TWO QUALITIES OF MERCY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 83, 7 April 1879, Page 4

TWO QUALITIES OF MERCY.

(London .Punc/i.) (Unstrained.)] Jfyr Passing Sentence upon a Bank Clerk. Prisoner at the Bar, I have not the slightest doubt about the justice of the verdict. You have disgracefully betrayed your trust. You have been found guilty of forgery, a crime which only a few yearß ago wes punishable with death. You forged a document by which you would have received five pounds had not your deception been detected in the very nick of time. It has been urged that you have a wife and sis small children dependent upon you for support. In my eyes, this is an aggravation of your crime Not only have you • brought ruin upon yourself, but upon your family . It has also been urged tbat as your crime was detected in its incipient stage, you did not actually receive aoy profit by tbe transaction. I need scarcely observe that this ib quite beside the question. You a'e punished that others may take warning by your fate, and thus avoid your evil courses. However, as the jury have rather strangely recommended you to mercy, I will not be harsh. I award you eighteen years — to be passed in penal servitude. (Strained Carefully.) (Far Passing Sentence upon a Body of Directors. Prisoners at the Bab, For thus, painful as it may be to my feelings, I mast call you. A jury of yoor countrymen, after a long trial, have, with whatever reluctance, found you guilty — a word I uso witb the greatest possible regret. It is not for me to comment upon the harshness of tbe language used in tbe indictment. I eit here .as Judge, not as public prosecutor, and I am deeply thankful tbat the cruel duty of the prosecution has not devolved upon me. It is a source of deep satisfaction that you have not been proved to have received, in your awn names, and on your private accounts, any identifiable portion of the large sums obtained by the publication of false babu-ce.shee.-, and

other documents of a misleading character, which you have beeu found guilty of fabricating and issuing. Had you been distinctly traced in putting into your own pockf »s, all, or tnost of ihe money obtained by means of these highly-colored publications, I should have considered your conduct (I (rust you will pardon one for saying ao) decidedly open fo severer animadversion fban I feel it necessary to apply to it under (he actusl c'rcumslances of ihe cose. May Ibe permitted to bint that it would have been better if you had not poid so many millions into tbe accounts of firms so cioßely connected with your own bedy. I cannot help (binkiog thot (he advocate who has conducted (he prosecution has (no doubt unconsciously), exceeded bis duty. He hes painted — wiih n strength of coloring which it roi^Lt, perbeps, under the circumstances, havo shown better taste to h&ve tcned dowt — the ruin flowing from what he cells your miedeeds You hare thus bten put to a great deal of, what I must call, superfluous suffering. I do net, for my part, quite see what the wholesale ruin of widows and orphans lips to do with tbe matters at issue in Ilia rase. However, I mutt take the law as I find it ; ond the lew, 1 om afraid, wiih its habitual sternness, proclaims you guilty. The verdict of the Jury to that effect has been received with a great deal of unseemly applause, wbicb it was my duty, however reluctantly, fo repress. It ia my painful task (o remind you tbat you are about to be punished, (hat others may take warning by your fate, and thus avoid what I trust you will allow me fo call your evil courses. Under these circumstances, I feel it my duty to sentence the two most blameable of you to eighteen, the less culpable— aDd Ism happy to add, the moat of you —to eight months' impriscnm.nt — of course, without hard labor, in both cases.