A COMPARISON.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 147, 20 May 1884, Page 2

A COMPARISON.

~ 'Tiiti' 2'iwaru I/erald, after giving the career of Mr Edmund Yates, the proprietor of the World,- who recently received four months*' imprisonment for libelling Lord Loxsdale, has, the following to say concerning- Di Pahry's case'. 1 : — '> Talking about sentences of imprisonment, it is rather interesting* to notice that precisely the same punishment 'that is inflicted on an editor for libelling a lord m England is inflicted on a doctor for killing a woman m New Zealand. > A more horrible case of manslaughter arising from professional iucompetency, than that of poor Mrs Cuthbertsoic at Kaicaugata, we never heard of. Dr Parry was proved to have been either dead drunk or stupefied by narcotics at the time when he attempted to perform one of the simplest of .all opi'r.i.tions, and, .whilst m that slate, to have inflicted; such ciuel injuries on his patient .that death ensued m about an hour. There appears not to have been a shadow of defence of his crime or of justification of his conduct. Yet Judge Williams rui- i-ewsons.. best known to himself, deemed four months" iniprisoinueiH without hard labor a sufficient punishment for a man who,by his incapacity and crazy violence, had taken the life of a woman who had been entrusted to his can*, and was absolutely at his mercy. The Judge must be presumed to have had satisfactory grounds for passing so light a sentence ; but to our uninstructed mind it seems altogether inadequate.