A WIFE-MURDERER PARDONED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1188, 5 December 1884, Page 3

A WIFE-MURDERER PARDONED.

It is announced, apparently on authority, that the Government have decided to advise His Excellency to pardon the prisoner Smyth who is Undergoing the sentence of penal servitude for life for having murdered his wife. The case referred to is, no doubt, that of Smyth, who was found guilty of murder before the Supreme Court at Cnrisf.churoh in December, 1869. . Many of on - readers who were in the Colony at the time may have forgotten the circumstances connected with that revolting case, and we therefore propose briefly to re-state them here—not because we desire to reproduce a sensational story, but because we think it our duty to invite the attention of the public to the course the Government recommend. The convict Smyth at the time kept a public house in Lyttelton called the Railway Hotel. According, to the evidence produce 1 at the trial, he had had frequent quarrels with his wife, on account, it was asserted, of her intemperate habitsWitnesses swore to having seen him treat her with the grossest barbarity, not'only once, but on several occasions. He"-»'n guilty, it was shown, of tying her hands and feet, and of dragging hey about the house by the hair of the head. On one occasion, four or five months before Mrs Smyth’s death, a witness swore that he saw her husband drag her down from her bedroom into the cellar when she had nothing on but her nightdress,. make her hands fast behind her back and tie her feet. On another occasion the same witness saw the woman tied up to two posts in the cellar, her hands stretohe I out over behead and fastened to one of the post.", and her feet to the other. It was sworn that Smyth had been repeatedly heard to say that he would either kill his wife or cure her, and that he wished her dead. On the day on which her dea'h occurred the woman appears to have been the subject of aseiiesof most revolting barbarides. According to the evidence of the principal witness, she suffered som» injury from twofills down the stairs. This was followed by her husband dragging her down the kitchen stairs by the hair of the head. He bumped her head on the floor and put his foot on her throat. He next tied her hands behind her back, put a wooden gag inter mouth, and left her lying on the floor. One of the servants released her, and she went to her room. Later in the same day the witnesses deposed to hearing a scraping of feet in Mrs Smyth’s bedroom, followed by the appearance of Smyth ex claiming that his wi'e was dying. She ha I been tied hand and foot as on former occasions to an iron bedstead, and cironmstanti il evidence was produced to prove that the vag had on that occasion also been used. There were marks on the instrument as of hlood, and theie were marks on the floor which looked as if they might have been produced by the edge of the gag. The medical gentleman who was called in immediately after the woman’s death was strongly of opinion that it was caused hy suffocation, and that the „ erng could have brought suffocation about. Another medical witness deposed that the instrument could produce death. A third medical witness thought death was caused by suffocation, but not by the use of the gag alone. A fourth was of opinion that the gag, if the woman was’tied and bruised, wonld have accelerated her death, but Would not have caused it In summing up the evi dence, His Honor pointed out that the first question the jury would have to determine was whether the death of the woman was caused,or accelerated by the conduct of the prisoner, and it they were convinced, on that point, that’ his conduct towards his wife was evidence of malice, it they were satisfied on the latter point, they were bound to find him guilty of murder. If not, then their verdict would have to be one of manslaughter. The jury, after considerable de'ay. brought in a verdict of murder, ami His Honor, in sentencing the criminal, according to the report in the newspapers, said he saw no reason to assume that the conclusion that the jury had arrived at was not a correct one.

But there were circumstances connected with the closing scenes of the trial which induced the Government of the day to advise a commutation of the capital sentence. These reasons were given in the House of Representatives during the following session, and may be brn fly summarised as follows :—The trial concluding late on Saturday evening, the Judge sent for the jury at at fifteen minu'es past eleven, and told them that,unless they agreed before midnight he would ne obliged to lock them up till Monday morning. As up'to that time the jury were hotiagvecfl, it was' -held thatthe intimation of -the Judge-might-have; hurried them-in arriving it-their verdict. Again, another reason given-' ivAs that the Judge is said to have charged the jury tthaf all, the medical evidence agreed- that death w»s caused byanffoeatirtn, whereas the evidence of one of the ina iical men wnsiti conflict 1 with the rest on the point; and in wpty toV tetjaeat from the jury that he

iheifteaf evidence might be ; to them, the Judge appears to have given only an erroneous resume of it. In the corregp ip.dcnoe which ensued between the Judge and the Government the former intimated his belief that “ the prisoner may not have intended,his wife’s death, although legally and morally gu Ity of murder.” These facts were strongly pressed on the Govern* ment by the counsel for the prisoner, one of the witnesses, and 133 residents of Christchurch, and the result was that Ministers recommended the Governor to commute the sentence of death to one of penal servitude for life.

Such are the facts of the case as brought out during the trial, and a* afterwards explained in. the House of RepresentativesThey show that Smyth treated his wife over a series of months with the most revolting brutality, which can only, it appears to us, be accounted for on the theory that ha had deliberately intended to shorten her life, so. that he escaped hanging simply on account of the mistakes of the presiding Judge alluded to. The case, it appears to us, is not one which can possibly justify the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, and we nannot conceive on what grounds the Government can have come to tbe conclusion that it is their duty to advise His Excellency- to grant Smyth a free pardon.— Press.