The Globe. MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 260, 12 April 1875, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1875.

The sentence of death passed by his Honor Judge "Williams on John Mercer, for the Lyttelton murder, is the natural result of a verdict with which every person who has read, or listened to the evidence produced in the case, must agree. The counsel for the defence, was unable to suggest anything in the course of his speech for the prisoner, which could lead twelve men of average abilities to suppose that any one else had committed the crime for which his client was then on trial. The horror and detestation with which such a crime is naturally viewed, leaJs us to believe that the dread sentence of the law will be carried into effect, and that the wretched murderer will suffer the extremest punishment which human hands can inflict on him for his detestable crime. It has been said that " the worst use you can put a man to, is to hang him," but when a man with the wild beast propensities of the prisoner now awaiting sentence is found wandering loose amongst a civilized community, there can be but little doubt that the infliction of the punishment of death, is the only means of restoring any feeling of security to the community amongst which the prisoner has lived. It is utterly useless to argue that the crime was aimless and objectless, and that the prisoner must have been insane at the time of the committal of the dreadful deed. His insanity, if such it can be called, has never developed itself in any form which would render it necessary that he should be confined, and prevented from access to his fellow-creatures, and the outburst of demoniacal brutality which culminated in the crime of murder, must be expiated, as far as possible, by his death at the hands of the society whose laws he has outraged. The few murders which have been committed in Canterbury have been of a very brutal description, but even the case of Cedino cannot for one instant compare in atrocity with the case which took up the attention of the the Court on last Friday and Satur-

day. The utter callousness and indifference of the prisoner, both during the trial and after his Honor had pronounced the dread sentence of the law, must have struck anyone who was present at the time very forcibly. It is to be hoped that the ministration of good men may have some effect on the nature of the culprit, during the short time which now remains to him on earth, and that he may be brought to some sense of the atrocity of the crime which he has committed before he is launched into eternity. If he has any hopes that the sentence may be commuted, it is to be hoped also, that his mind may be disabused on this point, and that he may thoroughly understand that there is not the slightest chance of his ever again being "let loose on the world of which he has taken his last farewell. Any hopes, held out by anyone, that the sentence will not be carried into execution would only prove to be cruel delusions to the Lyttelton murderer.