A HYPOCRITICAL SWINDLER UNMASKED.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1109, 14 December 1869, Page 3

A HYPOCRITICAL SWINDLER UNMASKED.

At the criminal sittings of the Supreme Court, in Auckland, on tho Ist inst., an individual named Emilius Louis Morod, who, under his assumed character of a clergyman, has long been better known than respected in various parts of New Zealand, was tried for forging and uttering a cheque at Grahamstown, and found guilty. The Chief Justice (who had been brought in' contact with him before), in passing sentence, made an address of almost sensational interest, in which a perfectly astounding career of fraud and imposition, enacted under the cloak of religion, was laid bare with an unsparing hand. Prisoner had addressed a memorial to the Court in deprecation of sentence, written in a style of abject hypocritical fiiwning, blaming intoxication for the com/mission of a crime which he professed to ' abhor, pleading for mercy ;on the score of heart disease likely to be aggravated by confinement, and professing that, "with the assistance of the Almighty, whose sacred law he had broken," he would never, if pardoned, be led into sin again. His Honor read the memorial because, being addressed to the Court, it was he said, a public document, and added — " I read it moreover that the public may see in it that assumption of a holy character, which the' evidence of the Warder shows you assumed on a former occasion. Looking to the oftence itself, I find in it no such want of ingenuity as is suggested in the memorial. You assumed,, or signed, the name of Douglas to the cheque in question. According to the calendar, you declare yourself a native of Jersey, ancl to be a tailor by business ; but, as I shall remind you, it is not long since you represented yourself as having been brought up to a different calling, namely, as a minister ol religion. In your memorial, you speak oi having been drunk when you committed tho"*present off enco ; but tho young woman who was in the shop swears that you were sober ; and had you been in that helpless state of intoxication mentioned in the me* morial, she could not have been so misi taken as. to your condition. * * * \I feel it my duty to notice more particularly what occurred when, and after, you came to me in my judicial capacity iu 1864, io obtain an introduction to the gaol, thai vou might, as a minister of religion, attentive condemned man, M'Lean. His cas« wjas orie that caused to me sleepless anxiefey, night after night. The jury were dec[ided in their verdict ; and 1 did not see njpr have ever seen, any reason to doubj pie strict justice of that verdict. But ii y_t could have happened that any persor / could have brought under my notice, ir / my judicial capacity, information respect i ing facts which the Governor could hav< ! inquired into, with a view to a reprieve, 1 I should have been only too happy to hav< . received such information, and to hav< » transmitted it to the Government. Ant I you did bring to me, as from that unhappy ; man jn gaol, certain assertions as to facts which were immediately inquired into, a !, my request, and which proved tp be, of n< i. importance. Of course you cannot bu ( remember under what circumstances yoi t* camo'toinae; in iny offioial Rapacity; how i immediately after the - sentence;, had bee) I passed, yon waylaid m' sq to .speak, oi I that dark night outside the 'Court, and

f j with an affected sense of humiliation asked me for an order to visit the unhappj , man as his religious adviser ; and how J . then informed you that, if you were th< ; religious advisor of M'Lean, the authorities of the gaol would feel ifc to be theii duty to admit you to him, but that I coulc not interfere. It appears that you did a1 once apply for admission, and received il T-ypu, who now describe yourself as oi Jersey, tailor, were admitted to the gaol as a minister of religion. lam nofc questioning, indeed I recognise, that a man born and trained in humble circumstances may become an effective preacher of the Word of God, and be fully as capable of ministering consolation to a broken heart, under the sanction of religion, as one who has received the most formal ordination by a recognised Church. Therefore, do not suppose that it is to the fact of your not being a recognised minister of religion that I am now calling your attention. But having been admitted to M'Lean in the gaol, you wrote to me the first of those numerous scrawls, which from day to day you were addressing to me while you were carrying on that wretched deception ■which you did carry on in the condemned cell. This was your fir st scrawl ':— " To his Honor, the Chief Judge, in Auckland, Reverend Sir, in Christ Jesus—l give you no other title than this, a child of God. I have seen M'Lean to-day, and he beseeched me not to neglect him. His heart is still hard, bufc may God change that heart of stone and give him that heart of flesh. — Yours, in Christ Jesus, • E. L. Morod." — I must remind you that, while *n the solitude of that condemned cell,jjyou were endeavouring, or pretending, to raise the hopes of that wretched man, that you would save his life ; you came forth from thafc cell, and day by day you did all you could to ensure his death. Your first letter has in it no word of Qhristian charity toward the condemned man ; it tells me that he has a hard heart ; it assumes that you were satisfied he was guilty, and that you only wanted his heart to be changed to, as you say, " a heart of flesh," before he should die. lam nofc going to weary the community with all the scrawls you addressed to me ; but two others of them I feel bound to read. In your second letter you enclosed this card :— " Emilius Louis Morod, Predicateur du Saint Evangile, de l'Eglise de Genev." — That letter ran thus :-— "September 14th, 1864 (Auckland). " Monseigneur — To-night, please God, I will come and see you — I was last night with M'Lean. I left him twelve o'clock, after prayer and supplication to your God and my God. " I read to him your solemn charge — ' Have pity on me, oh ! ye my friend, have pity on me, for the hand of God hath toucheth me !' How solemn it is ! • ' "May Jesus Christ, your and my Divine Master, bless you and keepyou always. — Yours in Jehovah Jesus. "E. L. Morod. " P.S.— I have been with Mr. Whitaker to-day, and I will let you know to-night on what ground — I have to go and see Mm again before I see you." When you called upon me, you introduced to my notice illuminated letters of ordination as a minister of religion ; and in order to impress me with your peculiar fitness for the sacred office you were assuming, you informed me of your long services in France— of the convicts you had visited, and whose, paths you had smoothed — and how the Emperor Napoleon, forsooth, had given to you the gewgaw 1 which you produced, as an acknowr ledgment of your character, and of tho religious services you had performed in 1 gaols. You musfc remember, as I do, thafc while you wdre assuring that condemned man of the exertions you were using to save his life, you spoke of him to me as a murderer — as one you were assured, from your experience in the various gaols you had visited, was a murderer. Thus you played a double character which I have never heard of, or read of, and which, perhaps, was never before conceived in the history of the human kind : the double character of one who, while affecting to be doing his utmost to save the life of a condemned man, did all he could to secure the death of that man ; of one who, not content to practise that deception within the condemned cell, under the cloak of religion, practised the same deception outside the gaol, upon the two little children of the condemned man, as I believe that you did. Your visits to the gaol were not unknown to me, but it is my duty to tell you now that, as to your real character, I was never for an instant deceived. * * * I will add this, that certain jewelry which you had, and of which you made use when you called upon me, was, as I believe, the produce of theft. You know best whether it was so or not. M'Lean died; but, as during his life you deceived him, showing him so little real mercy, so, after his death, yon still carried on the same diabolical imposture. To M'Lean, you pretended to be endeavouring to save his life — in your letters, and your interview with me, you assumed that he was guilty — and even after his death, you declare that his mode of answering your questions, when last you saw him, convinced you of his guilt ! The offences of which you have proved yourself guilty are not, it is true, offences against property ; but I think no one who reads the letters which I have now read can doubt that, under the guise of religion, you have been guilty of hypocrisy of the deepest and darkest dye — the deepest and darkest which has ever come to iny knowledge, or •of which I have read. If it be true, as has been said, that hypocrisy is, with one exception, the only evil that walks invisible, remember this—your hypocrisy never for a moment deceived me; although I had hoped that it would never become my duty to disclose in open Court, . to you as a convict, the character which . you had obtained before myself, as a Judge of the Supreme Court. I shall use no harsh words to you— the facts I have now disclosed aro sufficient for themselves ; and if, when you come out of gaol, the settlors allow you to remain in this Colony and to move amongst them, upon , them will rest tho blamo of any crime yon may hereaftor commit in their midst, and for which you might, as I believe you would, soon becomo arraigned. The sentence of the Court upon you now is, thai 1 you be kept in penal servitude for foui ; years.