THE charge of the Lord
Justice-Clerk, which was begun on the eighth day of the trial, after the
address of the Dean of Faculty for the defence, was resumed and finished
on the ninth day. It was characterised by great impartiality, being a
clear and lucid exposition of the evidence on both sides, and of the
points of law discussed in the pleadings for the prosecution and defence.
The jury retired at the close of his
lordship’s charge, and, during their absence to determine the issue of
life or of death, the prisoner sat, to all outward appearance, the most
unconcerned person in court. They came back after an interval of
half-an-hour, and, amid the most profound silence, their foreman, Mr.
Moffat, mathematical teacher in the High School of Edinburgh, read the
following verdict:
"The jury find the panel not guilty
of the first charge in the indictment by a majority; of the second charge,
not proven; and, by a majority, find the third charge also not proven.
The prisoner, who listened to the
verdict with the same calmness which she had manifested throughout the
whole nine days’ proceedings, was then dismissed from the bar.
When the verdict was read there
arose a burst of cheering from the densely packed audience in court, which
the officers in vain attempted to suppress, and, on the result being
announced to a crowd of many thousands outside, a similar expression of
opinion took place.
The eminent counsel, who had the
chief role
on both sides, subsequently occupied the two highest
positions in the Scottish Court of Session. The Dean of Faculty (John
Inglis) became Lord . President, and the Lord Advocate (Moncreiff) Lord
Justice-Clerk. The Dean of Faculty, who so eloquently and successfully
pled for the panel, is reported to have said to her after her acquittal:
"I have saved your neck from the
gallows, but I cannot save your soul from perdition."
She is said to have got married, and
to have settled in England, and the present writer was informed by the
late Rev. Professor Eadie, that, some years afterwards, he met her at the
house of a friend at Polmont, where she was then on a visit, and that she
had a child, to which she seemed as affectionately attached as it was
possible for any mother to be. Her maternal grandfather was the architect
of one of the most admired public edifices in Glasgow. William Harper
Minnoch, Esq., to whom she was engaged to be married, as mentioned by the
Lord Advocate in his narrative of the case, was a partner in the eminent
firm of John Houldsworth & Co., merchants in Glasgow. It is hardly
necessary to add that it was not he who subsequently married her. It has
been stated, on what seems good authority, that the mother of L’Angelier
was the illegitimate daughter of a Fifeshire baronet and a miner’s
daughter.
