Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/174

166 Think of all this, ye apathetic legislators. And think of this livid and wan child, ye cruel men of mammon. Her little hands can ply her task no more. “The spoil is in your houses.” Oh! but how dare you heap up sin on sin? How dare you with such spoil establish schools? What! you give Bibles to the working classes! you erect churches! Oh, ye poor blind guides! Alas for you, ye poor blind money-changers! And can ye not then see yourselves of those for whom the Saviour made the scourge of cords to drive you from the presence of his holiness? Repent ye: repent ye. Heap no more burning coals upon your heads. Your churches may stand, your schools may flourish; for even Herod when he slew the innocents, helped on Christ’s kingdom; but “I say unto you that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom.” Oh think of it: oh think of it. Heap no more burning coals upon your heads. “Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Think of it—think of it, ye worshippers of mammon. “What can it profit you if you gain the whole world, and lose your own souls?”

And now just a word or two about the case itself.

It seems pretty clear by the evidence of the nurse, Ellen Fowler, and the housemaid, Alice Deacon, that the beating must have continued about three hours. Young Cancellor died hard. Think of this poor stupid fellow, with the water pressing so heavily upon his brain, that for the life of him he couldn’t make out what happened when seven and nine were multiplied together,—and how he was punished because he couldn’t find out. The lawyers say that they could not have pressed the capital charge against Hopley with any reasonable hope of a verdict; but if by the law of England intentions are inferred from acts—and if it is proved that a man continued beating a boy for three hours, and death followed, it looks a good deal like murder. If the school-master had simply given the boy a good thrashing, and there an end, and the boy had died, there would have been less to say. As a reasonable being, he was not bound to know that he was putting the boy in peril of his life. It is another thing when the torture is kept up for three hours. What would the doctors say, if they were asked the question, “Take any boy at random, of young Cancellor’s age, and thrash him for three hours, as young Cancellor was thrashed, and what would be the probable—almost the inevitable result?” What a tight hand the brute must have kept over his household. Here were three women—Mrs. Hopley; the nursemaid, Ellen Fowler; and the housemaid, Alice Deacon—who all heard the child’s screams whilst the Philanthropist was knocking him about with the walking-stick and skipping-rope, and yet none of them dared to come to his help. The nurse slept in the next room to Cancellor; and here is her account of what went on after the boy had been dragged up to his bed-room; this was after midnight. “I had a clock in the room, and I got out and looked at it. The boy kept screaming and crying while he was being beaten; but all of a sudden there was a complete stillness in the room, and about ten minutes afterwards I heard a slushing of water, and then some person went upstairs.” This was the murderer, who had done his work; young Cancellor was killed before he had found out the value of seven times nine. No blame is to be fastened on the wife because she helped to wash away the marks of her husband’s bloody work; but one wonders how a woman could sit up “doing her hair,” or reading a good book, whilst the house was ringing in the still hour of night with the screams of the poor boy in his death-agony. The wretch has got four years of penal servitude before him—a sharp punishment, but scarcely sharp enough for the offence.

It is not worth while to dwell on any cases tried at the recent Assizes which are not in some way to be distinguished from common murders. But surely the case of that unfortunate gentleman who was put in the dock the other day at Lewes for having given a dose of prussic acid to his mother deserves more than passing notice. It appeared very clearly by the evidence produced that he was entirely guiltless, and that he was living on the most affectionate terms with his mother. He had been trained to the profession of medicine, and had prescribed small doses of prussic acid for her, as she was afflicted with spasms in the stomach. On the 11th of July he gave her a dose of the acid, which relieved her sufferings. She went out for a walk; and, on her return, as she was still in pain, he gave her a second dose. In five minutes she was dead, killed by prussic acid. There are two degrees of strength at which prussic acid is sold; and if your doctor orders you one kind, and the chemist’s boy serves you out the other, the Lord have mercy on you! In two or three minutes you will have done with this troublesome world. “Great amusement was created in court”—that is the usual phrase—on account of the answers of the apothecary who sold the prussic acid. He did not measure it, but gave what he considered to be one-fourth part of the bottle. He seemed to have the haziest ideas as to the difference between a drop and a minim; he couldn’t tell what was the strength of the acid which he had sold, although at a venture he would be inclined to say about four per cent.; a pleasant condition this of the prussic-acid market! A patient would not do ill if he told his doctor that he altogether declined to put his life to the hazard of such a game of pitch-and-toss.

Although the case does not fall strictly within the compass of last week’s work, it may not be amiss to say a few words about the Child in the Well. On the 12th of the present month, Ann Barker, a servant, was tried before Justice Byles, at Oxford, for having thrown her child into a well. At a place called Berrin’s Wood, in the parish of Ipsden, near Henley, there is an old well—it is now dry—cut in the chalk. It is supposed to be the handiwork of the Romans, and is by measurement 134 feet in depth—and of the uniform diameter of three feet three inches. It is such an outlying curiosity that few people ever go near the spot from year’s end to year’s end. Into this hole Ann Barker dropped her child, and fled from the spot. You would have supposed there was an end of that child as far as