THE IDAHO MURDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 153, 28 June 1907, Page 5

THE IDAHO MURDERS.

NEW DEVELOPMENT. BT "WHOM "WAS ORCHARD EMPLOYED? NEW YORK, June 27. Evidence for the defence in the Idaho murder case—in which Harry Orchard and Pettibone, Hayward, and other trades union officials are on trial —is proceeding at Boise City. Mrs. Day testified that Harry Orchard, the chief witness for the prosecution,, told her that ex-Governor Steunenberg was responsible for his poverty, adding that he would get even with him.

John Elliot, an pnmate of the Soldiers' Home, deposed that Orchard told him he was employed by the Mineowners' Asso[ciation, and that the Western Federation of Miners was about to be crushed, and also that something would happen, within a month to startle the world.

The witness added that this was five weeks before Steunenberg's assassination.

[Orchard, the self-confessed murderer of Mr. Steunenberg, ex-Governor of lowa, and an active participant in the wrecking of Providence railway station with the loss of a number of lives, as well as in other fatal dynamite outrages and assassinations, claims to have been a paid assassin of the Miners' Federation, and that he acted under the direct instruction of that Union. The Union is now endeavouring to prove that the outrages were in the interests of the employers. The importance of this case will lie in the verdict, since a conviction is expected to project a crisis of the utmost gravity.]