THE AUCKLAND MURDER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10180, 15 June 1911, Page 1

THE AUCKLAND MURDER.

[Per Pukss Association.] AUCKLAND. Juno 14. • So far no announcement of the Governor's pleasure respecting the fulfilment or otherwise of tho death sentence on the Maori boy, Tahi Kaka, has been received by the sheriff. Today the circulating and signing of the petition for reprieve are in active operation. The petition prays that the Governor should commute tho death sentence on the following grounds : (1) The extreme youth of the condemned boy; ('-'.) the disadvantages of his career from the absence of scholastic and spiritual teaching; (3) that the jury found during the trial sufficient to urge a strong recommendation to mercy; (4) that the commutation of tho death sentence would fittingly mark in the dominion that clemency which is not unusually associated with the Coronation; (5) that the execution of the death sentence would prove exceptionally harsh, since tho condemned boy ha.s been induced to join in tho. almost universal belief in Auckland that his life would be spared ; (0) that but for the condemned boy's admission the death of John Freeman would peihans for all time have remained a mystery; (7) that in several cases the Royal prerogative of mercy has been recently exercised in the dominion in connection with murder. The position is naturally a general topic of conversation in Auckland, and the element of suspense is a subject for common talk. Meantime the person most keenly concerned in the derision remains in ignorance of tho efforts to obtain a commutation of the sentence and suffers the suspense of await in" the execution of the penalty. WELLINGTON, June 14. The Hon Jam... Carroll. ActingPrime Minister, states n\ regard to the decision of the Executive against reprieving the .Maori lad. Tahi Kaka, now awaiting execution for the murder of an elderly gumdigger, that tho matter was considered, very carefully. .the evidence was fully before him, and it allowed no conclusion but that the murder was premeditated and delib-

erately carried out. There was no redeeming feature about the act itself, and the only ground of the jury's recommendation to mercy was the prisoner's youth. There had been no provocation by the victim which might have worked upon the prisoner's mind. If special leniency were shown in the case It might have ,i bad effect on the rising Maori generation. Everyone would shrink from confirming "a. sentence involving a human being's existence, but so long as capital punishment prevailed its application must be recoguiwd.