Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

It would ill become us to deny the right of the Press to comment upon the administration of justice, but we must protest against fair comment being displaced to make way for the grossest misstatements, the most vulgar abuse, and the coarsest language. Yet protest against those whose profession it is to misstate, to abuse, and to be coarse, seems hopeless. We have a flagrant instance before us. Some time since a man named Cameron was committed for trial on a charge of rape on a young girl. It not being to our taste to furnish prurient reading, a mere record of the charge and committal was all that appeared in our columns, but we regret to say another paper did not pursue this course, but published every tittle of evidence except that which even a blunted sense of decency was compelled to suppress. In due time Cameron came up for trial, was found guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, (not on his own account, but because of his wife and child,) and was yesterday sentenced by the Chief Justice to ten years’ imprisonment, and to receive twenty-five lashes twice during that period. Following upon this has appeared the most marked outrage upon those principles of justice that should guide a journalist that we have come across during a long time. Commencing with a barefaced untruth, an article has appeared which, in ignorance lot us hope, states the case of Cameron in a manner directly opposed to fact, and then condemns Judge Pebnderoast for the sentence passed by him. We are in-the first place told that Chief Justice Prendbrgast’s criminal sentences in Dunedin, on the occasion of his first appearance on the bench, were made the subject of uafavorable comment in respect of their leniency. This is altogether untrue. A case came before Judge Prendeegast in which a girl named Margaret Collins was accused of infanticide at Tokomairiro. From the evidence it was plain that if the girl had committed the crime whilst in the possession of her senses, she must have done so in a horrible manner ; but the jury found her guilty of manslaughter, believing that she was in a maniacal condition at the time. We are stating this case with all the evidence before us, and we are merely stating facts. It was a case about which there could be but little doubt. It was either the foulest murder, or was a crime committed in a state of mental derangement. The jury decided that it was the latter, and a sentence of six months’ imprisonment was passed. We may say that the case was surrounded by most painful circumstances, which aroused a large degree of sympathy for the girl, both from Press and public. It will also be noticeable that the derangement was not caused by drink. The Otago Daily Times, for reasons with which every one in Otago is well acquainted, made this sentence the subject for a diatribe against the Chief J ustice, but the Bruce Herald, the Evening Star, and other journals, were prompt in drawing attention to the fact that, with the verdict given by the jury, the sentence could be none other than that passed. These papers, too, were not slow nor careful in pointing out the true motives of the Daily Times in the matter. Into those motives we ourselves have no occasion to enter, nor will we stay to point out the contrast between the sycophancy of the Daily Times to Judge Prendergast’s predecessor, and the attitude of that journal towards those Judges who have lately occupied tho bench in the Supreme Court, Dunedin. So far for the misrepresentation with regard to the Chief Justice at Dunedin. We now come to the utterly untruthful manner in which Cameron’s case has been placed before the public by those who deny tho justice of his sentence. Wo have the evidence in this case before us, and the story may briefly, as it must, unfortunately, bo necessarily told. Ayonng girl named Eliza Smith, some fourteen years of age, acted as servant to Cameron and his wife. The circumstances under which this young girl was in the Camerons’ house should have ensured her protection. Her father was a prisoner in Wellington gaol, and her mother was dead. Cameron came home drunk one afternoon

during the absence of his wife, and committed the worst of outrages upon this child, under circumstances which need not be detailed, but which the evidence of neighbors, and of the doctor, showed to have been brutal in the extreme. The wife, on her return, endeavored to prevent the girl’s leaving the house in order to give information. After some time, however, the girl got out, and Cameron was arrested with the result already described. Now, on Cameron’s behalf it is pleaded that he was drunk at the time he committed the offence, and his wife is held up as a picture of womanly devotion for trying to screen him. Against this poor woman, doubly outraged, we have not a word to say. What she did was done, we suppose, in thought for her own child and her husband’s reputation ; but how her act could be held to palliate the offence by which an intoxicated ruffian blighted the life of a child, we are at a loss to discover. That same intoxication, too, is raised as a plea, but such a plea wo are confident requires no answer. The consequences of Cameron’s sentence on his wife and child, are pointed out in order to condemn the Chief Justice ; but we fail to see how he could have taken these things into consideration, although the jury did. Of all outrages upon society, that of Cameron’s was of the worst type, and it deserved a punishment which would act as a deterrent in such cases. In treating of the sentence this point should have been put forward, but of course it was not. We were told nothing of the horrible crime from which the child had been sufferer ; not a word was said of the necessity for preventing with the strong arm of the law such crimes. We had a wail on behalf of the wife, and a plea of intoxication for the husband. The true position, however, may bo put shortly. Let every man who reads this case put a relation of his own in the place of the girl Smith, and then tell what his feelings would be. He will then be able to judge of the fearful wrong done to a child ; and he will then say that not two, but twenty thrashings would, have justly punished the offender. We write in no spirit of false morality. We have no wish to set up a standard for judge or jury above the ordinary passions of man and woman. We simply point out that the acts of men like Cameron are the acts of beasts, and must be punished accordingly. For the vile thought that could endeavor further to blight the career of the poor victim by half hinting her culpability we have nothing to say. Had anything in the evidence tended to prove that culpability, we should not now be arguing as we are. As the evidence was altogether in a contrary direction, we leave the originator of an unmanly falsehood to contumely.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18750715.2.10

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4468, 15 July 1875, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,223

Untitled New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4468, 15 July 1875, Page 2

Untitled New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4468, 15 July 1875, Page 2

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert