Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1905, THE HAINING STREET MURDER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3601, 23 November 1905, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1905, THE HAINING STREET MURDER.

Never before in the annals of New Zealand history has there stood in the criminal dock, charged with murder, an accused possessing the same coolness and apparent presence of mind as Terry, the self-accused Haining Street murderer. His reason for pleading “Justification” seems beyond our mental reckoning. The whole ease has been Watched keenly, but mote than anything else, the demeanour of the accused throughout the ordeal has puzzled the most acute. After a trial, which lasted little over an hour (ridiculously k short for a capital charge), the jury were Compelled to bring in a verdict ut guilty. They made a recommendation to mercy, and it now remains to be seen whether the Governor’s legal advisers. will take any notice of that recommendation. If the condemned man is sound in mind, then he must have at heart the cause he has been fighting so many years for—the expelling of all Asiatics out of this country. But we hardly think any person of sane mood, knowing the penalty of the New Zealand law, would, in cold blood, strike down even a Chinaman, such as Terry admitted doing. There seems a feeling extant that his sentence will be commuted to imprisonment for life, and if so, Terry may be expected to divulge his methods and reasons of “justification” even more fully than he did in “ Shadow,” a publication which has been in command since its author made himself notorious by bringing the Chinese question so forcibly under the notice of New Zealanders.