THE TROTTER TRAGEDY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 45, 21 February 1913, Page 6

THE TROTTER TRAGEDY.

THOMPSON ACQUITTED. Melbourne, February 20. Chief Justice Madden, summing up, said that if the jury were satisfied that the finger print on the window sill was Thompson’s they were at liberty to convict him of murder, It appeared that accused was in the Post Office Hotel, which is in the neighbourhood of the tragedy, until eleven o’clock that night. Accused said that he then took a train to town. If so, one would have thought that he would have been able to call someo3e wficTsSaw hiin.' i ifae corroborating circumstances, though slight, were not without significance. The jury, after a few hours’ retirement, returned with a verdict of “Not guilty.” The crowd outside cheered the verdict, and escorted Thompson down the street, cheering. CONTEMPT OF COURT. The editor of the Age has been fined £lO, and the publisher £l, for contempt of court in connection with a paragraph during the trial of Thompson, by stating that finger-prints could be faked and- reproduced with a rub-ber-stamp, and used to the detrimen t of a prisoner. A second paragraph stated that the jury was the most be fogged that ever sat in the court. Justice Madden said that it was not good taste if it was not contempt, and accepted an apology.