'Inconsistent with the ordinary English phlegmatic nature'? Violent crime and attitudes to Mediterranean defendants in the English courts, c. 1830-1900
Résumé
This chapter addresses the question of how English judges and juries interpreted and responded to murder and other violent crimes in the Victorian period in cases when the defendant was of Mediterranean origin. Drawing on court transcripts and newspaper accounts from the period, the discussion concentrates on whether defendants were treated with greater severity, or on the contrary with greater leniency, because of their foreign status.