The Timaru Poisoning Case.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 247, 20 October 1886, Page 2

The Timaru Poisoning Case.

The public mind was fully prepared for the verdict that was given in the remarkable case of wife-poisoning at Timaru. The' evidence has been reported so fully that tho popular verdict had anticipated the formal return of the jury, and we believe that there will be very few dissenters from the finding. With regard to Mias Houston, there can be no question that the case for the Crown completely broke down ; there was no adequate suggestion of motive nor of direct evidence of complicity ; and the compromising incidents which seemed to point to a guilty knowledge were capable of being explained upon a theory of perfect innocence.

With regard to the scoundrel Hall, however, he has been convicted upon the clearest evidence of one of the most diabolical and fiendish crimes that a human being could be guilty of. His behaviour, while

endeavouring to murder the wife ho had sworn to cherish, is remarkable for its inconceivable callousness and cruelty. Thrrc is no punishment known to Encash law that would make such a ruffian atone in full measure for his offence. A man possessing every educational and social advantage, with the intelligence to have known better, ho conceived this crime in the depths of an utterly depraved heart, and executed it with a fiendish malignity that gives ux a realistic conception of what tho nature of a demon may be. The consolation which the trial and its conclusion brings, is that science now renders tho most cunningly-devised plots of auch criminals very perilous, and that oven the dead may rise up from tho grave in judgment against them.