The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-03-30 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE CASE OF THE MURDERER WAGER.  The punishment of the murderer,Wager, has been reduced from that of death upon the scaffold to that of penal servitude for life. This determination on the part of the Home Offioe had undoubtedly excited some surprise and even resentment in the public mind; and, consequently, the reply of the Home Secretary on Tuesday evening to a question upon the subject was anticipated with unusual interest in the House of Commons, and also by the public. Captain Archdall, who put the question, said that It appeared from the reports in the newspapers that a murder, accompanied by circumstances of more than usual bazi....4*** and atrocity, had been perpetrated by a maw oamed Edward wager, in Derbyshire. and the gmouncemen4 of the reprieve of the murderer was meshed with surprise and dissatisfaction : and he hoped that the right hon. gentleman would by his reply allay those feelings in the public mind. lie begged to Risk the Home Secretary whether he would state the reasons which induced him to advise Her Majesty to exercise the Royal prerogative of mercy in favour of the murderer Wager. I Mr. Walpole said that the murder referred to by the hon. gentleman was one of aggravated enormity and barbarity. When the case came before him he thought it his duty, as he lied done in all other eases which had fallen under his consideration gnce he filled the office he now held ,and he believed he so informed the House at the end of last session', to apply as a test the unanimous recommendation of the Commissioners on the subject of capital punishment. That recommendation was that unless there was a premeditated and deliberate intention to kill—" malice aforethought" was, he believed, the expression in their report—these cases in future should not be followed by the penalty of death. When he read the case now alluded to, his first impression was, like that of the hon. gentleman, that it was a case of such barbarity and cruelty that it wall proper that the law should take its course On the other hand, he found that the Jury recommended the criminal to , mercy. He felt that in this, as in all similar cases, it was his ' duty to apply to the judge who tried the criminal, and he did so without intimating an opinion one way or the other. The learned judge had twice intimated to him Ida opinion, and that judge's report, which induced him to -,eke the course which he had pursued, ended by stating flat the murder was not premeditated, and that the judge did not think, when the criminal commenced the quarrel, that he intended that amount of violence which he afterwards committed, and the judge was therefore of the opinion that tilt case was not unlit for the exercise of the mercy of the Crown. After the recommendation of the jury, expressed not only at the thne when the verdict was given, but glace conveyed to him in stronger language than the original recommendation was couched in, and after the deliberate opinion of the judge that the case was, in his opinion, not unfit for the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, lie did not think that he could have taken any other course than the one he adopted, and the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Mr. D. Griffith asked whether the right hon gentleman adopted It as a principle that he should give effect to the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners before legislathin had taken place on the subject. Mr. Walpole said that the hon. member had bettor give • notice of his question.  The Times, in reviewing the above case, observes that, by Mr. Walpole's own showing, a murderer guilty of a crime of 'aggravated enormity and barbarity" has been recommended to the mercy of the Crown. In the face of such an admission no plea whatever can excuse Mr. Walpole's leniency. If this were his deliberate opinion, it was his duty, on grounds alike of Justice and of expediency, to allow the law to take its course. If murders •' of aggravated enormity and barbarity' are not to be punished by sentence of death, the public may inquire what murders deserve to be, and criminals Silas ask what murders will be, so punished?