THE WANGANUI FIRE. PRISONERS SENTENCED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 119, 23 May 1910, Page 7

THE WANGANUI FIRE. PRISONERS SENTENCED.

SEVEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. The two men, Joßeph Paul Davis and Martin Haines, who had been found guilty of arson in connection with the fire at the Rutland Hotel, Wanganui, appeared at the Supreme Court to-day, before his Honour the Chief Justice, for sentence. Mr. Wilford, counsel for Hie prisoners contended that the jury could "with perfect consistency have acquitted Davis on a charge of arson, seeing that he was in Nelson at the time. , As far as arson was concerned there was, he uri^ed, no evidence against Davis, and there was very little evidence in regard to tha charge of conspiracy. It would be idl« to suggest that the prisoners should be. let out without any penalty, but he pointed out that thefe were no previous convictions against the accused—their record had been excellent, and nothing could be said against their lives in any shape or form. He concluded by making an appeal for leniency on account o£ the previous good character of the prisoners, adding that it was the statements made by the prisoners to the police which had led to their conviction. His Honour said he had remarked on more than one occasion that the function, of a judge in determining a sentence was to him not only the most onerous but that which caused him the greatest, anxiety in the performance of his judicial duty. He had to consider that nothing had been known against the prisoners, and that they were young men. This was not an ordinary case of arson. If ifc had been he should have dealt with it more leniently. But the fact was that if the fire had not taken place at tho time it did—and, as he be- ' lieved, contrary to the expectation, of Haines—if it nad-been delayed for an hour there would have been no chance of .v. v saving the lives of any of the people in fhe hotel. The- prisoners, therefore, risked human life, and any action which had any effect' upon human, life he (hia Honour) always looked upon with horfor, and he could not deal with it otherwise than from that point of view. Tha full sentence that the court could impos_ was imprisonmenf. for life. He would, however, consider what, liad been said! by counsel-for the defence, and pass a, sentence which he believed had been passed in similar cases in New Zealand. He remembered when he was at the Bar at Timaru .pi'osecuting a man who had committed an offence not really as serious as this, and the sentence he received was the sentence he (his Honuor)', proposed to impose in this case. Ha must pass- a severe sentence, otherwise the community might think that the courts looked with leniency upon crimes which tended perhaps to the destruction' ' of human life. ",It is not a question of property at all," said his Honour, "it is a question of human life beingendangered that forces' me to do this." ■Prisoners would be sentenced to seven yea.rs'" imprisonment with hard labour in Hi® Majesty's gaol at Wellington. *