The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1904. "KING'S EVIDENCE."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 229, 1 October 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1904. "KING'S EVIDENCE."

The criminal session ol' the Supreme Court closed in -New l'lymouth yesterday, the final scene being tlm sentence passed upon a young man, who, with another, and older man, and a woman, formed a trio in a case that has excited the greatest interest. " The way of the tiansgressor is hard "—sometimes. Blown, the transgressor, the wretched tool of a selfish man and a weak woman, has found it so. He is the victim, and we do not pity him a bit. He is, his Honour remarket!, old enough to have known better. For a fewpaltry pounds he waa prepared to take a fearful risk. He took it, with a disastrous result to himself, But what of tho other transgressor, tho man who caused the mischief, the employer of a wretched tool now languishing in a dungeon ? To save his skin ho '' gave away " his partner in a crime that tho judge declared to be one of the most serious known to the law. Brought up for sentence, a most able counsel pleaded wifrt rare eloquence that mercy might be shown. But iu spite of that his Honour commented severely upon tlie part piayed by Raven. He said the depositions showed that he knew the seriousiwss of the offence. He described the part taken by accused when the operation w u s being performed, and saiJ that altliough it was a sad thing for him to send a young man of respectable parentage to gaol, it would be worse for him to allow the public to .believe that such acts could be committed with impunity. The sentence was two years' imprisonment with hard labour. Most people thought, it was a light sentence, that his Honour iiad indeed listened to counsel's pleadings and tempered justice with mercy. But it was with a shock of surprise and indignation that in a few hours afterwards the public learned that this man, who, with the scathing denunciation, of a Supreme Court Judge linging in his 1 ears had been taken to gaol to serve what the public agreed wus a well-earned term of imprisonment, was again a free man—pardoned for having turned King's evidence to bring about the conviction of the man whom he himself had lured to his destruction. It may be the law of the land—we suppose it must bebut we look upon it as a travesty of justice, a gross injustice to the public weal. If Raven's pardon had been arranged for, what was the use of passing the sentence yesterday, accompanied as it was by the grave and weighty words of the learned judge ? The thing: is absurd. Wo hope never to see another case like this in New Plymouth. It should, however, do some good in serving to warn the Browns of the colony how despicably treacherous are those who seek tiheir aid to relieve them of the consequences of their folly.

ON THE FOURTH PAGE. Commercial. Mrs Hay-brick. Bivine Services. Customs Returns. Imperial Baptism. Romance 0 f , a Waif. King Salomon's Aline. Situation in Morocco.