Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7824, 18 December 1886, Page 4

The committal of the prisoner Thomas Hall for trial before the Supreme Court, charged with having murdered his father-in-law, the late Captain Cain, is the result of a prolonged examination of witnesses in the subordinate Court. After so exhaustive an investigation, it is difficult to resist the impression that the charge is only too well founded. The issue of the trial in the Supreme Court must not, however, be prejudiced. To the benefit of any defect in the evidence adduced there, or doubt in the minds of the jury, the prisoner will of course be justly entitled ; and it will be a relief to public feeling if on any such ground he should be acquitted of the great crime of which he is now accused. Still, in the circumstances of the case, the fact of his committal is a strong presumption that the evidence against him is very conclusive. Already convicted of an attempt to poison his wife, the fact that his father* in-law's death was accelerated, if not wholly brought about, by the administering of the same drugs as those employed in the case proven against him, places the accused in a very serious position. At the time of the coroner's inquest on Captain Cain's exhumed body very few had any moral doubt of his guilt, and the impression then conveyed will now be deepened. Still, this is not evidence, and it will be the duty of the public to await patiently the result of his formal arraignment in the superior Court. The whole circumstances must be exceedingly painful to his relations, and they ate entitled to, and no doubt will receive, the sympathy of all right-minded people in the suspense they must suffer until the grave charge of murder against the prisoner is finally disposed of.