OUTLAW OF THE MOOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11854, 4 January 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

OUTLAW OF THE MOOR.

REMARKABLE . STORY AT A B AVAR- •'j >.} .* lAN MURDER TRIAL. .v A criminal trial, which has excited much interest in Bavaria, and/ in other parts of Germany, was brought to' a conclusion lately at Augerburg. Accused were a man named Mat-bias Kneisl and a peasant named Rieger. They both bel*nged to the wild and sparse population of a great Bavarian moor, called the Dachauer Moos, which, owing to impenetrable bogs and its' general desolation, has long served as a lurking place for poachers and lawless characters' of 'all sorts. : Kneisl came of a family of well-known law-, breakers, and had himself served a term of penal servitude. His career had made him so notorious as to secure for him the name of "Robber Kneisi." After committing a burglary-he killed two gendarmes who were; in pursuit of him. A general hue-and-cry after the assassin ensued, but for many, months the vast moor furnished Kneisl with' hiding-places which set all the efforts of the police at defiance. At length he was be- * trayed by a farmer and his wife, named Lorenz. A half-ruined homestead in which Kneisl. was sheltering was surrounded by ■ 110 gendarmes and constables, who from a safe distance fired volleys at the house. ? As Kneisl refused to show himself a storming party was organised and 40 men carried the place by assault. Kneisl had hidden his gun under the flooring and had crept behind the fireplace. As soon as he was perceived several gendarmes fired' their revolver's at him, and he was so severely wounded that he was ' eventually borne away more dead than alive. His trial, which had to await his recovery, has now ended in his being sentenced in accordance with the peculiar: forms of law in Germany, first of all to death, then to 15 years' penal servitude, . and, finally, to deprivation of civil rights for the remainder of' his life. Rieger was tried as an accessory, but acquitted.