STORY OF A SKULL

Hokitika Guardian, 20 March 1930, Page 2

STORY OF A SKULL

DEEMING THE MURDERER. Recent re,inovals of the remains of criminals executed in the Melbourne Gaol ail'orded an opportunity for a careful examination of the skull of Frederick Baylc-y Deeming, the murderer, which was made by the director of '.the Australian Institute of Anatomy, Professor Sir Colin Atackenzie. He was astonished to find that in Deeming, by an extraordinary lapse of Nature, a prehistoric man of the earliest primitive type known to science had been born in the nineteenth century. The evidence of the ii’einains proves that Deeming was little less than a dangprous animal. In AI arch, 1892, the body of a woman was found under a hearthstone, embedded in cement in a house at Windsor, Melbourne. The crime was traced to Deeming, who (under the name Barron Swanson, had lied to Southern Cross, AVc-,stern Australia), where he was arrested and whence he was brought back to Alelbourne. In the meantime, inquiries instituted by the Argus, through its London representative, brought to light the fact that Deeming had also murdered his wife and four child rep at Ramhill, near Liverpool, in England. The bodies had been disposed of in a manner similar to that of his victim at AVindsor. These disclosures, Beaming's callous and indifferent behaviour after his arrest, and the brutality of the crimes aroused popular feeling deeply. The murdered woman proved to be Emily Aiather, with whom Deeming had gone through the ceremony of marriage in England. He had become engaged after the murder to a Miss Ron use veil, and at Southern Cross lie had already piovided the cement for the disposal of her body.

DEEMING’S TRIAL AND SENTENCE.

Deeming’s trial, which lasted for file, days, was begun before tile late Mr Justice Hodges at the. end of •April, 1892. The evidence left no pj;siole doubt of his guilt. The only possible hope of procuring a verdict in his favour lay m a plea of insanity, which was not upheld, despite evidence by Dr J. AV. Springthorpe and the late Dr J. \. Eishbourno. Deeming was an extraordinary glib liar, and Dr Springthorpe had the, greatest difficulty in arriving at the •truth. The vanity of the prisoner was /immeasurable, and lie displayed an utter lack of remorse for bis crimes. He pretended that when lie changed his name he changed his identity.

Deeming admitted that Frederick AAhiliams —the name he had used at Rainhill—had killed the women and children there, also that Frederick Deeming had killed Emily Aiather at AVindsor, but neither of these crimes, lie insisted, c-ouid be alleged against Barron Swanson, the name he had assumed in AVestern Australia, ami lie vigorously dissociated himself from the acts of Williams and Deeming. Dr Springthorpe’s summing up of the life of Deeming was that it had been “an extravaganza broken Iby iack of funds at intervals.”

The Crown kept the medical witnesses for the defence strictly to the terms of what is known as the McNaughton test, namely, whether at the time the crime was committed Deeming was aware of the nature and quality of his actions. This test was laid down by a committee of the House of Lords in 1842, as determining guilt, and in 1891 it had been reaffirmed by tho Victorian Full Court.

THE SCIENTIFIC VIEWPOINT. D-r Springtliorp-e, could', not conscientiously swear to the state oi Deeming*s mind at the time he committed the crime, in order to overcome the AlcNaughton test. His persistence in maintaining bis own conviction of insanity brought him into conflict with the court, and Air Justice Hodges somewhat abruptly terminated his evidence. The verdict or guilty was. a foregone conclusion, and Deeming was sentenced to death. The examination of the remains by <Vr Cblin Mackenzie revealed some very interesting features. When man first assumed the upright posture bis head was placed on the, spinal column toward the back of the skull, where also was the opening known as the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord reached the fora in. In order to keep the head from sagging forward a broad band of muscle was attached to the hack of the skull, where it was anchored to a bony ridge. When the upright posture of man became firmly established the spinal column and the foramen magnum moved forward to the centre of the base of tho skull, where the head became balanced, and, their usefulness being passed, the heavy muscles and tigs bony ridge disappeared. r l licse changes took place slowly over tiiou-

sands of years. Even in the now extinct palaeolithic Tasmanian native the foramen magnum was the centre of the muse as in modern man, and there was no trace of the bony lidgo at the back of the skull.

REMARKABLE DISC LOSER ICS. JL was. therefore, -with no little astonishment that Sir Colin Mackenzie discovered that in Deeming > skull the opening for the spinal cord was at the hack of the base a,s in tile anthropoid. The bony ridge at theLack was only clearly in evidence. Tins, however, was not all. Behind each ear there is a email bony projection on the skull known as the ma.-coid process. In -modern man tlr|ie point directly downward and slightly forward. In tlie most primitive typo of man they sloped back ward.

In Deeming’s skull the mastoid processes curve backward. The arch of the skull is. also distinctly simian. A cast of the oldest human relic known to science, the Java skull, when placed upon Deeming’s, fits it like a cap. Deeming had also the characteristic anthropoid heavy bone bo-no structure of the brows. The cubic content of the skull is also very low, and there is \no frontal development, showing that tile 'brain was of a very low and primitive type. The skeleton of Deeming also revealed two very distinct and typical anthropoid characteristics. The angle at which the- thigh bones were set in the hip sockets gave him the shambling ape-like gait that was so noticeable in him, and he also Imd immensely long arms which reached to his knees. The deductions to be drawn from these extraordinary peculiarities are, that Deeming was , a dreadful anachronism. He was born thousands of years too late lor the biological era to which he belonged and compared with modern man he was out oho stop in development limn the anthropoid, with a moral and intcllecuai capacity to match.

NOT CAPABLE. OF REMORSE

Like Sir OJiili. MaAo.mzie, L” Springthorpe, who has also examined the cast made from the skull, is astonished. Deeming must have been totally incapable of appreciating any moral precept. His mind was governed only by his material needs. AA 7hatover lie required he acquired by the most direct means. Tf killing vt-re the easiest method of attainment, ho killed.

Deeming’s knowledge of right or wrong was similar to that of a eat or a dog, which has no moral sense, but which realises wrong-doing because- of former punishment. Just as a-n animal detected in theft will use ctlulling to evade punishment, so Deeming used his higher order of animal cunning. He was not capable of remorse for his crimes and that factor accounts for his callousness.