A Blunder of Justice.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7090, 26 August 1901, Page 4

A Blunder of Justice.

ONE OF THE TRAGEDIES OF .....-.■ •■- THE LAW. "It is terrible to think that any one of us may be: mistaken 'to-morrow for somebody else who has^ brought down the last" vengeance of the law upon him. In the ■ sixteen hundred millions of human beings on the face of the earth it would not' be easy to find two who have not some point of resemblance, and it is not singular that there should be ;inany unrelated twins as. much-alike as a man is like his own image. " A pitiful example of the; peril in which we all live came with the experience of the late Mr Montague Williams. - He had defended "a man at the Middlesex Sessions against whom two policeman, a butcher, and a drover gave the strongest possible evidence .that they had seen him steal some jheep. The man's mother, sister, and child were, called to give evidence that; the prisoner was at home aUhe;-time of the theft, but the judge aside their story by warning the jury that an alibi Avas so easily arranged, and _ the; man was convicted and sentenced. Twelvemonths passed, and 'Monty 1 was again defending a man for sheepstealing, oddly enough' before the same judge* .•■•.■The- resemblance - of the prisoner to the client of the year before puzzled the: famous- lawyer exceedingly. . v .

■Mr; Williams lost his case ; the man wasfound^uilty, and on hearI ing the verdict he stood iip in" the dock, inspired by the rough sense' of honour which governs thieves, and declared, that ;it was he who had committed the crime for -which an.other man had been sentenced a year before. \■•■- ■. -. . The. judge Vas sceptical,' but the man's story was .found to be true', and the innocent man was pardoned. Fate had 'dealt unkindly with him, however. "\ ;.-: .- .\ ■■ He found his freedom, but he found, too, a wife in her grave and children in the workhouse; and, as if his sorrows, were not enough, he had. to ; \mt longer than was just for, the compensation which should have met him at the prison' gate, and when it came atlast his reason- had left him and he was once again a prisoner—raving in a mad-house.— St. James' Gazette, v '