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May 19, I860.] The Leader and Saturday A...
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THE OFFICE OF COllOXEJl. ONE of the grea...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Case Op Tile Bev. Henuy John Hatch. ...
sliced could continue to believe them . All the disadvantageous circumstances concerning the Plttjimees came out , strengthened and confirmed by their own testimony . The children were shown 4 o have been brought up in a most disreputable and disgraceful manner ; the mother to have bee ignorant , vulgar , violent , and addicted to drinking ; the father to be so entirely under the control of his wife as to be afraid of contradicting her ; and the whole household to have been of the most disorderly character . On the side of Mr . Hatch , many things which had previously told against him were so explained as to have a contrary effect , and others much mitigated in their appearance ; and , above all , it was shown by the evidence of Stephaniethe younger sister , a child of eight years ol
- , age that she and Eugunie did understand the nature ot such mysteries of iniquity as were discussed on the tri . il long before they went to Mr . Hatch ' s , though the poor infant could not say how and from whom she had acquired her precocious knowledge , father , mother , and children continually contradicted each other in their testimony , and the fabric of false-witness , which had been so carefully constructed , was shattered in a few hours . 1 he result was such as might have been expected . Baron Chanxeix summed up with his usual perspicuity and fairness , and the jury , after a deliberation of two hours and a quarter , found a verdict of guilty . It is difficult to see how they could have arrived at any other decision ; and the result for Mr . * Hatch is , that he will now receive a free
pardon , and be civilly restored to his place in society . But the moral importance of these remarkable trials docs not end here ; a consideration of them must involve many serious reflections upon the law of evidence , on the constitution of juries , and on the necessity for courts of appeal . We shall , therefore , only close our discussion of the subject so far as it relates to the wretched girl , now removed from the control of her most unfit and incompetent parents . Every one who is not blinded by prejudice , must rejoice in the leniency which has been manifested in the sentence pronounced by Baron Ciiaxneix on this miserable little culprit . She will have an imprisonment for three weeks , after which , for two years she will be placed in a . reformatory , where , it is to _ be hoped , some regard to truth will be impressed on her depraved mind . Her friends talk of carrying out , of course with the consent of the Court , an arrangement of their own for her benefit ; but we trust that any such arrangement will be subjected to the severest
scrutiny . «•" " '" . a And now that Eugenie Piatsimf . r is in the hands of justice ,, and that the friends of Mr . Hatch arc in expectation of his obtaining Her Majesty ' s pardon for crimes which he _ did nptjjomm . , we shall take a " early opportunity , perhaps in our next ^ number , of investigating some , at least , of those considerations which arise out of the-recent trials .
May 19, I860.] The Leader And Saturday A...
May 19 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 469
The Office Of Colloxejl. One Of The Grea...
THE OFFICE OF COllOXEJl . ONE of the greatest blots upon the English administration of justice is the practically irresponsible power given to the unpaid magistrates in rural districts . In a large number of cases the " glorious unpaid" have a strong personal interest in the matter before them , as when a man is charged with poaching before a bench ^ f ynw < A-pi'Paft »^ lng-fiqMh ^ taT -oK . n inan . known or suspected of being a poacher is charged with an offence of another kind , which offers a pretext for getting him out of the way . Constitutional lawyers tell us of the crime of lesemajeste , but in rural districts lese squirearchy is a much more sei'ious offence , and woe betide the unfortunate peasant who does not appreciate the blessings of the feudal system under which our villages are managed . The squire does not mean wrong , and is scarcely conscious that he does wrong . He manages the county rates without the consent of the rate-payers ,
-whom he has been brought up to look upon as an inferior sort of people , born to be subject to his control . His tenants are not independent -ninkers of a bargain , in which the obligation is equally divided , but linmblo suitors , who obtain permission to employ capital on the cultivation of his fields upon condition of doing all sorts of feudal service beyond the payment of rent . They ¦ must keep foxes to eat up their poultry , in order ' that the great man and his friends may ride after them when tlieyplease ; and they . must not complain of damage done by a Nimrod invasion of their fields . They must employ no labourers whom the squire ' s gamekeeper does not approve . Tliey must feed ns many rabbits upon their turnips as the great man wishes to keep at somebody else ' s expense . They must vote which way they are told at Parliamentary elections , and sign petitions in . favour of church rates whenever the parson has imbibed thosquiro ' s port , and obtained nn order fur such an . expression of his tenants '
ews . Wo ennnofc wonder that tho chief actors in this feudal play should dislike tho free and popular character of that ancient and valuable institution , tho Coroner ' s Court ; nor need wo be surprised that for many years post county magistrates have exerted themselves to reduce ' its powers and limit its utility . Nor have they stood alono , for a few years ago a Criminal Law Commission reeoinmwnded entirely subordinating tho coroner to the magistrate , nud taking away from his inquisitions tho character of initiating a formal charge for another Court to try . In . a similar spirit of Degression ¦ upon a popular and constitutional authority , Mr . II . Pownam < , tho Chairman of tho Middlesex Quarter Sessions , recently advised tho 41 Select Committee on the Offico of Coroner" to recommend tho abolition of the jury , and to obtain a statuto , according to which tho coroner would hold ' tho inquests all by himself , and , when ho thought necessary , ouuse further proceedings to be taken beforo tho ordinary magistrates .
The magistrates have fought this battle by attacking " coroner ' s fees , and by obstructing . the information upon which his proceedings could be founded . This has gone on for many years , and the spirit of the remarks made some time a ^ -o by Sir James Graham in the House of Cojninons is quite , applicable at the- present - day . The . right ' honourable baronet " observed at the time of the Norfolk and Essex poisonings : " There was reason to believe that in the county of Norfolk no fewer than twenty pei'sons had died from poison administered by one individual , and in none of these cases had an inquest been held . " He added : " The magistrates of Devon had even gone to the length of coming to the resolution not to pay the costs of any coroner's
inquests , when the verdict was / died by the visitation of God . ' The resolution had a most injurious effect in preventing inquests in many cases , when they ought to have been held . " Actuated by the ignorant and mischievous spirit of the magistrates , the " Commissioners on the costs of prosecution " proposed to deprive the coroner of all discretion as to holding inquests , and to ] : > ny him for being a useless officer by a salary instead of by fees . The " select committee "to which we have referred approve of the fixed salary , but wisely reject the proposition to take away the coroner ' s discretion . They do not , however , seem to have a very clear notion of what is required , and their report does not suggest the idea that the present sort of Members of Parliament are properly grounded
in the elementary knowledge of constitutional principles or of jurisprudence . They wish an Act of Parliament to declare the cases in which coroners' inquests ought to be held , whereas any fixed declaration of the kind would operate as a mischievous limitation . There are cases in which the non-holding of an inquest is very properly deemed an offence for which the coroner may be punished , but no set of rules could be framed to fetter his discretion without taking the most valuable .. part of . it . away . ¦ For five hundred years the ' law has been , that inquests should be held in the cases of " all violent deaths , all casualties by which death ensues , all sudden deaths , persons found dead , persons- dying-in prison , lunatics who die by . suicide , and felons of themselves . " The law would have
worked well enough if honestly carried out ; but those who did not like the coroner ' s court set up all sorts of quibbles , . with the object of preventing inquests , except when the case . was so plain thatit might bereft with : tolerable safety to the police tribunals for preliminary investigation . The " Select Committee" think that "it is of the utmost ¦ importance to the preservation of life and the detection of crime that inquests should be held in all cases of violent or unnatural , and also iii all eases of sudden death , when the cause of death is unknown , and also when , thoxtgli-the death is apparently natur ral , reasonable suspicion of criminality exists . " What is a " reasonable suspicion of criminality ? " This would be a most difficult thing to determine , and it would 4 > e a dangerous thing to affirm ' that in the
absence of such suspicion no inquest ought to be held . Whenever there is reasonable doubt as to the cause of a death , it should be left entirely to the discretion of the coroner to hold an inquest if ho thinks fit . When murders are ingeniously committed , there will very often be no apparent circumstances'to create a suspicion of guilt , and it is only'by carefully , searching'for the . unknown cause of death that detection can take place . Mr . Tor > n . the envoi-or for Hampshire , mentioned a remarkable instance of this .-ort to the UoTtmn 7 ETwT ~ 3 tTn ^^ was in a fit , and that if they did not make haste s'ha would be dead . The woman was found dead , and " some very slighlcircuinstanec " induced Mr . Todd to have a post inortcvi examination , which proved thiit she had been murdered , in a manner that would never the child murders
have been suspected . In the case of numerous . that took place some time ago for the sake of the burial fees , the deaths appeared the natural " result of infantile cholera , until the circumstances were closely examined , and the truth appeared . The present rules of the Hampshire inn gist rates would prevent-an inquest being held in the case mentioned by Mr . Todd , and more Kssex poisonings nii ' ght take place with probability of safety , if tho coroner could only ' make nn inquiry after positive grounds for suspicion had appeared . Whenever a death takes place -the-cause of which is obscure , it should be left to the coroner to determine whether or not an inquest is desirable . It would not follow that one Would be held without preliminary investigation , for , as Mr . Paykk very properly remarked , tho duty of a-coroner is to obtain information beforo ordering an inquestaiid not to proceed without a sufficient cause .
, Tho discretion of tho coroner should not be fettered by a hidebound statute . Like other functionaries , he is amenable to public opinion , which supplies checks more safe and , efficacious than those of positivo law . Still less -should tho coroner ' s jury be tampered with . It is ft most valuable constitutional right that twelve impartial men should exercise tho functions of jurors in such case ? . Their opinions are of great value in deterring evil-doers , and their recommendations have constantly led to tho removal of causes of accidents or crime . Moreover , wo must never forget that in seasons of political excitement a coroner ' s court may be aprimo took lac
safeguard of liberty . When the Manchester massacre pe , the magistrates' iiiisconclii < 't w »* , even according to the private opinion of Lord Kr . wox , of very questionable legality , —but they received tho thanks of the bad Government of tho day . It is possible that similar times may conic again , and it is well to know that if official persons should net so as to cause lorfs of life , it will not bo in tho power of other official persons to screen them , so long as tho coroner ' s court exists in its ancient rights and dignity , and twelve free citizens can , by their verdict , consign presumed olknders to a jury trial , and can append such comments to every ease as the dictates of moral justice niny require .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19051860/page/9/
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