THE GREAT BARRIER MURDER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1557, 24 February 1887, Page 4

THE GREAT BARRIER MURDER.

, r LETTER FROM MRS TAYLOR. The widow of the murdered man extended her forgiveness to the twoconderhoed prisoners in the following letter, which gratified the prisoners considerably when it was read to them, by the Rev. J; S. Will “To John Caffrey and Harry Penn.—l ana told by the Rev. Mr Hill you have asked me'to forgive you before you die. You have asked a hard thing, fonhe wrong you have done me is very great, but as I hope my dear husband may have received forgiveness, I now freely forgive you to the best of my power, and pray that you may receive pardon from Him from whom we all hope to 1 receive forgiveness and mercy.— Esther Taylor.” , VISITS OP RELATIVES, ETC. Caffrey was thirty-eight years of age and Penn twenty-four. Penn’s children were not taken to the craol as originally arranged. He gave his wife some directions as to thoir future care and disposition. The Kev. Mr Hill and Mr Brackenbridge, General Secretary of the Y.M.O. Association spent Sunday with the condemned men, Caffrey and Penn were bright and cheerful, and look great interest m their religious exercises; indeed in (heir hours of leisure they were ready to discuss passages of scripture with their warders. When told of the interest taken in them by Christian people, and that in all the Churches they would be prayed for, they were surprised. They then spoke in terms of gratitude, and desired that it should be made known how thankful they wore, and what a source of comfort and consolation it was to them in their trying circumstances. Nothing could have been more pathetic on Sunday, while the condemned men wore lying in their cells for the last day on which they were to live, than to hear the prisoners’ voices in the adjacent gaol chapel plaintively singing, to the accompaniment of the prison organ— Our souls be bumbled in the dust, . And own Thy dreadful sentence just, Look down, 0 Lord, with pitying eye, And save the souls condemned to die. after the execution. At ten minutes past nine the Sheriff gave orders for the executioner to take down the bodies, they having hung the prescribed hour. The usual official Inquest was held, and after hearing the formal evidence the jury gave as their verdict, That the convict John Caffrey had beenduly hanged by the neck according to law, in pursuance of sentence of death passed uponhim.” Similar evidence was given at the inquest op the. body of Henry Albert Penn, and a dike verdict was returned. One of the Bell reporters got out of the gaol immediately after the ezcution, while all the other Press reporters were kept in, and thus anticipated the other papers by three-quarters of an hour in publishing accounts of the execution. A warder has been suspended by Geoler Weston, and the circumstances of the affair have been reported to the Government.