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I A PARALLEL TO THE PRINCIPALITY.…

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I IRELAND. I

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I AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.—THE…

I PALLIATION OF MURDER.

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I PALLIATION OF MURDER. In the west of England, last spring, two women poisoned their father because, as they said, they could do better without him than with him. One of them afterwards strangled her aunt, in conformity with an opinion that old people should not live too long, and that they ought to be checked in their propensity that Way. The crimes were clearly proved in evidence, but great interest had been made in the neighbourhood for the prisoners, and the jury acquitted them. As theii- sit, a- tion was afterwards rather uncomfortable, a subscription. was raised to send them abroad, where they might live more happily. Their crime was, as it is phrased, luo making of them. Mary Gallop, like the parricide sisters, found her father in the way, and that she could do better without him. He was an obstacle to a match she wanted to make, and having heard a story of a woman who poisoned her husband, it struck her that she might conveniently and safely rid herself of her father by the same means. She made two attempts to accomplish her purpose, for she was not to be balked by a failure, and the second succeeded. The crime was clearly proved; the defence set up was, of course, insanity; the woman's mother had been insane when pregnant with her, and at some subse- quent periods but the Chester jury did not see any grounds for concluding that the prigoner was of un- sound mind, and found her guilty, but recommended her to niercy The Judge, Mr. Baron Gurney, treated the recommendation with as little respect as it deserved. At Taunton they acquit parricides; at Chester they recommend the parricide to mercy. A petition for pardon has been got up, which we have no hesitation in pronouncing the most monstrous exhi- bition of diseased sympathy that has ever disgraced one time. It bears the signature, amongst others, of the Bishop of Chester- "REASONS FOR PETITIONING THE QUEEN TO OBTAIN A COMMUTATION OF PUNISHMENT TO MARY GALLOP, NOW UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH IN CHESTER CASTLE. 1. That we have reason to believe that the ac- count of her past life and confession of her guilt to true, not confirmed in its leading points, by the evidence on her trial. 2. That it is highly probable that until the time when she committed the crime for which she was con- demned to death, her life had been irreproachable, and that she had conducted herself as a teacher in a Wesleyan, Methodist School tcifh strict propriety. 3. That the dreadful crime which she confesses of causing the death of her father, does not appear to have been long premeditated, but to have been accidentally suggested to her mind by a person in her company relating the circumstance of a wife having poisoned her husband by obtaining arsenic for the alleged purpose of" destroying rats and that she, namely, Mary Gailop, being at that time in great distress of mind disa,,)- pointed affection, and the determmatwn of her father not to sit??)- her to marry the young man to whom she had been long attached, suddenly resolved to overcome the obstacle to the ?ccoM??s?Mip?? of her wishes, by the dreadful crime of taking away the life of her father, and that she was not influenced to the great crime by any malignant hatred to her father, but as a means that occllred to ?ey mind of enabling her to marry the person to whom she had engaged herself. "4. That should the Queen's mercy be extended to this miserable woman, she might prove of great use in being employed ?t teaching young persons in one of the schools in any place to which she may be transported & that she ma,' have the means, by 'a life of peiii?Len?ial sorrow, to make a more effectual preparation to appear before her Maker, than the limited time now granted to her, if her execution take place at the time now fixed. 5. That the revolting spectacle of a young female being publicly executed might be avoided, and the inha- bitants of Chester spared so shocking and painful an exhibition. 6. That the jury who tried her case recommended her to mercy." This is nothing less than an apology for murder. The murder was purely an affair of the heart. The arsenic was only calltd in to smooth the course of true jiove. Parents have flinty hearts, no tears can move them, so poison is the compelled resource. The French talk of marriages of cjnvenience. Ac- cording to the Bishop of Chester, this a murder of con- venience. There was not an atom of hate in the arsenic. Mary Gallop wished her father no ill, but she wished him out of the way, and put him out of the way accordingly. And look at the circumstances treated bv the Bishop as extenuating. She heard a story of murder instead of feeling any horror at it, the idea of imitating it only strikes her mind. Then comes the calculation of safety, how the death by the means of poison forkilling rats would be attributed to the bowel complaint. The method of ac- complishing the crime is in keeping with all the rest the poison, bought in pennyworth after pennyworth, attempted to be administered in a cake, but that failing, no compunction, no relenting, but another expedient, with deadly success, adopted. The Bishop's petition states that the parricide sud- denly resolved to overcome the obstacle to her wishes but though the resolution may have been as sudden as the adoption of any evil purpose may be to a very depraved and evilly disposed mind upon the first pre- sentation of the idea of it, the means of °giving etiect to jit were far from precipitate, they were maikcd with method and perseverance. The plea that there was no malignant hatred to the father is one of the originalities of criminal sympathy. A highway man cuts the traveller's throat to obtain his purse there is in this no malignant hatred to the traveller he is killed as the obstacle to the possession of the purse. Altogether this is the most shocking and disgraceful document that has ever been publicly put forth in this country, and for its proper treatment the Bishop's .petition should be burnt by the hand of the common hangman. It may be very shocking that the people of Chester should have to witness punishments, but more shocking stiil would it be that the people of Chester should have the commission of the worst crimes encouraged amongs t them by the avoidance of due chastisements. AU unfit indulgence to crime is encouragement—all unfit mer. y to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. Upon the first discovery of a crime there is alway"s a natural burst of horror and indignation, and upon the first discovery of Mary Gallop's crime, what would have been thought of the proposal to make her a teacher in consideration of it ? The feeling in the first instance may exceed on the side of rigour, but it is juster cud more accordant with true humanity than that in the direction of vicious sympathy, which runs riot in the revision that so commonly follows upon the approach of punishment. The inconsistency between the defence of the parri- cide and the petition for pardon must not escape notice lin this case. In the defence insanity was .be picn, bus 'he prisoner represented as insane to the Jury is presently afterwards sane enough for the instruction of ?youth. I It is unusual to discuss questions of this natu'e ? Spending consideration, and the al ternative of life and icleath; bn t elf'! ),utuJ'e from the rule if silence has b?n compC'iJed by the monsUuus petition in palliation ot Smur der put forth by the Bishop of Chester, Chancellor ERaikcs, and a great number of the clergy and gentry of gChe.ter.—Abn?cd from the L'.?Mi??'.