Selling Her Honour.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 4, 22 January 1913, Page 62

Selling Her Honour.

One of the greatest journalistic outrages witiiin 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 the deliberate, cold-blooded murder of Miss Barrow. an elderly spinster, who was a “paying guest” in the Seddon menage. Mrs. Seddon was arraigned with her husbaml for the murder, but was acquitted. Seddon was hanged. He protested his innocence to the last, and his widow invoked the name of God in witness of the innocence of her husband, and paraded heartbroken grief and undying devotion and fidelity to him. Within seven months the heartbroken widow had found another partner (a Mr Cameron), and the fact that s*he had done so was paraded in practically every paper published in the United Kingdom. This speedy discarding of widow’s weeds camo 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 Tew 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.

Tn the box at the Old Bailey Mrs. Seddon represented herself as a ministering angel, attending unweariedly through the long hours of night on the dying Miss Barrow, but an angel quite ignorant of the fa<*t that death was near. Then a few days after Seddon *8 conviction she wrote a pathetic letter, evidently designed to influence public opinion in favour of a reprieve—in which these passages occurred:— “I cannot believe that my husband has been found guilty of murder. Both of us all along have been confident of an acquittal. . . . “Now 1 feel sure that there must bo many people who feel as 1 do that my husbaml has suffered an injustice, and I fervently hope that- they will take advantage of the first opportunity of signing the petition which will be issued on his behalf. “It would be some solace to me to know that there were people in thn ■world who still believe in my husband’s innocence.” And in another published letter she wrote: Before I left the Old Bailey for good I saw my husbimi again. He was just the «*nme as ever. I should like the .public to know what he said. ’Maggie/ he know I am absolutely innocent «»f this dreadful charge. God is my judge. He knows. For goodness’ sake, it is no use you breaking down like this. You have the children to think of.’” Mrs. Seddon also took nq active part in the drawing up of the petition for Seddon'A reprieve, a part, so well acted that she wan able to undergo the ordeal of endeavouring to address a Hyde Park demonstration. An<| now we have, her ■'confession” in front of us. Therein •he tells us practically that she knew her busband meant to do away with

(Miss Barrow, and knew exactly how he was compassing her death. As the poor old lady, on the night she died, was 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 hotly should -become cold as soon as possible, in order that the doctor should think that the poor woman had died before he (Seddon) came home.” But, as "John Bull” has been at some pains to point out, it is quite probable that in her- anxiety to make her "confession” as dramatic as possible, Mrs. Seddon has not taken particular pains to stick to the truth. As "Bull” remarks: "Liars should have good memories—and newspapers which buy ‘confessions' from liars (and probably help to write them) should have good sub-edi-tors. 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 she divulged what she knew, and so on. -with the following passage from the ‘Confession’ :—

“ ’As we stood in the dock through those weary days at the Old Bailey, “I did it,” he whispered. ‘‘l did it, Meg, but if you’ll help me, by God I’ll help

you! If the worst comes to the worst, and we are both sentenced, then I’ll speak up and tell the truth, tlrtW I am guilty and you are innocent.” “‘I did it,’ he whispered; ‘I 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 thy world think or a creature who, for the sake of a few pounds, is willing to publicly brand her children as the offspring of a murderer, and of a woman such as her confession makes her out to be? And what can we thing 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 husbaml had installed themselves as shopkeepers—have vindicated that. They made their views so painfully plain that, acting on police advice, Mr. and Mrs. C-ameron closed the shop and. left for parts unknown. J It is a shameful business whichever way one looks at it. -