PETITION REFUSED

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1929, Page 13

PETITION REFUSED

FAMOUS CASE RECALLED

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

"I'm getting nearer the grave and it is up to the Government to do the right thing, "said Mr. John J. Meiklo, of Salisbury road, Mount Albert, when he received a letter from the Minister of Justice stating that Cabinet decided to take no action, following the recommendation by the Public Petitions Committee that he be granted a pension of £4 per week for the rest of his life. Mr. Meikle is now 87 years, and . his case is well known. In 18S7 he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment on a charge of sheep stealing at Mataura. On release ho took the public platform throughout New Zealand to proclaim his innocence, and for many years the matter has boon before Parliament. In 1910 he was made a public grant of £2500, and for the past seven yoars public petitions committees havo made favourable recommendations for a pension.

"I have spent over £6000 of my own money in fighting for justice," said the old man. "Now lam penniless. All I have now is the old age pension, and, if it wasn't for two of my girls helping me I would be in the old men's home."

Mr. Meikle was imprisoned at the Invercargill, Lyttelton, Wellington, and Nelson Goals. He was forty-four when committed. He married twice and had 22 children. Fifteen are still living. He has 65 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.