THE KINDER AFFAIR.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1936, 8 May 1880, Page 4

THE KINDER AFFAIR.

[“ Dunedin Star.”]

It is reported on good authority that the Executive Council of New South Wales has decided to liberate Bertrand, the dentist, ■who, some fifteen years ago, was sentenced to death for the murder of Mr Henry Kinder, the paying teller of the City Bank of Sydney. Mr Kinder had been well and favorably known as a bank official in Wellington, and therefore his tragic end caused considerable excitement in this Colony as well as in Australia. This case was surrounded by so many strange details as to appear almost like the lucubrations of some agony writer in a penny diabolical. A short authentic epitome of the case may not be uninteresting to our readers, more especially as by the assistance of tho Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, New Zealand may possibly be favored with a visit from this notable character. Mr Kinder resided near Sydney, in tho beautiful end romantic suburb of St. Leonard’s, North Shore. Bertrand was a dentist, carrying on hi# business in Wynyard square. Bertrand and Kinder were on visiting terms. Kinder had loft New Zealand in debt, and threats of legal proceedings caused him to become so downcast that he eventually had to obtain leave of absence from his banking duties. A few days after it was bruited about Sydney that Kinder had been shot in the side of tho head accidentally, but that under the care of Dr. Eiohler, a leading medical practitioner in Sydney, he was rapidly recovering. Then came the announcement of Kinder’s death. An inquest was held, and a verdict of accidental death was returned. But now comes the strangest phase of the affair. A person named Jackson, formerly a squatter in New Zealand, who had been one of Mrs Kinder’s particular friends, and of whom |Kinder was very jealous, had well-nigh ruined himself in Sydney, and wrote a lengthy letter to Bertrand, in which he threatened that if Bertrand did not give him enough money to pay for a passage back to New Zealand, a charge would be made by him against Bertrand for murdering Kinder. Bertrand at once handed this letter to the police, and Jackson was arrested and sentenced to penal servitude by Judge Hargreaves for sending a threatening letter. Through some divulgences made at and after the trial, Bertrand was suspected of carrying on a liaison with Mrs Kinder, and, eventually, through some other statements made to the police, Bertrand, Mrs Bertrand, and Mrs Kinder were arrested and charged with murdering Kinder. Bertrand only was put upon his trial. The jury, on being called upon for their verdict, was at first equally divided ; on a final division, some hours subsequently, there were nine for acquittal and three for guilty. The jury was then discharged, and Bertrand was again tried. Between the date of the first and second trials a most diabolical rumor was generally circulated to the effect thatßertrand had been guilty of fearful secret crimes whilst prosecuting his profession as a dentist, and that a private diary in hie handwriting fully detailing these crimes had been discovered by the police. This horrible and improbable rumor obtained very general belief, and when the second trial came off Bertrand was found guilty and sentenced to death by Sir Alfred Stephen. An arrest of judgment was applied for by Mr Julian Saleman, then a rising member of tho Bar, who, being of the same faith as tho prisoner, had a double incentive to exercise all his skill and eloquence. The Dull Court, by a majority, permitted an appeal to the Privy Council on the ground that the Judge at tho second trial had acted illegally in reading his notes taken at the first trial of tho witnesses’ evidence to them as they were sworn. Sir Alfred Stephen was much hurt at this, and stated that he had taken this course in order to save time, and with tho consent of the Crown, the counsel for the prisoner, and the prisoner himself. Mr Salaman then at once retorted—“ Then an ignorant judge, weak and incompetent counsel, and a trembling prisoner can upset the whole of the English laws.” This quite electrified the Court, and Mr Salaman gained his point. The Privy Council, while condemning tho action of Sir Alfred, upheld the conviction, but the Executive Council remitted the sentence of death to that of imprisonment for life, which is usually considered, in Now South Wales, to mean, in the case of a well-conducted prisoner, imprisonment for fifteen years, which time has now expired. The proofs of the guilt of Bertrand wore very faulty. Dr. Kichor proved that he conversed in German with Kinder about the shooting, and that Kinder said, “It is a severe blow that I have given myself.” Other witnesses were at hand to prove that Kinder had threatened to blow his brains out, yet Mr Dailey, who defended Bertrand, decided, in order to prevent the Crown from replying, not to produce evidence, and the rumor above alluded to, which, by tho way, was afterwards proved to be unfounded, was 90 generally believed that tho jury at once convicted the prisoner. Now, the general belief is that Bertrand was entirely guiltless of Kinder’s death. But there is a strong suspicion still that his conduct towards Mrs Kinder may have indirectly deprived her of her husband. At all events he has paid the penalty of such an offence. In New South Wales all prisoners undergoing a sentence of from three years upwards serve the first nine months in strict solitary confinement in that horror of criminals, Berrima Gaol. Bertrand, under this treatment, went insane, and was for about six years an inmate of the Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Parramatta; and Mr Salaman, who so cleverly pleaded for an “arrest of judgment,” also went mad shortly after obtaining the order for an appeal to the Privy Council, and, a few years ago. Dr. Eiohler, the surgeon who attended Kinder, became similarly afflicted.