THE HALL CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 7160, 14 March 1887, Page 2

THE HALL CASE.

SOME PLAIN SPEAKING.

[Special to the Star. J

AUCKLAND, March 14.

On the Hall case the 'Star' says:— "Found guilty of one of the most coldblooded and villainous murders that ever disgraced humanity, Thomas Hall has managed by a legal quibble to save his precious neck from the noose of the hangman. The Court of Appoa£ having quashed his conviction for the murder of Captain Cain, the effects so far as a punishment is, concerned is the same as though Hall had been found not guilty; but the effect to the popular mind is very different. The conviction remains that Hall is one of the vilest scoundrels unhung, that he waß truly and honestly found guilty of killing his father-in-law, and that the world would have been well rid of such a dangerous member of society. Added to this, there is now a vague sense of distrust—a feeling that our criminal law is but a weak net whose meshes can be broken by big fish, and that its operation is not nearly so efficient and infaliiblo as it might and ought to be. Had the verdict resulted in the immediate letting loose of a convicted wife-poisoner, we can fancy what an indignant protest would have been raised against the decision. The possibility disclosed in this decision of a proved murderer being let loose upon society is not a pleasing one to contemplate, and suggests that our tendencies in dealing with heinous criminals are too like those in vogue in the United States, whore Judge Lynch has to de all the hanging."