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Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 31, 12 September 1868, Page 3

The "Daily Telegraph 7*7 * publishes a letter purporting to come from the clergyman at whose church the City hangiran attends. The writer, who signs himself " Themis," says : '*. Much has been said to prejudice the public mind against poor Caleraft, whose only crime is that he i* the minister of justice and the dread executor of the rigour of the law. I happen to know the man,- as the minister of the church in which he worships, and a more worthy creature does not exist. To stigmatise him as a. hard-hearted, cruel, low-lived, crawling, crouching, fawning wretch, which some of the papers, in connection with hia duty as a publio executioner, have done, is utterly wide of the fact. He is a good and tender-hearted man, an habitual frequenter of a Church of England place of worship where ill white head and venerable appearance is pleasingly conspicuous, though his identity is not generally known among the congregation. Tho execution of hisduty is no pleasing topic of conversation with him ; he takes wo delight in gratifying curiosity by enlarging on the di&mal scenes in which he takes so necessary a part ; he is modest and unassuming. He is by trade a shoemaker, anct you might deal with him all yoor life^ and hat* no uiore idea that he was the common hangman than that he was the Grand Lama o£ Thibet. He was ft very devout attendant upon public worship, and a man of very simple and straightforward mind, fulfilling all thArelations of domestic social life in a kindlj and affectionate manner. Oalcraf fc la no monster, and no one, I an* persuaded, will be better pleased than he that he has no longer to perform his unenviable duty in tho face of an excited »nd oftentimes exasperated knob,'