STARTLING CASE OF MIS TAKEN IDENTITY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1280, 10 September 1886, Page 3

STARTLING CASE OF MIS TAKEN IDENTITY.

A strange and startling scene relieved the mom'ony of an otherwise commonplace coihner’s inquest at the East End ot London last week. The inquiry had reference to the identity of an unfortunate '• found drowned,” and generally believed to have committed suicide. “The principle witness,” says a commentator on the case in the • Daily Telegraph,’ “ was one Thomas Kirby, a clerk in the employ of Messrs Carter and Co., the seed merchants, who identified the deceased as a fellow-clerk of the name of Wilson, who was engaged temporarily from December last to the beginning of June for the work of packing samples and sending them off by post for advertising purposes. Kirby recognised him, among other reasons, because of “ a peculiarity in the fi tigers of the right hand ’ -a mark to the existence of which Dr Howard, who had examined the body, aho testified. To complete the evidence establishing the identity of the deceased. Inspecter Hodson, of the Thames Police, stated that a metal box, answering to the description given by the witnes Kirby, was found in the drowned man’s pocket. In short," the theory that the corpse was that of Charles John Wilson, late clerk in the employment of Messrs Carter, seemed to have been unanswerably made out. There could be only one opposing fact which would avail to overthrow it; but at this stage of the inquiry that fact presented itself in the person of Charles John Wilson himself, who walked into Court j n company with Inspec tor Hodson. What effect he produced by this dramatic entrance the reporter reportelh not ; but it must have been more profound than would appear from the observations, self-contained to the point of frigidity, with which his narrative concludes. The coroner, who seems to haye admirably retained his presence of mind, remarked that 1 this was a startling case of mistaken identity,’ to which the foreman of the jury added that ‘ many a man had been hanged on less circumstantial evidence.’

“Apart, however, from its personal interest for Kirby, the incident is one of a rather disquieting character, and the criticism which it elicited from the foreman of the jury was but too well justified. Many a man has been hanged, as he remarked, on less circumstantial evidence. Had somebody been present who was last seen in Wilson’s company, and who might have had a conceivable motive for putting him out of the way, and had it occurred to Wilson himself at this juncture to take a trip to the Antipodes, it is quite possible and even likely that it might have gone hard with that aomeoody on a prosecution for murder, much fuller preliminary proof that a missing man is a murdered man is in these days deemed requisite, and there would consequently be much less danger than formerly in consorting with men who looked likely recruits for Her Majesty’s Kavy, if the fine old custom of pressing for that ser vice still survived. Before we proceed to convict and hang men for murder in these scrupulous times.we are more careful to ascertain whether a murder has been committed ; although, when the fact of the crime is once established, we must all of ns take our {chance of being mistaken for the criminal. When the murder of a certain man is assumed from the fact that some other man’s corpse has been taken for his, the position of the prisoner is extremely critical. Suppose that the man’s reputed body is sworn to by one of the most familiar acquaintances ; that he himself is on his way to the Australian buoh, there to be out off from man month’s or years from the newspapers of his native land ; but the only defence consisted in an earnest but obliviously interested contention that the deqfl man’s identity had been mistaken. In such a conjuncture of circumstances, the remark of the foreman of Mr St. Clare Bedford’s jury would, we fear, recur as somewhat distressingly apt. It is not every one who can count upon a corpse presenting itself at the very nick of time to procure his acquittal it might miss its {train, or anything else.

The Court might be too full for it to gain admittance, or it might insist upon forcing its way in through the passages reserved for counsel or witnesses, and be removed by the police at the very moment when the jury are returning their verdict of guilty, and the Judge is feeling for the black cap. “ Another reflection calculated to add to the public uneasiness is suggested by the apparently extreme facility with which mistakes of identity can aria ■. Kirby it would seem, had for some six months past been in the daily haMt of seeing the man for whom he had just mistaken somebody else. Prom December until the end of last June he must-have been constantly in Wilson’s company, yet he no sooner sees the body of a total stranger than he at once pronounces it to be that of his fellow-clerk.”