The Dean Case.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 89, 11 October 1895, Page 2

The Dean Case.

PROBABILITY OF DEAN'S PARDON BEING REVOKED. PLEA c,t INSANITY TO BE RAISED. }.: KAGiilSL'h SPEECH IN THE ASSEMBLY. A I\iA3TERPIECE OF HYPOCRISY (Per Press Association.) Sydney, October 10. Dean appeared in the Police Court today on remand on a charge of perjury. Smith, chemist, was examined. He deposed that he had given Dean about half an ounce of arsenic, the latter asking for it in order to make cement to fix a bicycle tyre. Witness said to the best of his ability he never gave him strychnine. The case was further adjourned till tomorrow. The Cabinet is discussing the ability to revoke Dean'B free prrdon. The theory of hereditary insanity is being canvassed in the Narrandera district, where Dean's mother and sister still reside. Both women, it is said, have been long known to the residents as eccentrics. A Press interview with them confirms their mental state. In his speech in the Legislative As sembly, on October Ist, Meagher made the following remarks :— Now, in regard to this confession of George Dean, allow me straight away to state— in order that there shall be no misapprehension— that George Dean never in his life made any confession to me — (cheers) — and that I never in my life made any confession to to Sir Julian Salomons I went to Darlinghursi, and saw Dean j there, and said to him, " Now, look here, < Dean, your sentence will be commuted : in view of the extraordinary action of the Judge in asking the jury to give a recommendation to mercy, and it is as certain as you are sitting in that cell that you will be reprieved. You will have im prisonment for life, and with good conduct you will be able to get out, perhaps in a fair number of years. Now remember, if there is anything which you have not told me, and I go on and get a Royal Commission, and it should come oat, you will be hung as sure as I am here. It the Royal Commission is granted, and there is something you have concealed from me, rest assured it will come out, and will be blasted for ever' His answer to me was in the clearest and strongest words I ever heard.* He said, "Go ahead Mr Meagher ; they can say nothing against me. I never had any poison. I am innocent, and I defy them." I came down and told my partner, and we went ahead, as I have said, and with my voice on the public platform, and with my pen, and other possible ways, at a sacrifice of time and health and money, I worked to do justice to a man whon I believed to be innocent. SIX JULIAN SALOMONS' MENTAL CONDITION I may say in regard to this question that none of you gentlemen can form any conception of the circamstances under which Sir Julian Salomons continued his conversation with me. I cannot describe the whole of his words, nor can I graphically describe the highly nervous manner in which something that apparently was troubling him in this Dean case impressed upon me ; I cannot describe it, but I don't believe that Sir Julian Salomons would wilfully and calmly and sanely endeavour to state what was fabricationI can only say that, if you were a witness, as I was, of his highly strung, nervous manner— and I may put it charitably— you would see the terrible infirmity that afflicts him at times. I refer now in the most charitable terms to it. It is this terrible infirmity which has caused him to leave for hurried trips time after time, in order to prevent his own destruction, and which has stood between him and his most cherished hope and ambition — the Chief Justiceship. I don't believe that in his sane moments he would attempt to rob me of my reputation. I don't believe that Sir Julian Salomons would plunge me down into that abyss of wrecked hope and shattered ambitions ; but Ido say this — that Sir Julian Salomons' statement is the statement of a man ivbo ia the creature of an uncontrollable impulse ; that it is the statement of a victim of a demon of mental affliction, which, as is known to all the profession, at times Bits astride his brilliant intellect. Let me say in con elusion, that what I have done in George Dean's case I am prepared, in the cause of Justice and humanity, so long as warm blood runs through my heart to do it again. lam just as satisfied that I, who have had no lapses of incipient mental weakness, have done my duty ; and I can say that when the clear path of duty is before me I have sufficient moral courage to go straight ahead, and do what I consider to be right, regardless of the frowns or anathemas of any judicial potentate, aud regardless of the slimy diplomacy of any social leper who for the time being pollutes the foundation of justice. Let me, in conclusion, tell the members of this House and the country I do not wear my heart upon my Bleeve for Sir Julian Salomons or the jackdaws hovering behind him to peck or pluck at. (Cheers).

The Napier Telegraph says f— The Dean case will be paraded for many years to come in all English countries, as a reason for refusing a convicted prisoner any chance of appeal. It will j also be relied upon by persons unfit to occupy the Bench, but who do occupy it, and are not ashamed to tell juries that they are as sure of the guilt of prisoners as t bough they had seen them commit the crimes which they are charged. That is what Judge Windeyer did. On Windeyer, in our opinion rests the blame for all that has followed since Dean's conviction.