The Queen v. Beaney : extraordinary charge of murder against a medical man, in consequence of a diseased womb being ruptured after death : with medical notes and observations / by C.E. Reeves.

  • Reeves, C. E. (Charles Evans), 1828-1880
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Queen v. Beaney : extraordinary charge of murder against a medical man, in consequence of a diseased womb being ruptured after death : with medical notes and observations / by C.E. Reeves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    returned, as if he had died in Shadwell or Ratcliff-highway. In England they may cling to tbe good old customs, but surely in Australia we might advance a little, and, without being a whit less severe or less just, give people a chance for their lives without fear of lessening any Coroner’s income, or that Wintle’s Hotel would lack boarders. Gentlemen, you who have been behind the scenes know how farcical this most horrible ! most wilful ! ! and most atrocious murder !! ! which has cost the Crown Law Officers and their Doctors so much brain-sweat to incubate, has been. You must have heard the lamentations of some of these gentlemen that the law did not allow them to deal with any man who they in their sapiency might think to be morally! guilty as if he were really legally!! so.* It was a person’s most fortunate lot to hear the Crown Solicitor expatiate on there being no doubt of Mr. Reaney’s w.oral guilt.t He at * Is there any truth in this statement, that the Crown Solicitor said, when paying the first jurymen, that the next jury would find Mr. Beaney guilty; “ do for him” is the legal term, the writer believes. f When a lawyer talks about moral guilt, one begins to look as Satan did at his little devil, in Ben Jonson’s The Devil ’s an Ass, for the big roses that hide Pug's cloven feet. The writer does not know how far he may be encroaching on the law of copyright, but the following, taken from Folatres d’une sage-femme du loi, by Sa Grace la Chanceliere, may not be inapplicable:— ACT 1. Scene 1.—Evening—The St. Kilda moon softly glimmering. Enter—A fine tall figure with no apple dumpling appendage, and face with go-to-meeting lacquer newly coated—[repeating]— Good even, fair Moon. When hidden, Goddess adored by sailante* Sainte Kildiennes. ******* Ah! if “ moral guilt ” were but a crime, And if the law could but impute, and hang a man, then chime In, and say—“ ’Twas a mistake, we thought him guilty Then raise a monument, inscribed “ He died innocently.” But, ah ! who’s this, with eyes like cheese-plates, Comes leering after me ? Perhaps some doctor chap Does the author mean projecting?