THE EDALJI CASE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 7 November 1907, Page 4

THE EDALJI CASE.

Already I have noticed the arrival it the statute-book of the Act for establishing a Court of Appeal in criminal cases (writes a press correspondeat). There can be no doubt that this movement, which has hung fire for so many years, took practical thape through the gross miscarriages of justice which have occurred in recent years. Primarily among these Hood the notorious Adolf Beck case, end, secondly, that of the young lawyer Edelji, who. by a misuse of the law's machinery, was wrongly convicted of cattle-mutilation, and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, part of which he served before a free pardon was granted to him For sotr.-j reawm not disclosed by the Home Secretary, the usual compensation for the wrong he had sustained was withheld. i-nd, as in the tieck case, a strenuous and successful attempt was made t> thield, and, so far as possible, to hid',', tne officials through whose negligenceor misfeasance the judicial wrong wis done. Those who fully believe in Mi Edalji's innocence, headed by Sir -nuaj)S jpjs are 'a\ioq übiioj ji«|)jv uusly eierting themsehes to obtain full justice for him. They received, however, what at first appeared to be a very severe slap in the face, in the shape of an announcement that, since Edalji's release from prison, the in famoas outrages op. cattle and horses at Great Wyrley had recommenced, two particularly flagrant cases occurring during the currnnt week. Natui ally, at first this somewhat shook the faith of Edalji's supporters, but it ha* i now turned out to be a cogent point in his favor, for the impossibility o" Ednlji on this last occasion having been anywhere near the locality I where the outrages were committed I was inevntestably demonstrated —so i conclusively, indeed, that even some [of those officials who on a former j occasion strained the operation of the luw against him now frankly confess that the fresh outrages afford indirect, but very convincing, proof of his innocence 01. a fr.nncr occasion. For it •s admitted that the different sets of ♦uirages wtre manifestly all the work cf the same person. Therefore, if Edalji clearly could not have committed the latest one, it logically follows that neither was he guilty of those which went More. The mutilations are now believed to be the work oi <« lunatic of sanguinary tendencies, and he is being actively sought. So far, uiihnppily, without result.