THE RELEASING OF CONVICTS.— EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XV, Issue 5173, 15 June 1878, Page 6

THE RELEASING OF CONVICTS.— EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENT.

Miss Annie Emily Geoghegan writes to the Freeman's Journal: —" 1 have lately heard, on good authority, to my surprise and great terror, that the convict Mary Finnegan or Bradley, who, ou the 9th February, 1576, robbed the house, 52, Morehampton Road, assisted by Austin Bradley, and at the same time nearly succeeded in murdering me, has been released from prison several mouths ago, aud may now be met with in the streets of Dublin. On the 15th June, 1575, she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude ; and I protest most strongly against the mockery of that trial and sentence, and against the scandalous injustice done to me in liberating her. 1 am virtually outlawed, for the authorities have proclaimed by this act that no one has anything to fear in attacking m«. lam at present in a state ot great fear, not kuowing at what moment I may meet a woman who has already proved that she desires to take my life." The Freeman's Journal, commenting on the case, says :—lt may not be amiss very briefly to recapitulate the facts of the case as published at the same time in every paper in the kingdom. Mary Finnegan was the servant and protegee of Miss Geoghegan. She was treated by that lady with uniform and exceptional kindness, but having been detected in a succession of systematic thefts, she was dismissed from her service. About twelve o'clock on the night of the 9th of February, 1875, Miss Geoghegan was suddenly set upon, in the dark by her former servant and a male accomplice. She was thrown down, brutally beaten about the head, aud left for dead by her unseen assailants. Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, without one moment's hesitation, sentenced both to " the severest penalty the law allowed him"—fourteen yeara's penal servitude. If yenr correspondent is right, the more guilty of the two criminals is at liberty when scarcely a twelfth part of her term is expired. We have very little doubt our correspondent is right. Hot long since a housebreaker, who by a concidence was also a political informer, had hia punishment commuted to a small fraction of the original term on the ground of ill-health, and the invalid signalised his release by an active and daring burglary in the house of a police magistrate.