ENGLISH AND AMERICAN MURDER TRIALS he told Mr. Gerhard that he wanted to be called at 8 o 'clock the following morning as he had an appointment to keep. On the morning of January 24 he had breakfast and left the hotel at half-past 9 o'clock. He appeared to have gone by "Tube" to the Lancaster-gate station, where he depos ited an envelope in which he had put a number of documents, which if found upon him would have served to establish his identity. About noon he called at Mr. Whiteley's private house in Porchesterterrace and asked to see Mr. Whiteley. The butler told him that he must call at his office. At half-past twelve he went to Westbourne-grove and asked to see Mr. Whiteley, saying that he came from Sir George Lewis. He was shown into Mr. Whiteley's private office. Some time after wards Mr. Whiteley came out and said to one of his employes, "Jules, go for a police man." The prisoner emerged from the office and pushed Mr. Whiteley, saying, "Are you going to give in?" Mr. Whiteley waved him off and said, "No." The pris oner exclaimed, "Take this," or "Then you are a dead man, Mr. Whiteley." Then raising a revolver within twelve or fifteen inches of Mr. Whiteley's face the prisoner fired two shots, and Mr. Whiteley fell dead. The prisoner then turned the revolver on himself and fired a shot at his own fore head, the result being to destroy his right eye and injure the base of his nose. The wound, however, was not sufficient even to make him unconscious. Dr. French and a policeman were sent for. Dr. French found that Mr. Whiteley was dead. The prisoner said to the doctor, "I am conscious. I am alive. Don't worry about me." At St. Mary's Hospital, the prisoner said, "I am conscious; I am Cecil Whiteley. I have killed my father, Mr. Whiteley. Give me something to make me sleep away, there's a good boy." He appeared calm and rational. Witness after witness was called, the examination and the cross-examination were
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to the point, short and direct. No dramatic tilts between counsel for the' prisoner and the public prosecutor, no exchanges of wit or badinage, no long arguments over the ad mission and exclusion of testimony. Every thing went along with dignity and speed so that by the noon recess the government testimony was all submitted. One cannot help contrasting the examination and crossexamination of Louisa Turner with that of Evelyn Thaw. In the hands of the two English barristers the woman's story be came matter of fact, and commonplace. She was not used by the one side or the other as an instrument to move the emo tions of the jury or to play to the gallery. Moderation, good sense, and, above all, good taste, characterize both the English barris ters who had this disagreeable duty to perform. Upon the coming in after luncheon Mr. George Elliott opened the case for the defense. His opening was concise and dig nified. "While it was no part of his case," he said, "to prove or even to allege that the prisoner was in fact the son of Mr. Whiteley, he was there to tell them on his behalf and to show, as far as the evidence could show it, that he was a man who rightly or wrongly did believe that he was the son of Mr. Whiteley, and that that belief preyed upon his mind, and when sunk in poverty it came home to him as a fact so vital to his life's future that his whole soul went out to it with a view to decide it. He would show how the conviction gradually crept into the prisoner's mind that he was no longer the son of George Rayner, but was the illegiti mate son of a wealthy father, Mr. Whiteley. It mattered not whether he was right or wrong in that belief, whether he had reason able grounds for his belief, or whether in fact he was not the son of Mr. Whiteley. Not only had George Rayner repudiated the paternity of Emily Turner's first child, but he had repudiated the paternity of the prisoner also. That the prisoner was im pecunious was true, but his impecunious
