THE DEATH SENTENCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1152, 13 June 1911, Page 5

THE DEATH SENTENCE.

CASE OF TAHI KAKA. ANGLICAN BISHOP APPEALS FOR MERCY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.! Auckland, June 10. Tho announcement that the death sentence of liaka will bo carried out has resulted, in a movement to circulate a petition for presentation to' his Excellency tho Governor praying him to reconsider his decision. Dr. Crossley, tho Anglican Bishop of Auckland, writes as follows to tho "New Zealand Herald":— "111 rcfcrence to tho Maori boy, Talii ICaka, now lying under sentence of death in Auckland Gaol, I have laid tho following pleas before his Excellency the Governor, requesting him to place them before tho Government, as a reason that tho recommendation to mercy appended l)y tho jury which tried, him should bo given ctt'oct to:— "Firstly, the boy is only 17 years of age. His brother, who is 19, confirms this. "Secondly, in most minds, tho verdict was based on the boy's ■ own confession. No other evidence of the act was forthcoming. This, at all events, suggests the possibility of a struggle. "Thirdly, tho boy's environment—never at day or Sunday School, away from homo since he was 13, of a tribe which has resisted the entrance of religious work amongst them. "Fourthly, slow of intellect, and morally dull, without an acute senso of property or wrong. "As to his being callous and unfeeling, I can give the strongest denial both from the witness of tho chaplain of the gaol (the Rev. E. C. Budd) and of the superintendent of our Maori Jlission (tho Rev. H. A. Hawkins), both of whom liavo repeatedly seen him in gaol. In addition, I havo visited him myself, and have no doubt in my own mind that ho is deeply conscious of his awful 6in, and I do believo truly penitent. I would not have put this on paper had not other statements appeared in public, but the real ground on which wp, as citizens, appeal for a reconsideration of his sentence rests upon tho fact of his youth, and also upon the fact that the jury 6ent not a recommendation, but a strong recommendation, to mercy. "Surely, when throughout the British Dominions at tho Coronation timo clemency is l>eing shown to prisoners, New Zealand will not refuse to give fi young though deeply-stained life a chance for reformation, and thus give effect weighty appeal of a responsible jury.