PRISONER AND THE BLACK CAP.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8894, 14 August 1907, Page 1

PRISONER AND THE BLACK CAP.

I There was an extraordinary scone at the Bcrhy Assizes while fjord Colcl ridge (sirtiiig as a commissioner) was n man to death. Tlio ' condemned mnu was William Edward Slack, who was found guilty of the murder of Lucy Wilscn. a married woman, at Chesterfield. Several times during the summing up Slack excitedly contradicted the. Judge, and the warders had diiiiculty in calming him. Asked by the Clerk of Arraigns, after the 'jury hud given their verdict, what'he had to say why he should not die according to law, lack shouted excitedly a most offensive phrase concerning the black cap. tie used oilier violent language, and refused to face the Eeuch while .the death sentence was being passed, struggling with the warders who tried to make him do so. He was with diiiicultv removed to the cells. The story of-Ithe murder is a strange one. The victim was a married woman employed as a bane id at Uw local theatre. She had been ou verms of intimacy with Slack, a married man .separated from Iris wife. Daring a quarrel Stack attacked the woman with a hatchet in the street in broad daylighl, the injuries proving instantly fatal. Slack, after committing the crime, was >: ! :en to throw the hatchet away and stoop down and kiss the dead woman's face. Her baby, of which he was the putative father, was in a perambulator by her side, and Slack was wheeling it quietly away when he was arrested. It was elicited hi cross-examination that Slack was of violent temperament, am. had served seven years' penal servitude for the attempted murder of a policeman.