CONCLUSION OF THE TRIAL.—EXECUTION OF WAINWRIGHT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 47, 18 February 1876, Page 2

CONCLUSION OF THE TRIAL.—EXECUTION OF WAINWRIGHT.

On December 2 tbia great trial concluded. The address of the Lord Chief Justice occupies eleven columns of the Times. We give the conclusion of the trial:— The jury then retired to consider their verdict, it being then a quarter to four o'clock. Precisely at 23 minutes to 5, after an absence of nearly an hour, the jury returned into Court, and the hum of conversation which had been kept up during the time, was at once succeeded by a solemn silence. M. (Avory, the Clerk of Arraigns, put to them the questions whether they had agteed oq their verdict, to which • the answer was in the affirmative. Mr Avory: Do you find the prisoner Henry Waiuwrtght guilty or not guilty on the first count of this indictment, whick charges him with wilful murder? The Foreman: We do all Bay he is guilty. Mr Avory: Do you find th&t Thomas Wainwright is guilty of being an accessory before or after the fact? 'lhe Foreman: Not guilty before, but guilty after. Henry Wainwrigbf, who spoke in a tone perfectly clear and firm, then said: I should like to make one or two observations, and they shall be very short indeed. I have first to express my deep obligation for the untir'iDg energy and ability of my counsel during this protracted trial. I thank him, aud all who have assisted him, deeply. My thanks are due to the very many friends who have with such promptitude and alacrity, come forward to give me their valuable, and substantial assistance. I have not been able to reply to all persons— The Lord Chief Justice : I cannot allow you to make a speech. The only question put to you is, whether you have anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you. The Prisoner : Then I will simply say that, standing as I now do upon the brink of eternity, and in the presence of that God before whom I shall shortly appear, I swear that I am not the murderer of the remains found in my possession. I swear that I have never in my life fired a pistol. I swear also that I have not buried these remains, and that I did not exhume or mutilate them as haa been proved before you by witnesses. I have been guilty of great immorality. I have been guihy of many indiscretions, but as for the crime of which I have been brought in guilty, I leave this dock with a calm and quiet conscience. My Lord, I thank you for the patience with which you have listened to mo. The Lord Chief Justice then said: Prisoner AHba bar^Tou aye DeeQ

found guilty, in my -opinion upon the clearest and most convincing evidence, of the murder of Harriet Louisa Lane, which has been laid to your charge. No ooe, I think, who has heard this trialcan entertain the slightest shadow of a doubt of your guilt; and I can only deplore that, standihg as you surely are, upon the brink of eternity, you should bave called God to witness the rash assertion which has just issued fron*. your lips. There can be no doubt that you took the life of tbis poor woman, who had beeu on the closest and most intimate terms of familiarity and affection with you, and who (_For continuation see fourth pageY)

was the 'mother of your two children. You inveigled her into that love warehouse. The revolver was not there before, but it must have been taken there for some purposp, with which she was slain. The grave was dug there for her remains, which were those you were removing when you were arrested. About that no one can entertain the shadow of a doubt. It was a barbarous, cruel, inhuman, and cowardly act. I do not wish to say anything to aggravate the position in which you stand, nor to dwell upon the enormity of your guilt, further than that by so doing I may arouse you to a sense of the position in which you now stand, in which all hope of earthly mercy is cut off. The only hope and consolation you can have is in ike future, where truth cannot be mistaken, where no assertion of yours will stand you in any stead; and where if you Beck mercy it must be through sincere repentance for the crime which you have undoubtedly committed. I have to warn you against any delusive hope of mercy here as long as the law exists which says that he who takes tre life of a ,. fellow creature with malice afore-thought shall answer for it with his own. This is a case to which it would be impossible that mercy could be extended; therefore prepare for the doom which awaits you. I have now only to pass upon you the dread sentence of the law, which is that you be taken from hence to the place whence your came, thence to a legal place of execution to be there hanged by the neck till you shall be dead, and that your body be buried within the precincts of the gaol in which you shall be last confined after your conviction, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul! The prisoner Henry Wainwright was then at once removed from the dock, and The Lord Chief Justice, addressing the other prisoner, said : Thomas George Wainwright, the jury have, iv my opinion, correctly acquitted you of of the heavier crime of having entered into the scheme conceived by your brother with the view to the murder of Harriet lane. Their opinion, and they have pronounced it by their verdict, is that, having become aware of the crime committed by your brother you lent yourself to assist him in its concealment. No fraternal affection, no regard or sympathy which one brother should have for another, can excuse you in the eyes of the law for assisting him in his endeavor to escape from the consequences of justice. Your offence, although lighter, and one far short of being an accessory before the act, is one which ought to be punished with proper severity; for by concealment of such crimeß, they are sometimes enabled to be perpetrated with impunity, and safety to human life is thereby endangered. I am ready to believe that you were acuated by the influence which your brother had over you, without which you might not have done what you did. I have taken that into consideration, as I believe you to have been his dupe, his victim, his too>, and that he has, in some degree, your crime to answer fcr, practically, as well as his own. You yielded weakly and wrongly to his influence, bnt though that does not in any way mitigate the gravity of the offence, and although upon the whole justice will not be satisfied with a less punishment than that which I am about to inflict, I think I am exercising some consideration towards you when I say that the sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned and kept in penal servitude for seven years. [In reply to a communication from the Home Secretary, the Lord Chief Justice has expressed his opinion that the conviction of Henry Wainwright, for the wilful murder of Harriet Lane, was quite justified by the evidence, and he sees no ground why the law should cot take its coursp.]