THE Wairarapa Mercury. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1867 TRICKER’S CONFESSION.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 40, 7 October 1867, Page 2

THE Wairarapa Mercury. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1867 TRICKER’S CONFESSION.

This is rather a sensation heading and we intended it to he so. Some years ago two brothers were seen quarrelling in a hayfield in Virmont. One, who had a hayfork in his possession, returned to his home, but the other was not seen again. Some time after a stable was about to be erected in a corner of the same field, and, in excavating the ground for the purpose, a skeleton was found, and it was immediately concluded that it was that of the missing brother, who had so mysteriously disappeared. The survivor was arrested, committed for trial, found guilty, and the day fixed for his execution. He was visited in the condemned cell by the clergy, and he at last confessed that he had murdered his brother at the time and in the manner suggested by the very clear circumstantial evidence given at the trial. Before he was hanged a man arrived post haste at the county town. He waited upon the Sheriff!, and he proved to demonstration that he was the man who was supposed to have been murdered. A respite was obtained, and the condemned man explained that the evidence at the trial, the exhortations of the Ministers who had visited him, and the solitude-of his cell, all made such an impression on his mind, as to cause him to make the confession he had done. He was of course pardoned, and set at liberty. In former times many persons were hanged for murder who protested their innocence to the last, and who were after their death found to have been guiltless of the crime for which they suffered, but the above case is the only one that we are aware of where a man condemned to death has confessed he was guilty when he was innocent, though there have been numerous cases of men who have accused themselves of having been murderers when they were in truth only mad. If any one is disposed to place any credit on the statement made before the recent committee appointed to enquire into the case of Walter Tricker—that ho (Tricker) called out from his cell the morning after his coviction and requested to see Father O’Reilly, to confess to him, confessing at the same lime he committed the murder on Thursday night —will not after reading the above, allow such a statement or even such a confession, under the circumstances, to outweigh—say the evidence of Hamilton who swore that Tricker committed the murder on Friday morning, and that he (Hamilton) was present at the time.

We have not seen the report of the Committee, hut if they were unanimously of opinion that the murder was committed on Thursday night, they were unanimously of opinion that Hamilton, on whose evidence Tricker was convicted, was guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury; and if they did not recommend in their report his prosecution for that offence they were themselves guilty of a gross dereliction of duty. The enquiry, wo are told, was conducted with closed doors, no counsel was employed on either side, no skilful cross-examin-ation was attempted, a reporter of tho press was refused admission, and we know for certain that one of the most active members of the Committee, immediately after Tricker’s trial, without having heard Hamilton’s evidence, expressed his decided opinion that “ Tricker was just the man to do the deed.” It is to be very much regretted that Mr Stock did not either protest at the time against the constitution of the Committee, or against the manner in which it conducted its proceedings. As, however, the conclusion arrived at by the Committee is in direct opposition to the evidence given at the trial on which Tricker was found guilty, the proceedings cannot be permitted to rest here. There must be further steps taken. We think that Mr Stock deserves the thanks of the public for the interest he has taken in this question, but we cannot help expressing our ‘■regret that the witness to whom he so pointly alludes, as having been so notorously agitated in the witness box at the trial, was not examined before the Committee.

The letter of the Rev. A. Stock, published in the “ Independent” of Tuesday on which the above remarks have been written, is too long' for our columns; but the conclusion arrived at by tho Committee is of itself convincing evidence that further proceedings are absolutely necessary, are in fact imperatively demanded, if the ends of justice are not to be subverted. If we admit that the Committee was properly constituted, and that the course it took on the enquiry was wholly unobjectionable, it follows that either tho conclusion at which it arrived was or was not justified by the evidence obtained. If it was justified, then it proves that the evidence relied upon at the trial was wholly untrustworthy and worthless;

and if it was not justified, the evidence ■goes so far as to render it more clear than ever that a searching investigation into the case ought to be instituted. The evidence may not prove that the murder was committed on the Thursday night, and it certainly does not prove, if -it had been, that therefore Tricker was the murderer; but its whole tenor favors the assumption that Hamilton was guilty of perjury, and that he ought to he arrested and brought to trial for that offence.

In conclusion we may remark that the manner in which this extraordinary case has been commented on is to our mind extremely painful and unsatisfactory. The question is not whether Tricker is the infamous wretch that a few persons think him—it is not whether he is a man who has proved himself a dangerous Eerson to be permitted to go at large—ut whether he was unjustly convicted of the crime until which he was charged. We have nothing to do with Tricker, personally, but with the maintenance of that principle of essential justice which there are grounds for believing has been unintentionally violated in his person. To the thoughtful man, who has turned his attention to the subject, and who is worthy of being the guardian of those guarantees of freedom won and bequeathed to him by his forefathers as a sacred legacy which he in turn ought to transmit unimpaired to his children, there is something even of more consequence than the restoration of an innocent man to liberty which is involved in this question. If any man feels that his life is not safe if Tricker be liberated that may be a good reason for binding him in heavy bonds to keep the peace, but it is no reason why he should bear the stigma and the punishment of a fearful crime of which he is not guilty. If a man is to he tried for one offence, and to bo virtually punished for another for which he has not been tried, what becomes of all those safe-guards which have been so wisely provided to secure the liberty of the subject ? What Lord Brougham has said with regard to the freedom of the press is still more applicable to the case before us, and renders it clear that it is not the individual but the principle violated in his person which is to he upheld. “ There is not a wretch ” observes his Lordship, “ who pours forth the foul venom of his slanders through the press that does not become as much entitled to the protection of the wise and good, as if one of themselves were the object of persecution, the instant that a violation of the constitution is attempted in his person.” If strong suspicion of Tricker’s innocence have not arisen from the late imperfect investigation into his case, strong suspicions have arisen from this investigation that he was convicted on perjured evidence, and the trial of the perjurer appears to be not only tlm most proper, out the most j effectual means of meeting the ends of i justice. “ If ” says Leiber, “ strong | suspicions of innocence have arisen j after the trial, pardon ought to be granted after due investigation, and this investigation ought to be insured by law.” A'charge of per jury against Hamilton would probably insure such an investigation.