THE EDALJI CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3777, 9 November 1907, Page 4

THE EDALJI CASE.

Already I have noticed the ar - rival in the Statute Book of the Act for establishing a Court of Appeal in criminal cases (writes a press correspondent). There can he no doubt that this movement, which has hung fire for so many years, took practical shape through the-gross miscarriages of justice which have occurred during recent years. First among these stood the notorious Adolph Beck case, and, secondly, that of the young lawyer Edalji, who, by a misuse ot the law’s machinery, was wrongly convicted of cattlemutilation, and was sentenced to a term ol imprisonment, part of which he served before a free pardon was granted to him. For some reason not disclosed by the Home Secretary, the usual compensation for the wrong he had sustained was withheld, and, as in the Beck case, a strenuous and successful attempt was made to shield, and, so far as possible, to hide the officials through whose negligence or misfeasance the judicial wrong was done. Those who fully believe in Mr Edalji’s innocence, headed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, are still strenuously exerting themselves to obtain full justice for him. They received, however, what at first appeared to be a very severe slap in the face, in the announcement that, since Edalji’s release from prison, the infamous outrages on cattle and horses at Great Wyrley had recommenced, two particularly flagrant cases occurred during the current week. Naturally, at first this somewhat shook the faith of Edalji’s supporters, but it has now turned out to be a cogent point in his favor, for the impossibility of Edalji on this last occasion having been anywhere near the localitj’’ where the outrages were committed was incontestably demonstrated — so conclusively, indeed, that even some of those officials who on former occasions strained the operaton of the law against him now frankly confess that the fresh outrages afford indirect, but convincing, proof of his innocence on a former occasion. For it is admitted that the different sets of outrages were manifestly all the work of the same person. Therefore, if Edalji clearly could not have committed the latest one, it logically follows that neither was he guilty of those which went before. The mutilations are now believed to be the work of a lunatic of sanguinary tendencies, and he is being actively sought. So far, unhappily, without result.