Commonplace 102 George & Mrs Florence Maybrick
In the previous post, we looked at the entries on genetics and eugenics George wrote in his Commonplace Book. This book was a place he recorded things he had read, ideas he had been thinking about, and ideas for characters and stories. These often involve broad topics that were being considered in the wider world, which George might have accessed from reading the newspapers and periodicals he took regularly, and some were pithy words of wisdom gleaned from deeper reading from Classical sources. Occasionally, there are Alan Bennett-like recording of things he had overheard ordinary folk saying - these are usually backed up with George's scathing, sarcastic, observations.
One of the entries (page 24) in George's book is of interest because it is a carefully thought-out argument that might have stood as a draft for one of his longer essays. It concerns the conclusions he reached after thinking about the nature of capital punishment. This was sparked off by the trial and conviction of Mrs Florence Maybrick, a woman found guilty of poisoning her husband.
Florence Maybrick's husband, James, was a wealthy cotton merchant from Liverpool. In 1874 - before they met - Maybrick went to Norfolk, Virginia, to further his interests in cotton. In America, he contracted malaria, for which he was given quinine - but this proved ineffective and so he dosed himself with a mixture of strychnine and arsenic. Arsenic was used to cure many ailments, and it underwent something of a vogue as a tonic, but it is addictive, requiring ever stronger or more frequent (or both) doses. Its use as an aphrodisiac - or, more accurately, an early form of Viagra - added to its popularity with men. It was also used in the treatment of syphilis.
In 1880, Maybrick came back to Britain, and on the return voyage, he met his future wife, Florence, twenty four years his junior. She was the daughter of an American well-to-do family, and her widowed mother had remarried into minor European aristocracy. The Maybricks subsequently spent their time living in Britain and the US, but the cotton industry proved to be notoriously problematic and unpredictable, and James became concerned for his livelihood. This caused him to become increasingly irritable and unpleasant, with an addiction to self-medicating heavy metals to add to his woes. His relationship with his wife suffered, and he became physically abusive to her. And, yet, when he became ill in spring 1889, Florence decided to nurse him mostly by herself. This was to lead to her downfall.
James died in mid-May, and Florence was accused by the nurse in attendance and a servant of the house, of poisoning him. The evidence against her was entirely circumstantial. James was buried, but the rumours circulated against Florence by the nurse and maid gathered momentum, and she was confined to her home whilst a police investigation was carried out. At the end of May, police decided to exhume James' body, and toxicology tests were carried out suggesting he had died of arsenic poisoning. Florence was arrested and appeared in Court on June 30th. Despite no hard evidence, and because of testimony against her by a range of self-interested parties, she was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
There followed a public outcry - the lack of evidence and the facts about the James Maybrick's self-medicating of dangerous medicines impressed those who thought Florence had been poorly represented in Court, and the Home Secretary had to intervene to examine the evidence. He reported back that it was clear Florence tried to murder her husband, but that there was no evidence the arsenic killed him. And, so, her sentence was commuted to a prison term, from which she was eventually released in 1911, after which she went back to America. where she died in 1941.
George writes in his Commonplace Book: The condemnation of a woman (Mrs Maybrick) to death, has made me think much of the death-penalty. I instinctively revolt against it, & here I will analyze (sic) my calmer thoughts on the subject.
He goes on to detail the vulgar belief is that hanging is approved by the masses because: morally, the Old Testament approves it; politically, because the state thinks of it as a deterrent. The former involves the possibility of perpetual damnation in Hell - which smacks, to George, of Revenge, which he considers to be barbarous. The latter view of capital punishment as utility - in the Jeremy Bentham sense - which suggests hanging is good for mankind (and womankind, here!) because of its deterrent effect on the incidence of murder. It inspires fear, but it does not produce deterrence, if history is to be believed.
So far, so simple.
It gets more complicated, George thinks, when the matter is considered in the light of pure reason.
If I understand him right, then to promote its utility value, one has to 1) accept there is no higher point to existence than existence, itself; therefore, there is no God giving us guidelines to be followed (and, possibly, probably, no God at all); 2) that it cannot be proven to be a deterrent. If neither point is satisfied, then capital punishment can only be about Revenge, and is barbarous. He goes as far as to invoke Shelley who said a death penalty was likely to increase the incidence of murder as the State sets a very bad example by sanctioning judicial murder.
So, do we have the right to kill our fellow humans (George asks). The answer will depend on the individual's way of regarding life in its relation to death. George then outlines 4 states:
1) It is wrong to cut short a life and disallow an individual the right to reform and be redeemed in their lifetime.
2) We can't be sure there is an hereafter, but, if there is, it is wrong to influence a person's chance for a shot at heaven by removing an option for redemption.
3) Uncertainty about the nature of the hereafter means death might be a reward for murder, not a punishment, or, what comes in the afterlife might be a fate worse than death and so an unfairly harsh punishment.
4) By killing a murderer, you either help him (if he is a nihilist or suicidal) when he should be punished, or unfairly punish him if he has to give up his one and only shot at existence. In the former case, the proceeding is irrational; in the latter, the punishment is monstrous arbitrariness, unjustifiable to reason. It would be the same for the victim.
In a time of limited forensic science, George did not have access to knowledge about the ways evidence can be twisted and corrupted to serve to act against an innocent party. Miscarriages of justice were not unknown, but the State was considered more or less above making mistakes, and summary execution did not offer enough time to question verdicts. (In the last blog post, we looked at the case of George Edalji whose case - not for murder - Arthur Conan Doyle took up. That took several years to overturn - and even then, it wasn't fully considered to be a case of wrongful prosecution).
What are the modern arguments? The BBC has this click, about the ethics involved, and here is a summary:
1) Life is valuable. (Sadly, we are only talking human life here, not animals)
2) Everyone has a right to life, even ratbags.
3) Some innocent people get executed because of human error.
4) Retribution is wrong.
5) Revenge is what it is, and that is wrong
6) Murdering a murderer is the only time the punishment is the same as the crime - which is an anomaly.
7) Hanging's too good for some ratbags.
8) How the punishment is applied depends on where you live - which is unfair.
9) It is not a deterrent, and so is, by implication, revenge.
10) It is wrong for a State to kill its citizens
11) It makes people vengeful and cruel.
12) The State, the People and the Law are diminished by judicial murder.
13) It lowers the tone of societies - it is a primitive solution to a complex problem, and not one made out of reason.
14) Some people are mentally deranged when they kill, yet have to struggle to avoid execution.
15) It is applied unfairly - the different penalties of various US states, for example.
16) Cruel, humane and degrading means of execution, with no guarantee the methods are 100% effective instantaneously to reduce suffering.
17) There's no coming back when forensics prove you were innocent after all.
18) There is no such thing as 'free will' and so we are all victims of the crimes we commit, and we should not be killed because of our actions.
19) It is not cost effective.
20) Jurors in some places are selected because they are 'death eligible' - they would apply a death penalty if the accused is found guilty, and would not fail to convict for their own anti-capital punishment reasons. This unfairly loads the jury in favour of judicial murder.
21) A defence is really only as good as the lawyer. What if the defence lawyer is rubbish and fails to present the proper evidence??
22) If you kill the bad people you can't learn anything more about their motivations and rationales - which you might have been able to use to prevent further crimes.
George never wrote much about crime, possibly because he was reluctant to reflect on his own experience of prison, and so didn't want any adverse publicity from those who knew about his past life. He did make use of Algernon's basic knowledge, by presenting scenarios for him to supply the legalese and specific points of Law. However, there isn't much he couldn't have researched himself, so maybe he asked Algernon for help in order to allow his brother to feel he was earning the financial help he was getting. Algernon's failed legal career is often presented as a sign Alg was somehow inadequate. This is unfair. Law was (and still is) a case of 'who you know', and being lucky enough to be 'called to the Bar' click.
Apart from being a victim in a murder trial, James Maybrick is probably best known nowadays as a possible suspect in the 1888 Whitechapel Murders. A diary he is supposed to have written emerged via the press in 1992. In it, he details how he carries out the crimes and why he is committing them. Of course, it was soon debunked as a fake. An odd coincidence is that, the judge at Florence's trial was Mr Justice Fitzjames Stephen, father to J K Stephen, another one-time Jack the Ripper suspect. And, though it might come as a shock, for one brief moment, George was thought to be the serial killer - which is where Peter Ackroyd found his source for Dan Leno and The Limehouse Golem (see Commonplaces 94-96).
JOIN ME IN THE NEXT POST TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS AUTUMN OF TERROR - written on the one hundred and twenty-seventh anniversary of the first outrage!
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| Mrs and Mr Maybrick |
One of the entries (page 24) in George's book is of interest because it is a carefully thought-out argument that might have stood as a draft for one of his longer essays. It concerns the conclusions he reached after thinking about the nature of capital punishment. This was sparked off by the trial and conviction of Mrs Florence Maybrick, a woman found guilty of poisoning her husband.
Florence Maybrick's husband, James, was a wealthy cotton merchant from Liverpool. In 1874 - before they met - Maybrick went to Norfolk, Virginia, to further his interests in cotton. In America, he contracted malaria, for which he was given quinine - but this proved ineffective and so he dosed himself with a mixture of strychnine and arsenic. Arsenic was used to cure many ailments, and it underwent something of a vogue as a tonic, but it is addictive, requiring ever stronger or more frequent (or both) doses. Its use as an aphrodisiac - or, more accurately, an early form of Viagra - added to its popularity with men. It was also used in the treatment of syphilis.
 |
| Paris Green also known as Arsenic Green complete with appropriate health warning! |
James died in mid-May, and Florence was accused by the nurse in attendance and a servant of the house, of poisoning him. The evidence against her was entirely circumstantial. James was buried, but the rumours circulated against Florence by the nurse and maid gathered momentum, and she was confined to her home whilst a police investigation was carried out. At the end of May, police decided to exhume James' body, and toxicology tests were carried out suggesting he had died of arsenic poisoning. Florence was arrested and appeared in Court on June 30th. Despite no hard evidence, and because of testimony against her by a range of self-interested parties, she was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
 |
| Walton Gaol where Florence was held. |
There followed a public outcry - the lack of evidence and the facts about the James Maybrick's self-medicating of dangerous medicines impressed those who thought Florence had been poorly represented in Court, and the Home Secretary had to intervene to examine the evidence. He reported back that it was clear Florence tried to murder her husband, but that there was no evidence the arsenic killed him. And, so, her sentence was commuted to a prison term, from which she was eventually released in 1911, after which she went back to America. where she died in 1941.
George writes in his Commonplace Book: The condemnation of a woman (Mrs Maybrick) to death, has made me think much of the death-penalty. I instinctively revolt against it, & here I will analyze (sic) my calmer thoughts on the subject.
He goes on to detail the vulgar belief is that hanging is approved by the masses because: morally, the Old Testament approves it; politically, because the state thinks of it as a deterrent. The former involves the possibility of perpetual damnation in Hell - which smacks, to George, of Revenge, which he considers to be barbarous. The latter view of capital punishment as utility - in the Jeremy Bentham sense - which suggests hanging is good for mankind (and womankind, here!) because of its deterrent effect on the incidence of murder. It inspires fear, but it does not produce deterrence, if history is to be believed.
So far, so simple.
It gets more complicated, George thinks, when the matter is considered in the light of pure reason.
If I understand him right, then to promote its utility value, one has to 1) accept there is no higher point to existence than existence, itself; therefore, there is no God giving us guidelines to be followed (and, possibly, probably, no God at all); 2) that it cannot be proven to be a deterrent. If neither point is satisfied, then capital punishment can only be about Revenge, and is barbarous. He goes as far as to invoke Shelley who said a death penalty was likely to increase the incidence of murder as the State sets a very bad example by sanctioning judicial murder.
 |
| Grey Electric Chair by Andy Warhol 1964 |
1) It is wrong to cut short a life and disallow an individual the right to reform and be redeemed in their lifetime.
2) We can't be sure there is an hereafter, but, if there is, it is wrong to influence a person's chance for a shot at heaven by removing an option for redemption.
3) Uncertainty about the nature of the hereafter means death might be a reward for murder, not a punishment, or, what comes in the afterlife might be a fate worse than death and so an unfairly harsh punishment.
4) By killing a murderer, you either help him (if he is a nihilist or suicidal) when he should be punished, or unfairly punish him if he has to give up his one and only shot at existence. In the former case, the proceeding is irrational; in the latter, the punishment is monstrous arbitrariness, unjustifiable to reason. It would be the same for the victim.
In a time of limited forensic science, George did not have access to knowledge about the ways evidence can be twisted and corrupted to serve to act against an innocent party. Miscarriages of justice were not unknown, but the State was considered more or less above making mistakes, and summary execution did not offer enough time to question verdicts. (In the last blog post, we looked at the case of George Edalji whose case - not for murder - Arthur Conan Doyle took up. That took several years to overturn - and even then, it wasn't fully considered to be a case of wrongful prosecution).
 |
| The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya 1814 |
1) Life is valuable. (Sadly, we are only talking human life here, not animals)
2) Everyone has a right to life, even ratbags.
3) Some innocent people get executed because of human error.
4) Retribution is wrong.
5) Revenge is what it is, and that is wrong
6) Murdering a murderer is the only time the punishment is the same as the crime - which is an anomaly.
7) Hanging's too good for some ratbags.
8) How the punishment is applied depends on where you live - which is unfair.
9) It is not a deterrent, and so is, by implication, revenge.
10) It is wrong for a State to kill its citizens
11) It makes people vengeful and cruel.
12) The State, the People and the Law are diminished by judicial murder.
13) It lowers the tone of societies - it is a primitive solution to a complex problem, and not one made out of reason.
14) Some people are mentally deranged when they kill, yet have to struggle to avoid execution.
15) It is applied unfairly - the different penalties of various US states, for example.
16) Cruel, humane and degrading means of execution, with no guarantee the methods are 100% effective instantaneously to reduce suffering.
17) There's no coming back when forensics prove you were innocent after all.
18) There is no such thing as 'free will' and so we are all victims of the crimes we commit, and we should not be killed because of our actions.
19) It is not cost effective.
20) Jurors in some places are selected because they are 'death eligible' - they would apply a death penalty if the accused is found guilty, and would not fail to convict for their own anti-capital punishment reasons. This unfairly loads the jury in favour of judicial murder.
21) A defence is really only as good as the lawyer. What if the defence lawyer is rubbish and fails to present the proper evidence??
22) If you kill the bad people you can't learn anything more about their motivations and rationales - which you might have been able to use to prevent further crimes.
 |
| Study For the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots by Ford Maddox Brown 1841 |
Apart from being a victim in a murder trial, James Maybrick is probably best known nowadays as a possible suspect in the 1888 Whitechapel Murders. A diary he is supposed to have written emerged via the press in 1992. In it, he details how he carries out the crimes and why he is committing them. Of course, it was soon debunked as a fake. An odd coincidence is that, the judge at Florence's trial was Mr Justice Fitzjames Stephen, father to J K Stephen, another one-time Jack the Ripper suspect. And, though it might come as a shock, for one brief moment, George was thought to be the serial killer - which is where Peter Ackroyd found his source for Dan Leno and The Limehouse Golem (see Commonplaces 94-96).
JOIN ME IN THE NEXT POST TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS AUTUMN OF TERROR - written on the one hundred and twenty-seventh anniversary of the first outrage!
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