“The intercession of the American Government through Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State, was urgent, strong, and most intense. It is incredible that Mr. Matthews desired any loophole to release her. The case was full of them. “Sir Matthew White-Ridley was not a lawyer, and there is no probability that he ever read the evidence in the case, which was voluminous. He could not have read the papers in three days if he had attempted it. He simply followed his predecessor’s line and was not able to take up the case on its merits.” LORD RUSSELL’S CONVICTION OF MRS. MAYBRICK’S INNOCENCE This statement of Mr. Lucy is of great value as an answer to the assault made on Lord Russell’s memory after his death, on his firm belief in my innocence. Lord Hugh Cecil wrote to a constituent: “I believe I am right in stating that he (Lord Russell) never said that he believed Mrs. Maybrick to be innocent.” When this was shown Lord Russell by Mr. A. W. McDougall, Esq., the Chief Justice exclaimed: “Does Lord Hugh Cecil suppose that I would abandon all the traditions of the Bar and put forward publicly as an argument in such a case my personal belief in this, that, or the other thing? Does he suppose that I would have made all the efforts I have been making to obtain her freedom if I believed her to be guilty?” EXPLANATION OF ATTITUDE OF HOME SECRETARIES “Personal Rights,” of November 15, in commenting on the statement of Mr. Lucy in _The Strand Magazine_, says: “We do not share the belief that Sir Fitz-James Stephen was insane in any plenary sense at the time of the trial; but we are convinced that he was not fully sane. His charge to the jury, the report of which is reproduced in full in Mr. Levy’s book, is grotesquely inaccurate; and if the jury took it to be a compendium of the evidence--as they probably did--the result of their deliberation is fully accounted for. Indeed, if the facts were such as the judge stated, the verdict could hardly be impugned. How different they were may be seen by any one who compares the evidence with the judge’s charge, in the book already referred to. To take a single instance: the judge stated that, according to the evidence of Alice Yapp, at the commencement of Mr. Maybrick’s illness, he was very sick and in great pain immediately after some medicine was given to him by his wife. Alice Yapp swore nothing of the kind. She saw neither any administration of medicine nor any sickness. We could give other instances of gross inaccuracy, generally leading to the conclusion of the prisoner’s guilt; but, for our present purpose, the above incident will suffice.