God only knows how many men and women have been innocent of the charges brought against them, and for which they have been unjustly punished. I will mention a few only of many cases on record. A man, Hebron by name, was convicted at Manchester, of murder. He was sentenced to death, but fortunately this was commuted to penal servitude for life. After serving two years the real murderer, a man named Peace, was discovered, and Hebron was “graciously pardoned.” Another cruel case was that of John Kensall, who was convicted of murder, but, through action taken by the late Lord Chief Justice Russell, was shown to be innocent. The Home Office could not at first “see its way to interfere,” and had it not been for Lord Russell’s clear head and splendid generalship, by which the authorities at the Home Office were outwitted, he would not have been released so soon. The case of the man Hay, wrongly convicted, was of a serious nature, showing that he was the victim of a conspiracy; yet had it not been for Sir William Harcourt’s instituting an investigation independent of the Home Office, it is very doubtful whether Hay would have been able to establish his innocence. But he did so, and a pardon was granted him. It looks almost as if justice in England were growing of late more than ordinarily blind. Thrice, within three years, has the Home Secretary’s “pardon” been granted to men found to have been wrongfully convicted. The average man takes it for granted that these hideous mistakes must, of necessity, be few and far between; but the criminologist knows better. He, at all events, is well aware that every year a number of innocent people are sentenced to suffer either an ignominious death upon the scaffold, or the long-drawn-out living death of penal servitude. Many of these judicial miscarriages never come to light at all. Others are purposely glossed over by the powers that be. But occasionally one occurs of so appalling a nature that it rivets the attention and shocks the conscience of the entire civilized world, as in the case of Adolf Beck. THE CASE OF ADOLF BECK Adolf Beck was twice convicted for crimes committed by a man who somewhat resembled him. He served his first sentence and had been convicted for a second crime on “misrepresented identity” when his innocence was providentially established. The case is too lengthy for detailed account in these pages, and I shall content myself in giving the summing-up of Mr. George R. Sims in the pamphlet reprinted from his presentation of the case in the columns of _The Daily Mail_ of London: “I have told in plain words the story of a foul wrong done to an innocent man. “I have proved beyond all question that Adolf Beck was in 1896, by the Common Sergeant, Sir Forrest Fulton, at the Old Bailey, sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude for being an ex-convict named John Smith. “I have proved that he was _not_ found guilty of being John Smith by the jury.