HEROIC SELF-CACRIFICE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 100, 24 January 1901, Page 3

HEROIC SELF-CACRIFICE.

Twice condemned to death for a crime he did not commit (tho Daily Express says), David Rutter has recently been re'eased from prison, after serving a term of twenty-seven years. It was in 1878 that he stood in the dock at Ipswich Assize Court with another man, charged with the murder of a gamekeeper on the estate of the Maharajah Duleep Singh. The whole burden of the guilt was assumed by Rutter, who exonerated his companion from blame, and, on his own confession, was condemned to death. Many, however, believed in his innocence, and on the plea of a deformity in the neck, which would make hanging a horrible torture, a respite was obtained. Medical examination failed to confirm the theory, and he was again or- ■ dered for execution. Petitions still poured in, however, and at last his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Now, x>n his release, an old man, he tells a sensational story. It was the other man who shot the gamekeeper, battered his head in, and threw him into a pond. But there was a woman whose heart would have oeen broken, and whose children would have been left fatherless; while Rutter vi as alone in 'he world. So he took the whole blame upon himselft and has just crept out from benedth the burden of it—endured for fcweny-aeven years. .