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    5lf# T HTEK LEA 3XE Bl- [No. SaS^S&Timpi...

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    THE TRIPARTITE TREATY. Perhaps the Austr...

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    Palmer's Story—The Untold Part. The Horr...

    guilty class -what they knew * before—that such lotteries hare blanks in them , and that lessen such * gambling involves loss of life ; but the existence of blanks , or the extent of the * loss , do not operate on the gambler ' s mind . If the prize is great ^ the penalty may be proportionate , and he will only feel an additional stimulus to his passion . The chastisement of Palmeb for one ill-conducted crime is ; compensated by impunity in his other'stratagems , and by the impunity which attends those who may be involved in similar transactions and never even accused .

    "We had a very imperfect glimpse of Pal-Brara ' smode of keeping in charge his brother Walteb , upon whose death he claimed money from an insurance office . The insurance office refused that money . We have no statement of the grounds on which the payment was refused . The office , we presume , is perfectly respectable ; it is not supposed to have incurred any blame for refusing what on the face of it was a distinct and valid demand . " Who was the agent for pressing that demand upon the insurance office in April , 1855 ? It has-been stated in the recent trial that Mr .

    Pbatt , the solicitor who negotiated several loans for Palmer , was the agent for making the demand upon the insurance office at the time of Walters death . The demand appears to have been repeated , and to have been under consideration for some time ; but refused with great obstinacy . Again , we say ,

    what were the reasons alleged ? Men do not usually submit to the refusal of payment in cases where sums like 13 , 0002 . are at stake . Xet Palseeb submitted ; and in doing so , he confessed that he dared not attempt to enforce that ' claim . What was it that deterred him ? How was it that his solicitor advised him to submit ? This is one of the dark

    vistfts" into which we are just permitted to glance , but which justice fails to explore . . Bo cases frequently occur in which claims are refused ? Sometimes , we know , claims are refused , and are ultimately enforced in actions of law ; but are there claims which , being refused , are never brought before the law ? ' This question is doubly interesting when we ^ remember that if it had not been

    for the death of Cooke , in November , 1855 , we never should have heard anything about the claim of "Walteb ' s insurance , or the payment of the insurance on Anne Pal-Meb's life . We know , therefore , of two instances of deadly suspicion which would have passed over without the slightest public knowledge , if it' had not been for the very dissimilar case of' Cooke .

    Mr : PkatT appeared J as a witness for the prosecution before the Criminal Court . Itr is qtdte true that no man can lie held answerable for the ch aracter of hi s clients . We are well aware that some solicitors do make a distinction , such as Romill y attempted to introduce , and that they will not act tor men whose- characters they disapprove . This moral distinction finds strong objection from many ,. and'the objection is supported by some cogent reasons . As" at present advised } therefore ; we cannot judge a'lawyer'by the character of His clients . Nevertheless some pregnant' q uestions are Buercested bv the

    disclosure of the relation between PaIiMEb the client and Pbatt 1 the solicitor . We speak in ignorance , desiring to be enlightened . Wb tfre ~ itoblShed to assumo , though there is * no ertoDjeWeni ^ bf the fact , that the solicitor must Batve " Befen informed as to the reafeons for wujicH-the * itifrurttnjje office refused ' payment in * "Wai *» w PABitimte case . Mr . Puatt continued- to'be- in' communication with Palmeu after < fhatf refusal } and , in some respects , to act ror ' Hn ^ . ' Pbefl ' ifc often Ijappeivtliat solicitors ^ btott'bri the part of their clients to the re * ftrtiaU of payment to the amount of 13 , 0007 . P

    Do they suffer such refusal to pass without knowing the reasons ? Money was raised for Cooke at sixty per cent , discount . We perfectly understand the risk' of dealing with a manlike Palmeb . Does it frequently hap * - pen in the business of London solicitors that they have to obtain money on those terms ? that their clients are willing to pay such terms ? Are other instances known to the legal profession in which the refusal of thousands by an insurance office , or the obtaining of thousands at sixty per cent ,, may go on for months ? Are such instances

    numerous ? Do gentlemen in the profession consent to deal with clients and with thousands sterling , under circumstances of great obscurity ; or do they sometimes receive a light upon such transactions Avhich they abstain from communicating to the police ? Here , again , is a whole dark field , as dark as pitch , iuto which justice has just looked , without inquiry . Yet , again , we say , the punishment of a man like Paimee is very little ^ help to those who may fall . Bet Palmer be hanged to-morrow , and how many are rescued from that bottomless pit ?

    We have before said that the case was exceptional only in the extreme character of the crime , in the recklessness of the criminal , and in the detection . Now there were other persons living at Rugeley , and some of them have been brought before the court of justice as parties more or less involved , with Palmbb . Were there any others who guessed at the nature of his crimes ? Did they still associate with him ? Did they help him ? One

    helped him to the last : it was Mr . Jeremiah Smith , who , after the character of Palmer had been completely laid before the Central Criminal Court , was brought there to make statements favourable to the prisoner , and was dragged into stammering contradictions which lent a new darkness to the whole story . Now , do Palmer ' s associates stop with that Jeremiah Smith ? Were there others : and what amount of knowledge had they of Palmer ' s transactions ? What amount of

    profit had they ? We may safely affirm , on the statement of the evidence before the Central Criminal Court , that the murder of Cooke was not the only case in which Palmer had been criminated . We found that in that one case there were several persons more or less implicated

    with the criminal , and in strange mysterious ways which implied conscious irregularity ; in some cases for the sake of profit . If justice had pursued ] its investigation , it might , perhaps , have thrown more light upon every branch of this one case ; but ic appears to us that still more could have been done on discovering the existence of such a criminal in the very bosom of English society . The law should nave endeavonred'to have traced out all

    that the criminal had been doing . The Coroner ' s jury , indeed , dismissed the case of Walter , Palmer ; but has no new light been thrown upon that case ? Does it not invite examination ? Again , the recent conviction has given a new force to the statements respecting the death of Anne Palmer ; and it is quite evident * that some of the facts of that case still exist . There

    wero Palmer ' s own records ; many persons familiar with both husband and' wife are stilV living ; documents 1 bearing the forged name of AtfNE Palmer were in court . Is it not possible tliat if the death of Walter Palmers and Anfe Palmer' had-been completely investigated , wo should liavo found out other person ^ and' other ramifications , in each transaction P If justice exercises any function , it is protection of the mnocont ; arid it pi'oceed « , not only By punishing the guilty , but By tracing crime and detecting ibl Why thon does it arrest its inquiries in the case of

    Cooke , simply because' it has * sufficient ground for punishing Paxmer : ? ' If it has jumped over one gap in the chain of , evidence which connects the death of Palmer with the murder' of Cooke , why should it reject the large mass of evidence which might enable it to expose all the subterranean channels in which the criminal has been at work , all the labours in which he has been engaged , all the people whom he has made his accomplices and all whom he has made more or less his victims . It is the crime we want exposed , as

    well as the victim ; it is the approaches with which crime is undermining society that we want to see laid open , not only the miserable wretches whose existence or non-existence is scarcely worth a thought . It may be said that the press is here the auxiliary of justice , as it is in politics the auxiliary of Parliament ; but our function is restrained by the libel law , —that mechanical attempt for protecting honesty which is so arranged as to protect principally the dishonest . The arbitrary stoppage to the exploration of Palmer's deeds constitutes a new mass of circumstantial

    evidence , proving , what we have so often affirmed , that our machinery of justice is inadequate to track or expose the vast extent of crime and law-breaking with which society is undermined :

    5lf# T Htek Lea 3xe Bl- [No. Sas^S&Timpi...

    5 lf # T HTEK LEA 3 XE Bl- [ No . SaS ^ S & TimpiK a *

    The Tripartite Treaty. Perhaps The Austr...

    THE TRIPARTITE TREATY . Perhaps the Austrian official press will explain why Sardinia was not admitted to a participation in the treaty of' the 15 th o ^ April . In the absence of this explanation , and in the presence of certain facts that have transpired in London and in Paris , we have some difficulty in accepting the solution volunteered at Vienna . The history of the

    matter is brief . After the signature of the general treaty of March 30 th , it was announced that , unknown to the Russian plenipotentiaries , a separate convention had been concluded between Great Britain , Prance , and Austria . The text declared that whereas the contracting powers had resolved upon preserving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire , they were agreed and engaged to defend it from all attacks . Considered by

    itself ; this act of the three Powers appears a simple and necessary consequence of the negotiations of 1854 , when the same principle was established at Vienna . That , indeed , is the explanation offered by the Austrian official press . The three Powers , it is said , had agreed to declare the integrity of the Ottoman Empire a necessary condito

    tion of the political balance of Europe , and place it under their united guarantee . But they had also agreed that , as the point was omitted from the stipulation proposed at Vienna , and as it was useless to expect the assent of Russia to such a principle , the negotiation should be removed to a separate ground , and be made the exclusive affair of Austria ,

    Franco , and Great Britain . It strikos us , m the first place , as a significant commentary on tlie " lasting peace and friendship" ratine " at Paris , that Russia has not been bound to consider the Ottoman Empire as inviolable , and was known by the diplomatists so entirely to spurn tho idea , that they dared not , in conference , propose it to her plenipofeenti » no ?> But that is not now tho question , though io iff certainly a matter of serious remark tttw the general treaty is avowedly inadequate to secure the independence of the Porte , ana that in the supplementary treaty , which i supposed to complete the guarantee , J « us »»

    does : nofc participate . . But why was Sardinia cut ofF from ™ y diplomatic concord of the three Powers * ( we raise this question because it lms not ooon raised' elsewhere * and beonuHo tho oxolusioi of Count Oavoub from tho confidential uo-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 31, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31051856/page/14/