SENTENCED TO DEATH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11226, 25 March 1897, Page 4

SENTENCED TO DEATH.

The murder of the old couple, Mr and Mrs Jones, was a peculiarly atrocious crime, and i£ there were clear evidence of the guilt of the perpetrator, no punishment allowed by our code could be too severe for him. Whether or not Stephen Bosher is the culprit cannot positively be known, and hence the sentence of death passed upon him will, if carried info effect, shock the feelings of those who oppose capital punishment on the ground that it gives no opening for the review of a mistaken verdict. The evidence was so far from being conclusive that we were surprised to find a verdict of guilty; returned. Probably the absence of all exculpatory testimony was the strongest point against the accused. Everything, however, was indirect or negative; of positive evidence connecting him with the crime there was none whatever. There is, too, a rather striking analogy between this case and another one that has excited a good deal of pjublic sympathy. Chemis and Bosher are both foreigners, and both were on good terms with the victims of the murders. The stabbing wounds inflicted on Hawkins were set down as the work

of a foreigner; the throwing of pepper at the Joneses to make them helpless is also in. the words of Bosher “ a foreign trick.” It was said when Chemis was convicted that the fact of his being aforeigner had prejudiced his case; some people may suspect that the same has happenedinßosherbs case. The Crown Prosecutor at Wellington has already thought fit to fortify the jury’s decision by making a statement in Court regarding Bosher’s purchase of pepper from the murdered couple. This was surely an extraordinary course for Mr Bell to take_ after failing to adduce the facts in evidence. Bosher has undoubtedly-been a wicked and lawless man: he is serving a sentence at the present moment for bigamy; but he is entitled to every fairness. Our firm conviction is. that - it would be a fearful error to execute him on such evidence of blood-guiltiness as was brought against him. Blacker cases have been known in which a damning array of circumstantial evidence has been brushed away by subsequent disclosures.