When the Judge Shed Tears

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 18

When the Judge Shed Tears

Memories of Famous Trials .. . .Pity for Girl Prisoner Could Not Prevent Death Sentence . . . The Man Who Said He Was at Peace . . . .

ROBABLY not. one person in every ten thousand has heard these oldworld words sonorously uttered in a Court of Assize (writes a contributor to the “Worlds Pictorial News ’). The fateful formula is painfully familiar to barristers and others whose duty it is to attend courts of criminal law. But largely it is the same little morbid-minded clique that packs the public gallery either at the Old Bailey or at a provincial Assize session after session. There is au elderly man in Liverpool whose strange boast it is that he has not missed a murder trial at St. C.eorge’s Hall for over 30 years. And outside the Old Bailey—when Hugh Watt, an ex-M.P., was indicted for conspiracy to poison his wife —I saw an aged, white-haired lady—never absent from a cause eclebrd —tender three pounds for a preferential place in the queue. Looking back over an experience of thirty years’ fairly regular attendance at courts of justice, it is difficult to select the most poignant and thrilling scenes one has witnessed. But I think predominance—from the viewpoint of sheer pathos—must be given to the Old Bailey trial of a young woman who became known as “Kitty” Byron. Possibly the case stands*out in personal memory more vividly because of the fact that I had met the prisoner previously—and had befriended her. Once, indeed, I had occasion to quell a quarrel between her and the rather bibulous gentleman to whom she was mistress.

The details may be recalled in brief outline:

At about, noon one Lord Mayor’s “Show” Day. there was a startling occurrence in Lombard Street —right at the heart of the seething City. Londoners are inured to “sensational affrays,” but such an open-air outrage was almost without parallel. A Judge In Tears

Arthur Reginald Baker, a Stock Exchange member of somewhat shady repute, was seen to meet what we now call a “flapper”—a dainty, slip of a girl she was, barely out of her ’teens, with an abundance of raven-black hair, bright dark eyes, and finelychiselled features of Grecian mould. She had sont a peremptory note to his office that he should immediately come ou* to meet her When they foregathered. they engaged in heated converse for a moment or two. Then ~he man dropped to the pavement, thrice stabbed through the heart. “Kitty” had avenged the cruelty and duplicity of her seducer!

I fancy the trial of Emma Byron funder which name she was indicted) was the last on the capital charge* at the grim Old Bailey, then about to be demolished. It certainly was one of the shortest in the annals of that eerie edifice.

The December day was dark and dank. The fog had permeated into every cranny of the court, casting a weird, ghostly spell over the proceedings. The huge chandelier and other gasbrackets fully illumined served only to make the gloom visible.

In the drear dock sat a forlorn female, buoyed by kindly wardresses as periodically she seemed on the point of collapse. A tragic, solitary figure—the Law in all its majesty arraigned against her. Over the head of scarlet-robed Mr. Justice Darling, supported by City dignitaries in their chains and trappings of office, hung the golden Sword

of Justice—encased in its purple sheath.

The task of counsel for the prosecution was as easy as it was unenviable, for t.he commission of the awesome deed was beyond dispute. Had not the accused, in purchasing the knife with a long, sharp blade, said to the shopkeeper; “Do not trouble to wrap it up; I’ll take it ir. my muff’’? And had she not declared to the police, “I killed him willingly, and he well deserved it!”?

The speech for the defence of Mr. Dickens, K.C. (now the venerable Common Sergeant), was one of conspicuous, if unavailing, eloquence, as witness his closing words to the jury on behalf of his softly-weeping client: “Jn this old court,” he said, “there have been many tragic scenes and many terrible sights, but nothing so tragic and so pitiful as this young girl, on the very threshold of her life, standing there awaiting your verdict as to whether she is to live or die. May God Almighty be with her in this the last hour of her trial!” “If I could consider my own harrowed feelings,” Mr. Justice Darling gently and suddenly began to sum up, “I would stop the proceedings, for I would rather not try the case out. Would I had the power simply to say: ‘Go, young woman, and sin no more!’ ” Mercifully. “Kitty” Byron cannot have heard the dread and inevitable sentence. In a stupor, and supported by wardresses, she staggered from public view. When Rufus Was Ruffled There was a silence that could be felt. The only sound to break the tense stillness of the court was the smothered sobbing of women—yes. and of grown men, too. I had never before seen my lord Darling wipe away a tear. “Kitty” Byron was not to die, however. Justice was tempered with mercy with regard to the duration of liei* confinement also. For, if I mistake not, she was a. free woman after having served a little over five years’ penal servitude. • The leniency met with universal approbation, for despite the dastardly nature of her deed, she was a lovable litlo soul. She drew sympathy toward herself in her piteous plight more intense than I have ever known. I have reason to believe that failure to secure the acquittal of Seddon was one of the greatest disappointments in the professional career of the late Sir Edward Marshall Hall.

As one who sat through every minute of the tense ten days’ trial, intently listening to every word of evidence and advocacy, 1 can well understand the chagrin of the eminent barrister.

The facts need be recalled in but few words. Seddon and his wife were indicted for the murder of a Miss Barrow, a middle-aged woman, possessed of modest means, who resided with them in Tollington Park, a fairly select residential district in North London. Arsenical poisoning was proved to be the cause of death. Seddon was in comfortable and improving circumstances, being at the time local superintendent of the London and Manchester Industrial Insurance Company. He was a hard-headed Lancashire man. of a singularly grasping nature. It was shown that the death of his boarder would result in his pecuniary gain in so far, among other things, that payments he had been making on an endowment policy would automatically cease. Links in the Chain

Mrs. Seddon was found not guilty, and set at liberty in most dramatic circumstances. Seddon was sentenced to death, and failed to have the judgment set aside at the Court of Criminal Appeal. To one unversed in the finer points of the law, the general conduct of this case, and its one-sided issue, seemed to be somewhat unsatisfactory. A lay listener did not exactly doubt the justice of the verdict, but he failed to appreciate: how it was secured on grounds of common, as apart from legal, equity.

True, there was a mass of circumstantial evidence, all clearly pointing to the avarice of the male prisoner, and to the posisbility that he might be capable of adopting such desperate and despicable means toward enrich-

ing himself. But some of the links in the chain apepared to he too slight ■definitely to establish his guilt, without reasonable proof, on the capital charge. The famous Rufus Isaacs, K.C., then Attorney-General, and now Lord Reading, was not so unruffled in temper as is his wont. The almost diabolical cleverness of the male accused in the witness-box caused chief counsel for the prosecution to lose his calm, unimpassioned mien again and again. Seddon had a Roland for his Oliver every time. Also, a candid commentator must confess that Sedon was not so well served by Marshall Hall as he might have been. For once the brilliant cross-examiner seemed to miss fire. The facts in prisoner’s favour were magnificently marshalled—in a manner reflecting great credit of the “developing” of Mr. Wellesley Orr, now a respected stipendiary magistrate of Manchester. Somehow, however, Marshall Hall failed to drive them home in all their defensive significance. It was by no means his finest forensic effort. Thrilling Dock Appeal

It is with the unforgettable final scene, though, we are concerned. The return of the jury gave rise to a buzz of excitement in- ourt. Mr. Justice Bucknill, with t;~ Lord Mayor, sheriffs, and City j. i .rmen, filed solemnly back to the bench.

Then suddenly one was aware that the two accused were already in the dock again. They had reappeared as if from nowhere. Quite a number of warders and wardresses, with a prison governor and doctor, surrounded them. The tension in court was screwed almost to breaking-point. Oh! that eager, questioning look in Seddon’s face as he peered toward the jury-box. All the way through one could sense that the verdict hung by a thread. Could iie gleam a moment’s fore-knowledge of his fate and that of his wife by the expression on the features of his judges? Margaret Seddon. —not guilty. She nearly swooned. But Seddon’s face wreathed in a smile of infinite relief. He himself —guilty! Just as quickly he again donned a mask of sublime indifference. As the clerk of the court was formally recording the verdicts, tl}e male prisoner sprung toward his wife and passionately kissed her. The resounding “smack” and Mrs. Sedodn’s sobs alone broke the tomb-like silence. The freed woman, in a convulsion of contrasting emotions, was half-carried below. Had the condemned man anything to say why judgment of death—? He had a full-sized, full-dress speech to deliver on the subject. Such a masterpiece of lucid exposition that address from the dock proved. The man’s intensity and imperturbability were positively uncanny. Marshall Hall did not parade the facts in his favour more calmly arid forcibly than he did himself, standing there, as it were, in the very shadow^of the scaffold. The judge’s secretary toyed with a little square of black as the prisoner spoke. The kindly judge listened with rapt attention and unexampled patience.

At long last Seddon brought his self-defence to an eloquent end: “I swear by the Great Architect of the Universe,” he concluded, “that I am innocent of this crime. I have been the victim of a set of circumstances over w r hich I had no control. Do not ask me to make my peace with my Maker. lam at peace!” Then the black cap was belatedly placed over the trembling judge’s silvern wig. So ended what was possibly the most pulsating interlude ever known in a court of justice.