THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1893. THE WAIKOMITI MURDER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1106, 12 May 1893, Page 26

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1893. THE WAIKOMITI MURDER.

After a long and patient investigation and full consideration of all the circumstances connected with the conviction of Alexander James Scott, the Waikomiti murderer, Ministers have at last decided to advise His Excellency to grant no respite, bub to allow the law to take its course. Scott, therefore, will be executed in accordance with his sentence. No one will blame Ministers for any delay in arriving at this conclusion. In view of the serious question awaiting their decision, the question of taking the life of a fellow man, there could be no precipitancy; every important point had to be considered, and Minister's themselves had to be convinced that there was no palliative circumstance that would justify a reversal of the righteous verdict of the jury and the just judgment of the Judge. Capital punishment being the law of the land, it follows that the perpetrator of this foul and deliberate murder aggravated as it was by its environments, should end his days on the gallows. In the annals of crime in this Colony we believe there never was a more treacherous and deliberately planned murder than that which has brought Scott to the scaffold. Under the guise of friendship and neighbourly good feeling the convict had been carrying on infamous relations with the wife of his victim, and for months had been nursing the idea of removing him out of the way, until, familiar with the thought, he carried it into effective action, and poisoned the husband of his paramour. Singular to say she who would have proved a valuable witness at least, if not something more prominent, was, although bound over to appear in evidence, allowed to leave the Colony prior to the trial. It was shown at the trial that there is no proper legal means by which a witness, even if bound over to appcar } can be

compelled to remain in the country. In this particular the law decidedly wants amendment. The woman's share in this murder, if any, is matter for speculation at least. To speculation we can leave it. About the murder itself there can be no doubt. Scott bought poison under I assumed names from various chemists. ! He stayed in the house of hia victim, he ] prepared his food, he prescribed medij cines, he prevented recourse to medical aid. On the fatal night he alarmed his neighbours with the report that his victim wa3 dying, he flew to a doctor with a tale of suicide. Bub when the neighbours and the doctor arrived they found a corpse, whose icy coldness proclaimed 1 death at an hour before the departure on his pretended errand of alarm. They found a body decently composed in death in spite of the agonies of poisoning by strychnine, a poisoning established afterwards by independent, competent analysis. Lastly a letter found in the pocket of the murderer gave explicit damning evidence of his intention to take the life of his trusting friend. Never was murder more foul or more clearly established. The only hope of the unhappy murderer's friends was the possibility of proving some degree 1 of insanity. This the defence tried at the trial and failed in. The failure having been repeated liter the trial the law must take its course.