THE HALL CASE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1376, 21 October 1886, Page 3

THE HALL CASE.

After a long and patient trial the most sensational, indeed the blackest case which has ever marked the annals of crime in this or any of the neighboring colonies, has ended in the convic tion of the guilty, the exculpation of the innocent, and the condign and just punishment of the offender. The remarks of Judge Johnston in sentencing Hall to penal servitude for the term of his natural life were not one whit too severe, scathing as were the terms employed to characterise the inhuman crime of the prisoner, whose conduct it would be hard indeed to parallel. The malevolent cunning with which he elaborated his dreadful design was only equalled by the coldblooded mercilessness of its execution, and the diabolical hypocrisy with which he pretended to sympathise with the daily and hourly sufferings of his victim, sufferings of deliberate purpose inflicted by his own hand, and that upon his own wife and the mother of his newlyborn infant. There is absolutely not one word that can be said in extenuation of his conduct—no language is too strong to paint its atrocity. Terrible is the sentence no doubt, for, as distinguished from an ordinary life sentence, there is no prospect of remission or of ultimate liberation at no matter how distant a date, and for Hall, as the prison gates close behind him the terrible inscription which Dante places over the portal of the place of Eternal punishment, " Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” has the fullest and most dread significance. And so ends—save the last scene of all, which comes to all whether bond or free—the career of one who had many advantages, who stood well in society, who, with undoubted talents, might have played a prominent and useful part as a citizen—ends in disgrace and infamy in a felon’s cell. And all for why ? Because of the greecT.of gain, that desire to possess money by any means, lawful or unlawful, which lures so many from the path of honor and rectitude. Surely there is a lesson and a warning here which should stand out as a beacon of danger helping others to avoid the rock on which so many have made shipwreck. But it is not our purpose to sermonise—that is rather the function of the pulpit than of the press—and we will therefore not enlarge further upon this exceedingly painful case—but there is a feature in connection with this remarkable trial to which it is expedient to advert. We refer to the question which was raised by counsel for the defence as to the sufificiency of the indictment. It was contended, it will be remembered, that seeing that the prisoner was indicted for poisoning with antimony, whereas antimony in its elementary form is not a poison, no offence was disclosed, and it is well for the interests

of justice, and the safety of society, that the Judge was able to rule that whereas the compound actually administered, of which antimony was a part, was commonly understood by the terra antimony, the charge was sufficiently explicit, as had Judge Johnston not been able so to rule, the case, notwithstanding the weight of evidence, must have broken down. But there did appear to be some danger of this result at one time, and the fact brings into prominence the expediency of a change in the law as regards the form of indictments, which it is desirable should be couched in the simplest language possible. This points to the necessity for the enactment of the Criminal Code Bill which has been before Parliament for three sessions past, and under which the manner of stating offences is made so plain and concise that he who runs may read. As, for example, in a case of murder it is sufficient to aver that “ A murdered B at a place and on a date named, and so in a case of attempted murder, theft, perjury, or any other offence. This would be a great and manifest improvement, and would do away with the possibility which now exists of the guilty escaping through “a flaw in the indictment,” only too common an occurrence under the present system of complicated and highly technical legal forms and phraseology.