AN ILLEGAL OPERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 290, 6 December 1900, Page 5

AN ILLEGAL OPERATION.

VEEDICT.OF MANSLAUGHTER. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday

The trial of Mary Henderson, on a charge of murder of a young woman named. Mary Luke, by the performance of an illegal operation, was concluded to-day. The Chief ..Justice, in summing up, said that under the criminal code any person'who. committed for an unlawful purpose any act which he or she knew, or ought to have known, to be likely to cause death, and thereby killed any person, though he or she'might have desired that the object should be effected witho\it hurting anyone, then such person was guilty of culpable homicide. It was not necessary to consider whether accused had any intention even of doing harm to the girl. That, point, must be dismissed. If the jury had no doubt that septic peritonitis, which led to the girl's death, was caused by the act of accused their duty was clear. After a retirement of an hoxir and a-half, the jury returned a verdict or manslaughter, with.a recommendation to mercy. His Honor said the recommendation would be attended to when he passed sentence on the prisoner on Fridaj'.