed to influence public opinion in favour of a reprieve—in which these passages occurred: — “X cannot believe that my husband has been found guilty of murder. Both of us .jU have been confident of an acquittal. "Now I feel sure that there must he many people who feel as 1 do that my husband has suffered an injustice, and T fervently hope that they will take advantage of the first opportunity of signing the petition which will he issued on his behalf.

"It would be some solace to me to know that then- were people in the world who still believe in my husband's inno-

cence. And in another published letter she wrote; “Before I left the Old Bailey for good 1 saw mv husband aealn He was just

the same as ever. 1 should like the pub* He to know what lie said. ‘Maggie,’ h* said "you know 1 am absolutely innocent of this dreadful charge. God is mjJjudge. He knows, For goo 'ess sake* it is no use you breaking down 'ike this* You have the children to think of.’” Mrs Seddon also took an active part in the drawing up of the petition for Seddon’s reprieve, a part so well acted that she was able to undergo the ordeal of endeavouring to address a Hyde Park demonstration. And now we have her "confession" in front of us. Therein, she tells us practically that she knew, her husband meant to do away with Miss Barrow and knew exactly how hj« was compassing her death. As the poor old lady, on the night she died, wa* moaning and groaning in agony, this female fiend, according to her own account. stood at the door watching her husband "mixing water from fly papers and white precipitate powder.” She saw him "approach the bed and give Miss Barrow several doses." She saw him. whilst the unhappy victim still breathed, strip her of her clothing, explaining that it was "important that the body should become cold as soon a* possible in order that the doctor should think that the poor woman had died before lie (Seddon,) came home.” But as “John Bull' has been at some pains to point out. it is quite probabl* that in her anxiety to make her "confession" as dramatic as possible Mr* Seddon has not taken particular pain* to stick to the truth. As "Bull" remarks, "Biars should have good memories—and newspapers which buy "confessions” from liars, (and probably help to, write them) should have good subeditors. How can the "Dispatch” reconcile the tale that the wife knew all about the murder from the start, had actually seen it being committed, and had been threatened with death if sh* divulged what she knew, and so on, with the following passage from th« "Confession”: — "As we stood in the dock through; those weary days at the Old Bailey, ‘I did it,’ lie whispered. ‘I did it. Meg, but if you’ll help me by God I’ll help you! If Hie worst comes to the worst and we are both sentenced, then I’ll speak up and tell the truth, that I am guilty and you are innocent.’ ” "J did it,” he whispered; ‘‘l did it, .Meg." And yet she had seen him do it, and he had threatened to shoot her if she told anyone! There are many discrepancies In Mrs Seddon’s confession which suggest that her confession consists to a considerable extent of statements which are by, no means “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ - But passing over that, what can the world think of a creature who for the sake of a few pounds is willing publicly to brand her children as the offspring of a murderer, and of a woman such as her confession makes her out to bo? And what can we think of the newspaper that buys and publishes such a confession? As for public opinion the good people of Birkenhead —where Mrs Seddon and her new husband had . Installed themselves as shopkeepers—have vindicated that. They made their views so painfully plain that, acting on police advice, Mr and Mrs Cameron closed the shop and left for parts unknown. It is a shameful business whichever way one looks at it.