Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The result of M. Orfila's enquiry was, that he found arsenic in the stomach and its contents; but his enquiry as to the muscular flesh taken from the thigh was, so he expressed it, negative. This also agrees with our hypothesis. If the arsenic was put into the body after death, it would indeed be found in the viscera upon which it was strewed, but would not have been carried into the system by the action of the blood and the absorbents, as would have been the case if the poison had been taken into the system during life. Had M. Lafarge died of arsenic, would not the poison have been found in his flesh as well as in the viscera ?

Now then we ask, who is there, who, being a juryman, would from such evidence as this come to these two distinct affirmative conclusions

1. That Lafarge did die, poisoned by arsenic.

2. That his wife knowingly administered that arsenic ? It must be recollected, that in this rapid analysis of the voluminous evidence adduced, we have been compelled to omit many things which require consideration by any one who would fairly estimate the value of the French system of procedure. The more prominent points have alone been regarded -the more marked evils signalized; but even after this short enquiry, we cannot but think that the most cursory observer will discover much to amend in a judicature which, upon such evidence, taken in such a manner, could have arrived at the conclusion which the French court and jury adopted. They have declared the unfortunate accused guilty of the crime laid to her charge. Whether she be so, no man can determine; though any one skilled in the estimation of evidence trained to marshal and employ it under a rigid and effective system can easily determine whether it would be safe--whether it would conduce to the security of society at large to deem her guilty, upon evidence which in itself is so untrustworthy, and received in a manner so well calculated to destroy what little value it might otherwise have possessed. Looking back through the whole evidence, carefully weighing each separate item adduced, trying its worth by every test which the experience of ages has suggested, we are satisfied

:

that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that the deceasedcame to a violent end: still less to show that his wife was the guilty cause of the death. The rude judicial system employed served to increase, and not allay alarm it made a woman a criminal without proving her to be guilty; and thus taught the people to feel, that not only were they exposed to the assaults of the wrongdoer, but also liable to incur even greater harm, from the very means intended for their protection. (1)

(EDINBURGH REVIEW.)

(1) We have purposely avoided all allusion to certain extraordinary circumstances which tend to cast great suspicion on the mother of the deceased. The one hypothesis which we have suggested, is quite sufficient to make apparent the danger of the conclusion adopted by the jury. Our chief object being in fact to point out the still greater danger resulting from the means taken to gain that verdict.

"DON'T BE TOO SURE;"

OR,

THE DISASTERS OF A MARRIAGE-DAY.

James Inkpen was the confidential clerk of the highly respectable firm of Squeezer, Shirk, and M'Quibble, appearing in the Law List annually as duly-certificated attorneys, located in Raymond's Buildings, Gray's Inn. The adage says, Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, »—which, being interpreted, means, "it takes five years to make an attorney, as some wag of ancient days rendered it; and though Jemmy had long since filled this lustrum as a limb of the law, still by some occult process, known and valued alone by gents., &c.,» Inkpen never rose to the dignity of a certificate; in fact, he was nothing more nor less than the confidential clerk.

[ocr errors]

For nearly a dozen years steadily, punctually, and diligently, did James Inkpen attend to the dull routine of a lawclerk's duty. Wet or dry, hail, rain, fog, sunshine, showery, or fair; he was as reckless of the weather as the most desperate disbeliever in the prophetic powers of Murphy. His post was his desk, and no jockey ever made for the post with greater, more certain and assured steadiness than did Inkpen for his seat of dignity as Chancery-clerk, and confidential ditto, » in the middle room in the offices of the «respectable firm above-mentioned. Jemmy was a man of small

[ocr errors]

"

[ocr errors]

stature and of sharp features. He was of remarkably placid temperament, and never was known to have exhibited any disturbance of mind, save on two occasions; once when he found, by the mangle-marks in the fob of a pair of « ducks, » that a sovereign which he carefully concealed therein upon the principle of the Vicar of Wakefield's daughter's guinea, " to have, but not to spend, had been unfairly appropriated by either his laundress or her mangle-woman, or both. The damning fact, that the impress of the George and Dragon which the calicó presented, did not move them to repentance and restoration of the coin, caused Jemmy's indignation to become rife in the extreme. The second occasion was, when in a fit of abstractedness he lit his pipe at a meeting of his club, The Knights of the Blue Plume, with the memoranda of an important affidavit, which he was to get a certain worthy, famous for supplying deficiencies in evidence, to swear to the next morning. With the exception of these two cases, we have every reason to believe that Inkpen had hitherto passed through life and its alternations of pleasure and pain comfortably.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"

In fact, he was a happy man; he had one hundred and fifty pounds per annum sal., as he abbreviated it; the implicit confidence of his respectable» employers; the friendship, that is to say, the deferential subserviency of the other clerks from the fact of his being the cashier, and the general good-will of all with whom he had business, from his unaffected disposition to be obliging and civil. But, though Jemmy voted himself, and, moreover, was voted by all his acquaintance, a good sort of fellow, still there was wanting, as he felt (at times acutely), a something to complete the measure of his felicity; and when Joe Spriggins, Past Noble Grand of the Blue-Plume Knights, and common-law clerk to Diddle'm & Co., used to pump out in a cracked voice the line of Moore's murdered ditty,

"But oh! there is something more exquisite still, »

Inkpen would every Saturday evening remove his yard of clay from his lips, throw himself back in his chair, turn up his

eyes, make his middle-finger do duty as a tobacco-stopper, heave a deep sigh, and finish the display of feeling by convulsively drinking off the residuum of fourpenn'orth of gin warm, which so invigorated him, that, amidst the din of hammering, bravoing, applauding, he could muster up the power to tell the waiter, ere he left the room, in a demistentorian strain, to bring him another go..

n

[ocr errors]

The fact was, Inkpen felt it was time that he had a Mrs. I.: he felt the necessity of perpetuating the dynasty of the Inkpens, and ere it was too late, ere he fell into the sere and yellow leaf, he determined upon committing matrimony, and, eschewing all stale bachelor-comforts, boldly to desh into the beatitudes which belong to the life of a Benedict. Nor was he long after he had come to this resolution in making his selection. A prim damsel, of neat attire, once honoured Jemmy by accepting half the shelter of his gingham in a summer's sudden evening storm. She was a dress-maker of some talent, and was well to do. He was fortunate in protecting her, for she had a flimsy ball-dress under her arm, which would have been spoilt by the sudden torrent that poured down, but for his timely aid. What great effects from little causes spring, this act of attention won her heart; and when she revealed the fact of her frequenting Dr. Thumpcushion's chapel, under whom she sat, every succeeding Sunday evening found Jemmy a decidedly pious attendant close by the side of Miss Juliana Fipps. We say nothing about their moonlight rambles in the romantic locality of Kennington Common,-(Inkpen lodged in Lambeth Walk, where also, did the divine Juliana wield her needle,) or the numerous delicious tête-à-têtes they had in certain arbours, over brownpainted tables, in certain places of public resort yclept teagardens-we believe because they afford accommodation for smokers and porter-drinkers. Suffice it to say, the course of their true love did run most smooth, and in the month of May, 1842, last past, the ultimatum and definitive treaty of alliance for life was agreed upon, to be signed, sealed, and delivered, between James Inkpen, bachelor, on the one part,

"

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »