The Sheep Stealing Case.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 847, 20 January 1883, Page 2

The Sheep Stealing Case.

Eight years penal servitude is certainly a heavy sentence, but few people will consider it disproportionate to the crime of which John Meiklejohn was yesterday found guilty at the Christchurch assizes. The time is almost within living memory when, in England, a man convicted of sheep stealing was liable to be hanged, but we are more enlightened now, and have come to set a higher value on human life than to sacrifice it save for the worst crimes in the calendar. The reason that sheep stealing was in the old days held to be deserving of so extreme a punishment was probably on account of the difficulty experienced in discovering the criminal. This difficulty, as can be seen by a perusal of the evidence given yesterday, still exists, and it is more than likely that Meiklejohn has been carrying on

his illegal practices' for a long time. The system of registering brands is no doubt an excellent one, but at the same time it is by no means perfect. As was shown during the trial, many of the brands are so nearly similar that it is not easy to distinguish the particular flock from which sheep have been taken. Inspector Pender stated that sheep-stealing had been very prevalent in the district, and that Meiklejohn had been under police surveillance for some time. The difficulty of sheeting home the charge was at last overcome, and great credit is due to our local police, especially Sergeant Felton, for the manner in which the various linksofevidence were got together to ensure conviction. In a country like New Zealand where sheep-farming is so extensively carried on and the runs spread over many miles, the animals are more easily stolen than in England. The mode of procedure adopted by Meiklejohn seems to have been that he abstracted sheep from different flocks, transmitted them to some place where the brands were not known, and sold them to local farmers. It is impossible not to sympathise with the buyers of these sheep, who purchased them in perfect good faith and in ignorance that they were stolen property. It is, however, easier to see a wrong than to suggest a remedy, but the conviction of Meiklejohn will no doubt open the eyes of the farmers and make them more careful as to whom they obtain sheep from in the future. We understand that the cases which were adjudicated upon yesterday are not the only ones of which the police have cognisance. There is good reason, indeed, to believe that Meiklejohn was not alone in his nefarious practices, and that he is only a member of a sheepstealing “ring.” Runholders in this and outlying districts have suffered severe losses of late, and it is to be hoped that the police will not relax in their efforts to bring the criminals to justice.