KILLED HIM FOR PITY

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 628

KILLED HIM FOR PITY

Strange Crime for Which an English Woman Will Have to Suffer. The trial of Mrs Urquhart last week at Durham for the murder of her husband raises a profound ethical question. The unfortunate woman’s husband was bedridden and a great sullerer. The son who supported them was out of work, and could not provide for them, and they were face to face with starve’ion. Mrs Urquhart, in these circumstances, with her husband’s knowledge and sanction, to put him out of pain, gave him some rat poison, which killed him in fifteen minutes. She then tried to poi*on herself, but was prevented. The jury found her guilty—and no doubt technically, as the law stands, she was. It was obviously impossible, however, to pronounce a verdict carrying with it the death sentence for the act she had committed. Of course, the sentence, when pronounced, would have been commuted, but the jury preferred not to allow the m itter to go so far. They found that the poor woman was not responsible for her actions, and she was accordingly ordered to be do tained during Her Majesty's pleasure. Thi) may have done substantial justice, but it evades the difficulty, and does not meet it. It is quite evident that what the woman did had nothing in common with murder in the proper sense of the word. Some years ago there was considerable discussion among the members of the medical profession on the subject of the so called * euthanasia,’ that is, whether it should be made lawful for a doctor at the desire of a patient suffering from an agonising and incurable disease to put him out of his misery by a swift and painless poison. In the case of ■ dog or a horse we should call this an act of mercy, but we condemn a human being to linger in hopeless suffering. Clearly this is a problem in law and conduct that remains to be solved.— Birmingham ' Mail.*