WHO KILLED MRS YOUNG,

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 1214, 7 January 1881, Page 2

WHO KILLED MRS YOUNG,

The following letter appeared in the Wellington Chronide .'—ln your issue of last evening tho following startling paragraph appeared — " It appears from the Mount Ida Chronicle that the blood found upon the garments of the Chinaman, AhLee, lately executed for murder, was not human blood, but that of a sheep, which a short time before he had purchased and killed. A little more circumstantial evidence of this kind, and people will begin to think that it would have been as well not to have been in such a lnirry tv swing off the unfortunate Celestial." On the Oth ultimo your morning contemporary contained a paragraph respecting the man Marshall, (whose son gave evidence iit the trial) and who became insane shortly after the murder of Mrs Young, and was received in tho Lunatic Asylum at Wellington. It strikes me as boing very strange that we should have to be indebted to chalice newspaper clippings for such intelligence, and that the Press p gouts (who occasionally rush with frantic hasie to flash along the wire, such important items as tho falling of a. dog. l through a skylight, &c), should have carefully abstained from giving us the slightest inkling of what has transpired with reference to the Kyeburn murder since the hanging of Ah Lee. Perhaps they think that " the least said, the soonest mended." Of course, you know, as has been sapiently observed elsewhere, in these i cases where the murderer is not caught red-handed, aud public feeling is sorely exercised, " someone " must be sacrificed to appease the " God of Justice !" Just so ! A reward was offered, and another Chinaman came forward and swore away a fellow mortal's life ; but that is a trifling matter to ono of a race which sets a very small value upon life, and to whom money is the main chance. Then the police, according to their ideas of duty, immediately set to work to fasten together the links of the chain of circumstantial evidence adverse to the prisoner (and those only) and so a verdict was secured. Walter Stannard has narrowly escaped a similar fate ! It may be said that, the man having been hung, there is no use in ripping up the question ; but I think that, if he was not guilty, the stigma on his memory should be removed, oven though he was only a Heathen Chinee. Fiat justitia mat avium. Ah Lee, on the scaffold, on the very threshold of the dark valley, said in a simple, earnest manner, '* Me no killee Missee Young," and I, for one, believe that he theu spoke the truth, and that he was legally murdered ! Up to the last, strenous efforts were made by Bishop Neville and others to procure a respite, so as to allow of further investigation, and it is notorious that Ministers in Cabinet were pretty evenly divided on the question ; dually, however, it was decided by a majority that the unfortunate Chinaman should swing. In view of the facts since disclosed in the above quoted paragraphs, I should like to know what the jury men and Cabinet Ministers now think of the matter.