"I DIE INNOCENT."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 330, 4 March 1910, Page 5

"I DIE INNOCENT."

WOULD-BE SUTCIDE SEXTEXCED. j By Cable. —Press Association.—Copyright Melbourne, March 3. Lewis Edward Davids, who created a sensation in Court last month by attempting to shoot himself, was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. Prisoner was charged with stealiwg three cheque forms from the warehouse of Fredk. Thos. A. McKittrick and then breaking his wav out. Amongst other things that he obtained by fraud wis the pistol that hp endeavored to commit suicide with. The incident occurred just as the jury found Davids guilty flfter several hours' deliberation, and the prison recorder had read out his gaol record —forgery and uttering in Xew Zealand, and the stealing of cheque forms under exactly similar -circumstances in Capetown, for which l;c ■was deported. The recorder also mentioned something about a court-martial Jot horse-stealing during the war in South Africa. Davids fumbled in an inside coat-pocket as the record was Tead, and, when the -Judge remanded him for sentence, produced the revolver, and fired the shot, declaring. "I am innocent, my Lord. I die an innocent man." The prisoner did not fall down as the Tesulf of the shot, but, supported by policemen who had rushed into the dock, he staagered from the Court on his way to the gaol hospital. The aff&ix w3s sodden and startling.