MURDERER AND BIGAMIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15997, 16 August 1915, Page 6

MURDERER AND BIGAMIST.

• .... LAST PENALTY PAID. IXXOCEN'CE PROTESTED. — By Telegraph—Press Association—CwsS'S London - , Augnst E. George Sirn*H, aged 43 years, vha % I convicted en a charge of murdering ,f& I of his wives, and attempting the msfc \ of a third, has been executed at Me:- i str.ne. in Kent. _ If A Wesleyan minister visited Sell Ifj three times a day. The condemned ee Mi was grateful for spiritual heln. §&& ! 1 had aged remarkably since his amst I He was suffering from nervous ipaSjtl tion. and was not able to walk te ft» scaffold. He had to ha supported jh' two waTders. For the first time is many years reporters were not Undid to the gaol. At the gates of tfcs.praa there was a crowd of men in khaki aft of well-dressed women. In his lai to Miss Pegler, the woman to -Whom be was last engaged, Smith said that, fin* he had failed to get justice-from ha earthly judges, he would prefer death to imprisonment Thele&a WKfodei: "An innocent man .goes to a "Brtaaeh; end, the victim of a cruel fate. Gj-J 3 alone- is my judge, and I shall kre perfect peace." - - -- V This case, -which has been befon in m Courts for over a year, was kgflis* a ■ the "Brides in the Bath" case. Sf& ■ who was formerly a dealer in faa|& I and second-hand furniture, wag name K six times,' according to the evidence. S m. murdered two of Sis wives hv drtarapM them in a bath, after having inssTß their lives, and made an attempt sufl third wife, whose life was aiso'insssß He -was said to have inade seteifV thousand pounds by this msata, jki-H----even then he squabbled with, fee ias j» ance companies, and V insisted women being buried in the ckcaiSgt-TjjMp possible. Smith's first - wife, wJwsb ?.« married about 19 -. years "agoT^isj^l^H