CATTLE-MAIMING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 138, 29 October 1912, Page 7

CATTLE-MAIMING.

FAMOUS CASE RECALLED. EMINENT NOVELIST ON TRACK OF CRIMINAL. London, September 7. Some years ago there was an outbreak of horse and cattle maiming atrocities in the Cannock and Great Wyrley district of South Staffordshire. Night after niglit for weeks 011 end some miscreant or miscreants slashed and stabbed—sometimes fatally —valuable horses and cows at pasture. Finally, for some reason not particularly apparent, the police centred their suspicions on a young solicitor, George Edalji, the son of the Parsee vicar of Great Wyrley. Edalji was arrested, tried and found guilty and sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, but the evidence against him was by no means of the nature and quality that brings conviction to unbiassed minds, and many of those who followed the case most closely were quite certain that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Among them was the creator of "Sherlock Holmes." Dr. Doyle was so convinced that Edalji was innocent that he set to work to obtain the convict's release. It was a tough task, but in the end Sir Arthur Conan Doyle implanted his convictions so firmly in the minds of the authorities that Edalji was released, That was about five years ago.

During the early days of Edalji's incarceration there were one or two minor cases of cattle maiming, but these were put down as mere "imitative crimes" performed by some person or persons of feeble intellect. Then until Edalji's release the farmers of the Cannock and Great Wyrley district were no longer troubled. Almost as soon as Edalji had returned to the district, however, cattle-maiming re-started, but happily for him he was so circumstanced at the time that it was utterly impossible for ■him to have had any hand in them. The perpetrators, however, could not have been aware of this fact, and the inference drawn was that the miscreants responsible were moved to commit the crimes in the hope that Edalji would again be implicated. In other words, many people came to the conclusion that the cattle maiming was part and parcel of a plot to ruin Edalji. From time to time after that period opcasional mannings occurred, but within the past two months there has been a series of them—six in as many weeks —and the police are quite at a loss for a clue td the identity of the perpetrators. Night after night hundreds of police have been keeping a close watch over the fields, and farmers have watched, gun in hand, and have seen nothing, but horses have been maimed even in the guarded pastures almost under the very noses of the watchers. Each recent outrage—as was the ease in former years—has been preceded by the receipt of an anonymous letter or postcard from the gang. This was the last one received by the police just before the last outrage: WARNING NOTICE.

There will be another maiming outrage later on in this district by our clever gang, who can do the devils down any time when it is wanted. I will tell the bluebottles how the gang is working. By my orders there is one to do the maiming, one to write the warning'notice out, and there are four to watch the bluebottles about day and night. Since the maiming outrages started this last time in Julylast I have paid the gang £9OO to do the blue-bottles down. ■ I owe them a grudge. (Signed) Captain of the Wyrley Gang. An hour later the police received the news that during the night a valuable mare belonging to.a local councillor had been severely gashed about the hindquarters. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who favors the view that these insensate outrages are the woct pf one man, is now devoting himself to an attempt to running the criminal down. He feels convinced apparently that one man has been responsible for practically all the outrages committed in the district during the past nine years, and, it is said, lias in confidence given the Home Office the name, of a man living near Cannock as that of a person particularly well worth the closest attention of the authorities.