THE HAVANT MURDER. Acquittal of the Boys Accused. A PAINFUL CASE. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, December 29.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 342, 13 February 1889, Page 3

THE HAV ANT MURDER. Acquittal of the Boys Accused. A PAINFUL CASE. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, December 29.

To the list of crimes inspired by tho Whicechapel murder must now be added the Ha van!; child assassination case. No stranger or more pitiful mystery than this apparently motiveless crime has ever been investigated beforo an English Assize Court. "The victim," says a contemporary, "was a mero child, Percy Knight Serle, of the age of eight; and the boy Husband, who was put on his trial on the charge of murder, was nob much older, being not yet quite twelve. On the night of November the 26th last Serle met his death in a public road and the first person who gave the alarm was Husband. He was noticed running away from the scene of the tragedy by a man, Platt, who gave evidence. When Husband caught sight of Platt he at once crossed the road to him, and told him excitedly how there was a • tall man murdering a boy up there.' Platt, hand in hand with the lad Husband, arrived at the spot, and found littleSerle on theground bleeding profusely, with a terrible wound in the neck, from which he immediately expired. Husband's story was that he had been standing a little way off, and saw a tall man, ' with something like a light patch on his back,' murdering Sei'le, and that he then saw him run away in a certain direction. At fiiv.t a hue-and-cry was raised to find this escaped murderer ; but at length suspicion rested on Husband himself, and he was arrested. Tho evidence against him was purely circumstantial, and was by no means of a convincing nature. The chief point on which the prosecution relied was the fact that the knife with which the deed was done had been found, smeared with blood, iand was believed to belong to the accused. Husband was proved to have >been trj'ing ,to sell such a knife just before; he, was also seen by a youthful companion i brandishing an open blade, and protending to be the Whitechapel , murderer. This latter incident, however, is ' one that is so painfully common among boys just now that no conclusion can be justly deduced from it. At all events, the medical evidence w^nt to s>how that whoever did the deed must have had a good deal of blood on his hand and shirt-cuff ; and when Platt took Husband's right hand' and led him to the scene of the, ciime there was no wet blood on it, and there was no distinct proof that there had been any blood-stains on the clothing of the accused. As regards motive for the crime, it was suggested that there was a grudge borne by tli6 prisoner against the deceased owing to his refusal to serve him with coals. It was shown, however, that the lads had played amicably together, and it id horrible to suppose that a boy of eleven would plunge a knife into another boy's throat because of some trifling disagreement. The jury took all these circumstances into consideration, and seem to have had no difficulty in coming at once to the conclusion that they should return a verdict of acquittal. " If, as eeems to have been the case, there was no absolute motive to explain why the accused should have committed the crime, supposing that he did so, there is the same difficulty in asoiibinjr the deed to any other hand. Nobody has much reason to desire the death of a little inoffensive schoolboy. We are thrown back on the theory that thei - e leally was a tall man, a stranger, of the kind which Husband described lurking about Havant at the time, and that from some insane homicidal freak, or out of mere brutal wantonness, he stabbed the boy and then decamped Who was the assassin ? Several mysterious strangers were remembered, when the murder became known, to have been seen hovering about the South Coast at that time. Rumour told of a man in a high hat who dashed up to a roadside station not far from the scene of tho tragedy, and jumped into a caniage as the train was starting. No such .person, hovever, has been traced, and it is remarkable that no evidence confirmatory of Husband's statement was produced at the tiial. The Havant boy-murder, therefore, sinks back into the region of the undiscoveied, and probably undiscoverable. All that can safely be said about it is that it would 'require tar more .testimony than was adduced 'yeVerday and the day before at Winchester to condemn any human being to the gallows. Nobody seemed at all clear or positive as to whether the knife which' was found near the spot where t the tragedy happened, and which admittedly was covered with blood, was Husband's or some other lad's or whether it "had lain there for any time or had only jusfe been thrown down. It is no doubt a dangerous habit for schoolboys to possess pocket-knives, of such a size tint 1 * they can be conveniently made into murderous weapons ; and at present youthful imagination is excited by hearing of tales of undiscovered crime, and therefore .boys ought to be especially cautioned against playing at murdering each other. Between dishing a poGket-knife, however, 'in a of fun and plunging the same weapon into a companion there is a very wide difference indeed. The medical expert who 'was called deposed that it would have required much strength to 'drive home tho blow, and further added that he should have expected the clothes of a boy who did such a deed to be covered with blood. That Husband washed his hands when he went home seems undoubted ; but it is mere begging the question to suppose from that fact that he was washing- away ..bloodstains. A great deal was made of a supposed discrepancy between the, account first given by tho accused as to the details of the event, and one which he subsequently volunteered. Ho said, in the first place, that he had been standing under a certain lamp when he saw his companion being

attacked ; but later on he appears 'to- have said that he was standing close to a certain door nearer the scene. From the position at first described it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for anybody to see the place of the murder at all ; but it will be evident at a glance to anyone conversant with human nature and with murder trials that no weight whatever can be attached to a discrepancy of this sorb. A boy who had witnessed such a crime would have been almost certain to be so excited and horrified that he would not know the precise details," and would blunder in describing them. It is usually the deliberate cold-blooded criminal who makes no such mistakes ; the fact of a little lad contradicting himself might with reason be thougnt to be evidence for innocence rather than guilt. Altogether, while there will be a sentiment of public relief that Husband has been acquittejd of all .share in the crime, there will remain the sense of uneasiness at this murder also having to be added to the too long list of secret and unexplained assassinations."