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ON

THE UNCERTAINTY

OF

THE SIGNS OF MURDER

IN THE CASE OF

BASTARD CHILDREN.

BY THE LATE

WILLIAM HUNTER, M.D. F.R.S.

PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO THE QUEEN,

AND MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT PARIS.

London:
PRINTED FOR J. CALLOW, CROWN COURT,
PRINCES STREET, SOHO.

1818.




TO THE

_Members of the Medical Society_.

Read July 14, 1783.


GENTLEMEN,

In the course of the present year, one of our friends, distinguished by
rank, fortune, and science, came to me upon the following occasion: In
the country, he said, a young woman was taken up, and committed to jail
to take her trial, for the supposed murder of her bastard child.
According to the information which he had received, he was inclined to
believe, from the circumstances, that she was innocent; and yet,
understanding that the minds of the people in that part of the country
were much exasperated against her, by the popular cry of _a cruel and
unnatural_ murder, he feared, though innocent, she might fall a victim
to prejudice and blind zeal. What he wished, he said, was to procure an
unprejudiced enquiry. He had been informed that it was a subject which
I had considered in my lectures, and made some remarks upon it, which
were not perhaps sufficiently known, or enough attended to; and his
visit to me was, to know what these remarks were. I told him what I had
commonly said upon that question. He thought some of the observations so
material, that he imagined they might sometimes be the means of saving
an innocent life: and if they could upon the present occasion do so,
which he thought very possible, he was sure I would willingly take the
trouble of putting them upon paper. Next day I sent them to him in a
letter, which I said he was at liberty to use as he might think proper.
Some time afterwards he told me that he had great pleasure in thanking
me for the letter, and telling me that the trial was over; that the
unfortunate young woman was acquitted, and that he had reason to believe
that my letter had been instrumental. This having been the subject of
some conversation one evening at our medical meeting, you remember,
Gentlemen, that you thought the subject interesting, and desired me to
give you a paper upon it. I now obey your command.

       *       *       *       *       *

In those unhappy cases of the death of bastard children, as in every
action indeed that is either criminal or suspicious, reason and justice
demand an enquiry into all the circumstances; and particularly to find
out from what views and motives the act proceeded. For, as nothing can
be so criminal but that circumstances might be added by the imagination
to make it worse; so nothing can be conceived so wicked and offensive to
the feelings of a good mind, as not to be somewhat softened or
extenuated by circumstances and motives. In making up a just estimate of
any human action, much will depend on the state of the agent's mind at
the time; and therefore the laws of all countries make ample allowance
for insanity. The insane are not held to be responsible for their
actions.

The world will give me credit, surely, for having had sufficient
opportunities of knowing a good deal of female characters. I have seen
the private as well as the public virtues, the private as well as the
more public frailties of women in all ranks of life. I have been in
their secrets, their counsellor and adviser in the moments of their
greatest distress in body and mind. I have been a witness to their
private conduct, when they were preparing themselves to meet danger, and
have heard their last and most serious reflections, when they were
certain they had but a few hours to live.

That knowledge of women has enabled me to say, though no doubt there
will be many exceptions to the general rule, that women who are pregnant
without daring to avow their situation, are commonly objects of the
greatest _compassion_; and generally are less criminal than the world
imagine. In most of these cases the father of the child is really
criminal, often cruelly so; the mother is weak, credulous, and deluded.
Having obtained gratification, he thinks no more of his promises; she
finds herself abused, disappointed of his affection, attention, and
support, and left to struggle as she can, with sickness, pains, poverty,
infamy; in short, with compleat _ruin_ for _life_!

A worthless woman can never be reduced to that wretched situation,
because she is insensible to infamy; but a woman who has that
respectable virtue, a high sense of shame, and a strong desire of being
respectable in her character, finding herself surrounded by such
horrors, often has not strength of mind to meet them, and in despair
puts an end to a life which is become insupportable. In that case, can
any man, whose heart ever felt what pity is, be _angry_ with the memory
of such an unfortunate woman for what she did? She felt life to be so
dreadful and oppressive, that she _could not_ longer support it. With
that view of her situation, every humane heart will forget the
indiscretion or crime, and bleed for the sufferings which a woman must
have gone through; who, but for having listened to the perfidious
protestations and vows of our sex, might have been an affectionate and
faithful wife, a virtuous and honoured mother, through a long and happy
life; and probably that very reflection raised the last pang of despair,
which hurried her into eternity. To think seriously of what a
fellow-creature must feel, at such an awful moment, must melt to pity
every man whose heart is not steeled with habits of cruelty; and every
woman who does not affect to be more severely virtuous and chaste than
perhaps any good woman ever was.

It may be said that such a woman's guilt is heightened, when we consider
that at the same time that she puts an end to her own life, she murders
her child. God forbid that killing should always be murder! It is only
murder when it is executed with some degree of cool judgment, and wicked
intention. When committed under a phrenzy from despair, can it be more
offensive in the sight of God, than under a phrenzy from a fever, or in
lunacy? It should therefore, as it must raise our horror, raise our
pity too.

What is commonly understood to be the murder of a bastard child by the
mother, if the real circumstances were fully known, would be allowed to
be a very different crime in different circumstances.

In some (it is to be hoped _rare_) instances, it is a crime of the very
deepest dye: it is a premeditated contrivance for taking away the life
of the most inoffensive and most helpless of all human creatures, in
opposition not only to the most universal dictates of humanity, but of
that powerful instinctive passion which, for a wise and important
purpose, the Author of our nature has planted in the breast of every
female creature, a wonderful eagerness about the preservation of its
young. The most charitable construction that could be put upon so savage
an action, and it is to be hoped the fairest often, would be to reckon
it the work of phrenzy, or temporary insanity.

But, as well as I can judge, the greatest number of what are called
murders of bastard children, are of a very different kind. The mother
has an unconquerable sense of shame, and pants after the preservation of
character: so far she is virtuous and amiable. She has not the
resolution to meet and avow infamy. In proportion as she loses the hope
either of having been mistaken with regard to pregnancy, of being
relieved from her terrors by a fortunate miscarriage, she every day sees
her danger greater and nearer, and her mind more overwhelmed with terror
and despair. In this situation many of these women, who are afterwards
accused of murder, would destroy themselves, if they did not know that
such an action would infallibly lead to an enquiry, which would proclaim
what they are so anxious to conceal. In this perplexity, and meaning
nothing less than the murder of the infant, they are meditating
different schemes for concealing the birth of the child; but are
wavering between difficulties on all sides, putting the evil hour off,
and trusting too much to chance and fortune.--In that state often they
are overtaken sooner than they expected; their schemes are frustrated;
their distress of body and mind deprives them of all judgment, and
rational conduct; they are delivered by themselves, wherever they
happened to retire in their fright and confusion; sometimes dying in the
agonies of childbirth, and sometimes, being quite exhausted, they faint
away, and become insensible to what is passing; and when they recover a
little strength, find that the child, whether still-born or not, is
completely lifeless. In such a case, is it to be expected, when it could
answer no purpose, that a woman should divulge the secret? Will not the
best dispositions of mind urge her to preserve her character? She will
therefore hide every appearance of what has happened as well as she can;
though if the discovery be made, that conduct will be set down as a
proof of her guilt.

To be convinced, as I am, that such a case often happens, the reader
would wish perhaps to have some examples and illustrations. I have
generally observed, that in proportion as women more sincerely repent of
such ruinous indiscretions, it is more difficult to prevail upon them to
confess; and it is natural. Among other instances which might be
mentioned, I opened the bodies of two unmarried women, both of them of
irreproachable and unsuspected characters with all who knew them. Being
consulted about their healths, both of them deceived me. One of them I
suspected, and took pains to prevail with her to let me into the secret,
if it was so; promising that I would do her the best offices in my power
to help her out of the difficulties that might be hanging over her: but
it was to no purpose. They both died of racking pains in their bowels,
and of convulsions. Upon laying out of the dead bodies, in one of the
cases a dead child, not come to its full time, was found laying between
the unhappy mother's limbs; and in the other, a very large dead child
was discovered, only half born. Such instances will sufficiently shew
what a patient and fixed resolution the fear of shame will produce. A
young unmarried woman, having concealed her pregnancy, was delivered
during the night by herself. She was suspected; the room was searched,
and the child was found in her box, wrapped up in wet clothes. She
confessed that the child was hers, but denied the having murdered it, or
having had an intention to do so. I opened the child with Mr. Pinkstan,
of St. Alban's-street, and the lungs would not sink in water. Her
account of herself was this: she was a faithful and favourite servant in
a family, which she could not leave without a certainty of her situation
being discovered; and such a discovery she imagined would be certain
_ruin_ to her for life. Under this anguish of mind she was irresolute,
and wavering from day to day as to her plan of conduct. She made some
clothes for the preservation of her child (a circumstance which was in
her favour), and she hired a bed-room in an adjacent street, to be ready
to receive a woman in labour at a moment's notice. Her scheme was, when
taken in labour, to have run out to that house, to be delivered by a
midwife, who was to have been brought to her. She was to have gone home
presently after, and to have made the best excuse she could for being
out. She had heard of soldiers wives being delivered behind a hedge, and
following the husband with the child in a short time after; and she
hoped to be able to do as much herself. She was taken ill of a cholic,
as she thought, in the night; put on some cloaths, both to keep her
warm, and that she might be ready to run out, if her labour should come
on. After waiting some time, she suddenly fell into such racking pain
and terror, that she found she had neither strength nor courage to go
down stairs, and through the street, in that condition, and in the
night. In despair she threw herself upon the bed, and by the terror and
anguish which she suffered, she lost her senses, and fainted. When she
came to a little recollection, she found herself in a deluge of
discharges, and a dead child lying by her limbs. She first of all
attended to the child, and found that it was certainly dead. She lay
upon the bed some time, considering what she should do; and by the time
that there was a little day-light she got up, put all the wet cloaths
and the child into her box, put the room and bed into order, and went
into it. The woman of whom she hired the room and who had received a
small sum of money as earnest, though she did not know who she was,
swore to her person, and confirmed that part of her story. Mr. Pinkstan
and I declared that we thought her tale very credible, and reconciled it
to the circumstance of the swimming of the lungs, to the satisfaction of
the jury, as we shall hereafter do to the reader. She was acquitted; and
I had the satisfaction of believing her to be innocent of murder.

In most of these cases we are apt to take up an early prejudice; and
when we evidently see an intention of concealing the birth, conclude
that there was an intention of destroying the child: and we account for
every circumstance upon that supposition, saying, why else did she do so
and so? and why else did she not do so and so? Such questions would be
fair, and draw forth solid conclusions, were the woman supposed at the
time to be under the direction of a calm and unembarrassed mind; but the
moment we reflect that her mind was violently agitated with a conflict
of passions and terror, an irrational conduct may appear very natural.

Allow me to illustrate this truth by a case. A lady, who, thank God! has
now been perfectly recovered many years, in the last months of her
pregnancy, on a fine summer's evening, stept out, attended by her
footman, to take a little air on a fine new pavement at her own door, in
one of our most even, broad, and quiet streets. Having walked gently to
the end of the street, where there was a very smooth crossing place; she
thought she would go over, for a little variety, and return towards her
house by walking along the other side of the street. Being heavy and
not unmindful of her situation, she was stepping very slowly and
cautiously, for fear of meeting with any accident. When she had advanced
a few steps in crossing the street, a man came up on a smart trot,
riding on a cart, which made a great rattling noise. He was at a
sufficient distance to let her get quite over, or to return back with
great deliberation; and she would have been perfectly safe, if she had
stood still. But she was struck with a panic, lost her judgment and
senses, and the horror of confusion between going on, or returning back,
both of which she attempted, she crossed the horse at the precise point
of time to be caught and entangled in the wheel, was thrown down, so
torn and mashed in her flesh and bones, that she was taken up perfectly
senseless, and carried home without the least prospect of a recovery.
This lady was in the prime of life, living in affluence, beloved by her
family, and respected by all the world. No imagination could suggest an
idea of her intending to destroy herself; but if her situation in life
at that time could have favoured such a supposition, we see in fact that
the most unquestionable proof that she could have saved herself, either
by going on, or by turning back, or by standing still, would have
signified nothing towards proving that she had intended to put an end to
her own life and to that of her child. One shudders to think that
innocent women may have suffered an ignominous death, from such
equivocal proofs and inconclusive reasoning.

Most of these reflections would naturally occur to any unprejudiced
person, and therefore upon a trial in this country, where we are so
happy as to be under the protection of judges, who, by their education,
studies, and habits, are above the reach of vulgar prejudices, and make
it a rule for their conduct to suppose the accused party innocent till
guilt be proved; with such judges, I say, there will be little danger of
an innocent woman being condemned by false reasoning. But danger, in the
cases of which we are now treating, may arise from the evidence and
opinions given by physical people, who are called in to settle questions
in science, which judges and jurymen are supposed not to know with
accuracy. In general I am afraid too much has been left to our decision.
Many of our profession are not so conversant with science as the world
may think: and some of us are a little disposed to grasp at authority in
a public examination, by giving a quick and decided opinion, where it
should have been guarded with doubt; a character which no man should be
ambitious to acquire, who in his profession is presumed every day to be
deciding nice questions upon which the life of a patient may depend.

To form a solid judgment about the birth of a new-born child, from the
examination of its body, a professional man should have seen many
new-born children, both still-born, and such as