BUTLER SENTENCED FOR BURGLARY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 251, 24 April 1880, Page 2

BUTLER SENTENCED FOR BURGLARY.

Dunedin, April 22, Thia morning Butler pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary at Mr Stamper's ' house, but not guilty to stealing books from the Catholic Church, but the jury, without leaving the box, found him guilty. At the suggestion of t- e Bench, the Crown Prosecutor entered a nolle prosequi in respect to the charge of attempting to shoot the constables. The prisoner, in answer to the usual challenge, said nothing. The judge in, passing sentence said : —"lt is evident during the whole of your life, you have committed crime. From your earliest childhood you have been a persistent enemy of society, Where the Court has to deal with such habitual criminal! as you, it is necessary such punishment should bo meted out as will prevent the danger to society which must necessarily ensue if such »?haraote=B as yourself are at largo. The sentence I am- about to pass,you will distinctly understand, isn't measured on any degree by what took place recently. On that charge you wero acquitted. Such a verdict by no means exonerates you from grave suspicions in respect of that charge. I concur in that verdict, not because I am convinced of your innocence, but because in my opinion, the evidence brought against you was not sufficien. to justify a verdict of guilty, and the suspicion which must weigh on the mind of everybody in respect of the transaction does not affect in the least the sentence I am o-oing to pronounce. The sentence If* pronounce is based on. your previous' l ; fe and circumstances— that iminediately niter you were let out of gaol you <jeHK_ menced again a career of crime, larceny, and burglary, the latter accompanied in all probability, though it is not put against you, by arson. Th© sentence of the Oourt is, in respect of the burglary, that you be kept in penal servitude for 1.8 years, and for larceny, after previous conviction, 10 years, the sentence to run concurrently." This is practically 18 intimated that he would Ah the Attorney General as to IL.ilu-1 indVtments for murwith.