The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 20, 1907. A COMPLICATED CASE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13290, 20 May 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 20, 1907. A COMPLICATED CASE.

The report of the Select Committee appointed to investigate the Edalji case, and the decision arrived at by the Home Secretary in regard to the discharged prisoner, will almost certainly fail to satisfy those who have been convinced that ;i miscarriage of justice occurred when lie was convicted, and who have exerted themselves to secure his rehabilitation in the eyes of society. At this Staffordshire Quarter Sessions in October., 1903, Edalji was found guilty of having wounded a horse belonging to the Great Wyrley Colliery Company on August 17th of the same year, and of having sent a letter to a local police-sergeant threatening to murder him. A sentence of seven years' penal servitude was imposed upon him for these offences,' but after serving three years, he wais released last October, principally because another prisoner who had subsequently been convicted of maiming jui animal, had been punished with a sentence of three years only. But the equalisation of the two sentences satisfied neither Edalji nor his friends, who, after his release, engaged in a campaign with the object of removing the stain upon his character. His most able advocate with the public was perhaps Sir Conan Doyle, who in an article in the " Daily Telegraph " extending to fourteen columns, restated his case lastJanuary as fully as it was possible to do. Edalji himself is the son of a Church of England clergyman of Parsed origin, and was born in 1876. When he was only twelve years old, anonymous threatening Letters began to arrive at the Vicarage. These letters were suspected to be the work of a servant-maid, and ceased with her prosecution. But in 1892 a second series of letters commenced, addressed this time not only to tlw vicarage, but to other persons in tha neighbourhood, each missive being characterised by intense hatred of the whole Edalji family. They ceased in 1895, but before they ceased, thj local Press had published a forged apology, signed by Edalji and another, stating that they were the writers of the letters: After that, no more letters were received until 1903, when they began again, though tt does not appear that, the last series were

written by the author of eiilier of the two preceding series. In m.v case, as tha '"Spectator," from whose review of the case we are quoting, remarked recently, it was impossible for Edalji to have written the whole of the letters. It was noc tmtil 1905, however, that the composition of these offensive letters was accompanied by the gruesome barbarities of which a jury found Edalji to be guilty. On February 2nd, 1903, there occurred the first of the outrage? on horses and cattle which led to the prosecution of Edalji in August. Between that dat; and August 17th, six of these crimes were committed, and on the day followins the last of them Edalji was. arrested, apparently because his name had occurred so often in the anonymous letters received in the district. The evidence in support of the police theory that Edalji committed the offence on the night of August 17th reiied upon the state of the prisoner's clothing, which, besides being damp and mud-stained, showed traces of mammalian blood and also—several hours after being seized by tha police—a number of horse-hairs. An expert in" handwriting also gave it as his opinion that a threatening letter received by a police sergeant, had been written by Edalji, and on this testimony, added to the police evidence, the jury convicted. Against the evidence for his conviction was tha sworn statement of his father ■that on the night on which the crime was .supposed to have been committed, his son, who shared his bedroom, never Isft the chamber. The vicarage also wes surrounded by police, who would have -een him if he had left it to perpetrate a crime in the fields, while he suffered so acutely .from an affection of the eyes that it. was practically impossible for him to move about by night. But probably what weighed most with those of the public who have entertained serious doubt 3 aboutthe justice of his conviction, was the fact -that the manning of animals did not cease •with his imprisonment. Five months after his conviction, another man wan sentenced on a charge of mutilation to a term of three years, the Home Office, as we have already observed, liberating Edalji when he had served the same length ot time. The curtailment of Ms sentence, however, was no admission that his conviction was a mistake, and as far a* *ro can gather from to-day's cablegram referring to the case, the authorities are still JLposed to agree that he was innocent of the crime alleged against him in 19.0, although thev admit that the evidence was not satisfactory enough to warrant a conviction. _