92
The Green
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. JANUARY, 1903. WITHIN the past two or three weeks three trials of more than ordinary in terest have attracted wide attention. One of them was a criminal trial, in which a lady of commanding social position, the wife of a county magistrate of large wealth and lengthy lineage, having two country seats, was prosecuted upon the information of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for having cruelly treated one of her children, a little girl seven years of age. The details of the accusation were of such a nature as to arouse the prejudices of the whole country against the unworthy mother. For the two or three days the trial lasted the newspapers gave verbatim reports of the proceedings, and as the London morning papers find their way by evening into the re motest corners of England, an intense ex citement was produced. The accused, Mrs. Penruddocke, was defended by Mr. Edward Clarke and other leading counsel, but their efforts in her behalf were unavailing, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. This ac corded with the views of the great majority of those who had read the evidence as it ap peared from day to day, and there was. there fore, no little exasperation when the judge sentenced the convicted woman to pay a fine of fifty pounds, instead of giving her a term of imprisonment, as it was open for him to do, the penalty involving a maximum of two years with hard labor. At once the cry was raised that there was one law for the rich and another for the poor, an imputation to which additional force was given when it became known that an arm chair had been provided for the accused in the prisoner's dock, and that she had been given the freedom of one of the waiting rooms in the court and ac corded other privileges.
Nearly all of the newspapers for days after wards published columns of letters to the editors either condemning or affirming the sentence, while the episode oí the arm chair was alluded to in music hall ditties and has furnished comic business for the Christmas pantomines. That the judge who imposed the sentence, who is one of the most cour ageous, as well as sagacious, on the bench, realized the gravity oí the offence cannot for a moment be questioned. He also realized that to a lady in Mrs. Penruddocke's position the mere fact of the accusation of a crime of so unnatural a character, and the appearance in the prisoner's dock, and being daily the subject of comment by the public generally, constituted a greater punishment than im prisonment for any term, however long, would be to a person of humbler environ ment. Tile defence claimed that Mrs. Pen ruddocke was affectionately attached to her child, and that while, in fact, she did treat the little one in the manner charged it was only by way of discipline to correct certain habits which could not otherwise be eradi cated. The severity of the punishment may be realized from the fact that the Penruddockes have not only lost their position in the places where they were of commanding in fluence, but are naturally ostracised from so ciety and will not be able for years to come to reside in England. Another of the temporary causes célebres was a divorce case in which Mr. Charles Hartopp sought the annulment of his mar riage with his wife on account of her infidel ity, and Lord Cowley was named as a cor respondent. Lady Hartopp was a Miss Wil son, and her family is probably as well known among ultra-society people as that of any in England. The position of the parties
