TRIAL OF SIR ROGER CASEMENT COMMENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16230, 16 May 1916, Page 7

TRIAL OF SIR ROGER CASEMENT COMMENCES.

LONDON PUBLIC DISPLAY INTENSE INTEREST.

ACCUSED SHOWS INDICATIONS OF BREAKDOWN. (Received May 15. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON. MAY 14. Intense interest is being taken in the trial o£ Sir Roger Casement on a charge of high treason, in connection with the Irish rebellion. The trial opened to-day at the Bow Street Court. The demand for tickets of admission was so great that the authorities determined to issue none, and the public had to wait in a queue. The procedure resembles that adopted in the Lynch case of 1903.

Sir Roger Casement is in good health, though he shows indications that he is breaking down. On the day of his arrest he was first taken to the Brixton Gaol under a strong armed guard, and removed thence to the Tower, where he was incarcerated in the room where the spy, Lody, spent the night before his execution. Casement was brought tc Bow Street in a taxi-cab, under an armed guard, being thus spared the indignity of making the journey in the " black maria." .

Sir Frederick E. Smith, Solicitor-General, and Mr. M. M. Bodkin, K.C., are leading for the Crown. Mr. Timothy Healy, M.P. for Northeast Cork, refused a brief for Casement.

The famous case of Rex v. Lynch arose out of the South African War of 1899-1902. Up till the outbreak of hostilities Lynch was a British subject by virtue of birth. During the course of the rebellion he performed certain acts of disloyalty towards the British Crown, while in the service of the newly -proclaimed Boer Republic, and on this account was indicted in a British Court subsequent to the war on a charge of treason.