THE SHOOTING OF CYRUS HALEY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2120, 20 October 1875, Page 3

THE SHOOTING OF CYRUS HALEY.

(FROM THE OTAGO GUARDIAN.) If. it were possible to feel much sympathy for a great criminal, v would be evoked at the fate of Cyrus Haley, for it ia hard that a man. even though guilty of heinous offences as Haley had commit- ! ted, should be suddenly shot dead because he was trying to regain that" personal liberty of which the law had justly deprived him. Had, indeed, Haley made an attack upon his warder, there would have been no room for compassion at his death ; but since, without violence, he merely strove to recover his freedom, which all men so love, humanity prompts the regret that he should thereby have forfeited his life. Whether or not the warder was justified in taking such extreme measures everyone can now judge for himself, since a Coroner's Jury has sat upon the body, and.the evidence given at the inquest is before the world. The propriety of killing a - prisoner in these cases must always depend upon circumstances, and no fixed rule can be laid down. The law undoubtedly gives the goaler considerable . power over his prisoners, but certainly not to the extent which the Coroner seems to have the Jury to believe. The authority conferred by the common law appears to be that if a prisonei', when attempting to escape, atj tacks his warder, the latter may use his weapons ; but if tho fugitive merely runs away, without offering violence, the warder is guilty of manslaughter if he fires at and kills him. Although it may be inferred that the Court would deal lightly with such an offence, still it is an offence. Nor is the warder's authority, so far as we can discover, enlarged by statute. -The paols of. this Colony are- governed by (he Prisons Act of 1873. That statute contains no clause expressly or impliedly justifying the killing of prisoners in the act of escaping. Prison breach is an offence at common law ; and this Act also provides special and heavy punishment for con- | victs under sentence of penal servitude who arc found illegally at large. In the case of a. convict undergoing a term of less, duration than life, he becomes liable to five years' additional penal servitude ; while a life convict, such as Haley, subr jeets himself to solitary confinement. The punishment is, however, not inflicted by the gaoler, nor even the visling Justices : the recaptured fugative is tried before the Supreme Court in the ordinary way. The Coroner and. Jury seem to have relied upon the prison regulations, made by the .Governor, as a justification for the warder's conduct; but it is surprising that sensible men should not have perceived at a glance that the Governor! could not possibly go beyond the statute, and authorise the shooting of an escaping prisoner, where such punishment was not warranted- by the law. It ia beyond the powc? of a Sovereign |o order (lip execution of a criminal, however great his offences may ho, without trial. These regulations are framed by ib,e Governor under the 15th section of the Prisons Act, which empowers him to make rules foic the management of prisons; and had the Coroner and Jury taken tbo trouble to examine the .Act, they would have seen at once the scope of his Excellency's authority.' Did these regulations bear the interpretation put upon them s or did the law otherwise give the jhqwcv which the .Jury evidently supposed the warder to possess, this monstrous state of affairs would exist; that if a man undergoing a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment tried to escape, he might be shot dead forthwith; and the injustice, though of less magnitude, would. s*tiU V g-ceat even w.hpu. cwrninais of Haley's dye ; were concerned, because, after a solemn trial, the administrators of tho law would declare that his crimes, though black, did not warrant his life being taken ; _ while, for the (royally speaking) venial ofFen.pp c,f endeavouring to yp^aia lusdibey.ty, the warder would summarily doom him to instant death. A felon loses many civil rights by his conviction, but his life is still sacred; and the man who deprives him of it without just cause, whether he be a gaoler or anybody else, is liable to the same punishment as if the victim had been an ordinary victim. It is well that ifc should be so. " All hope abandon j?o wb,Q en.te? here" would have beaa an appropriate motto for 3 Venetian gaol in the Middle Ages; but it is not to be tolerated that it should be inscribed over the portals of an English prison. A gaojer must needs keep a tight hand over the desperate characters who are jifjieji pjaaed uad'er' hia el^aflge, o.nd ft is needful that the law should surround him wuh ample authority 3 it is equally necessary that the public should strictly watch the exercise of that-authority, least it should be abused. And this unhappy incident likewise luggests a doubt as to the wisdom ! of setting a gang of hardened criminals to work in the middle of the towc., c$ ground, too, which frota its configuration, almost invites |ttciap.ts"to 'escape.

(For rew-tiiuhr of JS'ews sec Fourth Page.)