Review: The Trial of William Henry Podmore
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400417 |
| Date | 01 October 1931 |
| Published date | 01 October 1931 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM HENRY PODMORE. By The Hon.
H.
FLETCHER-MOULTON and
W.
LLOYD
WOODLAND. THE TRIAL
OF
ALFRED ARTHUR ROUSE. By
SIDNEY
TREMAYNE.
(Geoffrey
Bles.)
10s.
6d.
each net. THE TRIAL OF ALFRED ARTHUR
ROUSE. By HELENA NORMANTON. (William Hodge.) 10s. 6d. net.
THE
two latest volumes of the
‘
Famous Trial Series
’
have a peculiar interest.
Readers of
The
Police
Journal
will, no doubt, compare the first of these
books with the
two
articles which have described the same case from the
police standpoint in our July and current numbers. The authors permit
themselves to offer a caustic comment as to the quality of some of the evidence
which the Crown produced. Had the case for the prosecution depended
main1 upon the statements of Podmore’s fellow-prisoners, such comment
strong, as the report of the trial discloses. There are, indeed, many statements
in this book which
call
for more comment than could be made in
this
immediate context.
As
announced on page
499,
however, a further note on
this
case will appear in the January Number, and will deal with some
of
the
points in question. At the moment, therefore, we will say no more.
The Rouse trial is a story which has a special interest, in view
of
the
recent criticisms which it provoked in the press and elsewhere. Perhaps,
indeed, from some aspects, it is a pity that the two volumes dealing with the
case have appeared
so
soon.
It
is useful to compare Mr. Tremayne’s com-
ments in the
‘
Famous Trial Series
’
with those of Miss Helena Normanton
in the
‘
Notable British Trials.’ Most readers, we imagine, will be confirmed
in the view that the jury must have been convinced of Rouse’s guilt, apart
from any considerations as to his moral record, both on account of the chain
of circumstantial evidence and of Rouse’s own evidence in the witness-box.
These books have not only a legal value,
but
will attract the layman who is
interested in detective literature.
woul
cr
be more relevant. But the case without these witnesses was already
MESOPOTAMIA,
1917-1920.
By Lieut.-Colonel
Sir
ARNOLD
T.
WILSON.
THIS
book is a sequel to the history of the Mesopotamia campaign of
1914-17,
written by the same author.
To
some extent
it
is
inevitably controversial,
though the indictment is restrained and courteous. Sir Arnold Wilson’s
ideals may be gauged by the Cromwellian saying which he quotes
as
repre-
sentative of his own innermost beliefs
:
‘
We are a people with the stamp of
God upon us.
.
. whose appearance and whose providences are not to be
outmatched by any story,’ The clash of such ideals with post-war mentality
is the
gist
of
the story, and we inevitably come upon such sentences as
‘
publicists offered little but the broken lights of sentimentalism and pacifism.
The British Empire had won the war, and in
so
doing seemed to have lost
faith
in
its mission,’
‘
we tend to rely on the pious resolutions of Geneva to
(Oxford
:
University Press. London
:
Milford.)
25s.
net.
633
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