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Otago Witness, Issue 3830, 9 August 1927, Page 33

For many centures drowning was officially regarded as an alternative means of execution. The manors of many feudal lords carried with them the “right to pit and gallows,” the pit being the drowning of women. Drowning was regarded as a comparatively light" punishment. The last official execution by drowning occurred m England in 1556, and in Scotland in 1685. The Taranaki Herald on Thursday celebrated the 75th anniversary of its establishment, on August 4, 1852,‘and is now the third oldest paper in the Dominion, the Lyttelton Times being the oldest, and the Otago "Witness the second oldest. The rounder, Mr Garland Woon, sold the paper to the late Mr Henry Weston in 1876, on whose death in 1920 it passed into the hands of the present proprietor. Mr W. C. Weston. Mr _Woon had editorial control until 1867, since when there have been only two editors—the late Mr W. 11. J. Seffern and the present occupant. Mr W. J. Penn. In its whole 75 years the paper, which has been a daily since 1877. never) failed to appear on the due date.