Impassioned Plea for Mercy.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 June 1910, Page 4

Impassioned Plea for Mercy.

■— v - LIKI<iLOXG CRIMINAL'S PATHETIC APPEAL. "f "would sooner you scut 1110 to the scaffold than to penal servitude sixain," Henry Stevens ex laimed in the Court of Criminal Appeal recently, wh-en 'asking for leave to appeal against a sentence of five years' penal servitude passed on iliiin at Northampton for stealing a purse. "I am now forty-eight years of age," he said, "amd since f was thirteen si have only had It.wo years of liberty. Since I was a child: 1 have Ii ad no homo hut prison, 110 proper bringing up, 110 'home influence, 110 id't'ial environments. "I have never iliad a, chance- -I have never he-fore asked for one. "I have been in ■penal servitude, and I know what it moans. I appeal to you just to give me a chance and not send me back to a living death. "T do not- make .all sorts of promises, but f will lonve the coumtry and endeavour to make something of the life that remains in me. Hitherto it has been one long failure— a. life of suffering. Let mo see .if I can make a fresh start in a new country, and show that at least I am of some use in the world." The Lord, Chief Justice, in dismissing the appeal, said the man's record quite justified the sentence.