That the jury “did not hear the whole of the evidence very distinctly” is admitted by one of them in the Liverpool _Daily Post_ of August 10, 1889. Consequently they were likely to be unduly influenced by the judge’s charge. There is no evidence that the jury detected the judge’s misstatements, as a more intelligent jury certainly would have done. Their minds were “taken captive” by the charge of Justice Stephen, and they were as “clay in the hands of the potter.” LORD RUSSELL’S MEMORANDUM QUASHED The Lord Chief Justice sent the Home Secretary a memorandum consisting of twenty folios, in which he stated the strong opinion that “Mrs. Maybrick ought to be released at once.” The Lord Chief Justice also requested that the contents of his memorandum be made public. Yet when asked in the House of Commons to lay the document on the table of the House in order that it might be accessible to the members, the Home Secretary emphatically declined. The London _Daily Mail_, in a leader on this incident, said: “The only conceivable reasons for declining to give publicity to the letter, which was actually intended for publication, are apparently official red tape and the fear of giving new life to the agitation in favor of Mrs. Maybrick’s release. This result will be almost as effectually achieved by surrounding the case with further mystery and leaving upon the public mind the grave suspicion that justice may not have been done.” REPEATED PROTESTS OF LORD RUSSELL The following extracts are taken from the “Life of Lord Russell of Killowen” by R. Barry O’Brien. “In November, 1895, he [Lord Russell] wrote to Sir Matthew White-Ridley (page 260), conveying his strong and emphatic opinion that Florence Maybrick ought never to have been convicted; that her continued imprisonment is an injustice which ought promptly to be ended, and added: ‘I have never wavered in this opinion. After her conviction I wrote and had printed a memorandum, which I presume is preserved at the Home Office. Lest it should not be, I herewith transmit a copy.’ “As is known, what happened was that Mr. Matthews, after consultation with the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Justice Stephen, and after seeing Dr. Stephenson, the principal Crown witness, and also the late Dr. Tidy, respited the capital sentence on the expressed ground that there was sufficient doubt whether death had been caused by arsenical poisoning to justify the respite.