THE "UNWRITTEN LAW."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12176, 27 November 1917, Page 8

THE "UNWRITTEN LAW."

\VflESs> SHOULD THE LINE BE DRAWN BETWEEN '< WILFUL MURDER AND "JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE''?

("Pearson's Weekly.'')

"No motive can be adequate for murder!" Thus is the British law defined by an cnvinont K.C of long experience at the criminal bar.

In other words, the law of this country does not approve or adopt the sentimental doctrine that is known throughout two hemispheres as "the Unwritten Law.'' Nor i*. it, likely ev?;r "to recognise that doctrine, or put, it into practice, unless there is special. legislation on.the subject. The theory of the Unwritten Law is that the taking of life is justifiable if the act'bo comnutted in the defence of a, man's honour. Continental and American juries times without number have been swayed by this extra-legal hypothesis, but in the more strictly judicial, atmosphere of our British Courts it; >ias always been held that homicide, it in the slightest degree premeditated, is nothing more nor lessTTian wilful murder. KILLING NO CRIMEBritish law recognises three degrees of homicide: felonious, excusable and justifiable. Felonious homicide is " wilful murder." Excusable homicide falls into two divisions, viz.. killing m self-defence and killing by accident or misadventure when doing a lawful act in a lawful manner. . .lustifiYole homicide is divided into two classes, viz., executing a criminal in conformity with a legal sentence or killing to prevent an escape, and killing to prevent an atrocious crime. In neither of these, cases is a crime, committedIn is .justifiable homicide for a woman to kill a man in defence of her honour. Ir may be construed into justifiable homicide for a husband or father to kill another man in defence of his wife s or his daughter's chastity, and that is Tn« only .loophole by which a plea ot the Unwritten Law may "he entered m a British trial"for murder. DEFENDING HUB HONOUR. A woman may go to all lengths for her honour. That is a principle upheld by judges and juries the whole, world over. Recently we have seen it vindicated in the trial of a young Welsh servant, girl for the murder ol a man who had planned her ■ ruin. She was unhesitatingly acquitted bv the jiTry. and Mr Justice Sankey, in summing up the case. said. "For a, woman _ virtue is the pearl of great price; it belongs to the humblest domestic servant no less than to the Queen upon her throne. A woman is entitled to defend her honour, and if she kills the man who attempts her ruin, then that, is not murder but justifiable homicide." . There is not always an immediate acquittal in such cases. Mrs Proudlock, who killed one. William Cromer Steward at Kuala Lumpur in the Malay States of Salaugor, pleaded that she shot the man in defence of her honour, but was, nevertheless, sentenced to death on the. capital charge. She was respited, and eventually appealed to the Sultan of Salangor to grant her a, free pardon- -which he did. Turning to trials that, /fall more, exactly within the category of the, Unwritten Law, many will recall the case of Captain Rains, vho was sentenced in .1900. to eight years' imprisonment for the shooting of William Annis. an author and publisher, nh Long Island. U.S.A.. but was released from gaol after serving two years of bis term.

Captain Hains, an officer in the L'nited States Coast Artillery, was assisted in the shooting by his brother, Thornton Hains. who kept a crowd of other men at. bay with a drawn revolver while the captain shot Annis dead and, as the reports asserted, " floated over his dead body." At his trial Captain Peter Hains stated, that he killed bis victim because on comiup home from active service in the Philippines he found the publisher had been paying- undue attention to bis wife.

Tn France also the judicial records abound in cases where the Unwritten Law has secured a triumphant acquittal for husbands who have taken upon themselves the right to avenge their marital wrongs.