No one can accuse our Judges, or the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews, of undue severity in the treatment of sensational criminals. Mrs, Osborne has been released, after not much more than a nominal im: prisonment, when if she had been a "common person," she would probably have been undergoing seven years' penal servitude. Mr, Holden, who sold the French the plans of the defences of Malta, has only been sentenced to a year's imprtisonmeitt. while Mrs. Montagu, who will very likely be some day Duchess of Muuchester, and who put the climax to a long career of cruelty to her children by murdering. her little three-year-old daughter, is only given a year's imprisonment, and sentimental persons are asking for her release, lest her next child should be born in prison, As to Mrs. Osborne the St, James's says Some people will be relieved, and a good many more will be surprised, to learn that Mrs, Osborne is to be released," If the life of this prisoner is really in imminent danger we need not complain of the clemency exhibited but itis to be hoped that the Home Secretar; has assured himself on this point. Vhere is absolutely no reason why any special indulgence should be bestowed on Ars, Osborne, who has been treated with singular leniency all through; and we do not. want any colour given to the allegation that she gets off the wrest part of her punishment because she is a The same paper says in reference to Mr, Holden Wretchedly inadequate is the sentence of twelve months' hard labour passed at Liver-1 on Edward Holden for attempting to ibe a corporal at Gibraltar tv give him information about the fortifications at Malta, It was proved that Holden was in the pay of, and in communication with, a Frenchman to whom he would have sold' the secrets that he wished to buy. A man like this is a traitor, and deserves no merey from the country that he would destroy. It is no excuse for his crime that it was not committed in time of war. Iv war—that is, we are But under the indictment preferred impossible, so the Lord Chief Justice remarked ant ted, to give the man the sentence which he deserved—penal servitude for life, It ought almost to be hanging. How many lives was this man ready £0 destroy for the gold offered by French spies The World, which is generally somewhat tender with persons of quality, shows nu tenderness for Mrs, Montagu." I'. points out that she might lave been sentenced to penal servitude for life, and "if she had een awarded fifteen, or even twenty years of penal servitude, nobody would have accused Mr. Justice Murphy of undue severity." Her social position, it says, is rather an aggravation of, than' an excuse for, her guilt, and it concludes as follows It was not, however, solely on account of the enormity of Mrs. Montagu's personal guilt that the sentence passed upon her ought to have been of exemplary severity. _Unquestionably she herself had no claim whatever to commiseration, and the moral sense of the nation would cordially have approved of the infliction on her of the extreme Penalty to which her crime rendered her liable. But, in addition to this, that crime belonged to a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.