Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1867-03-30 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

THE CASE OF THE MURDERER WAGER.  The punishment of the inurdererWager, has been re. duced from that of death upon the scaffold to that of penal servitude for life. This determination on the part of the Home Office 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 Arehdall, who put the question, said that It appeared from the reports in the newspapers that a murder. accompanied by circumstances of more than usual barbarity and atrocity, had been perpetrated by a man named Edward Wager, in Derbyshire, and the announcement of the reprieve of the murderer Wali received with surprise and disaatisfaction ; anti he hoped that the right hon. gentleman would by his reply allay those feelings in the public mind. He begged to ask the Home Secretary whether he would state the reasons which induced him to advise Fier Majesty to exercise the Royal prerogative of mercy in favour of the murderer Wager. Mr. Walpole said that the murder referred to by the hon. gentleman was one of aggravated enormity and barLardy. When the case came before him he thought it his duty, as he had done in all other cases which had fallen under his consideration since he filled the office he now held and he believed he so informed the House at the end of last session', to apply ass test the unanimous recommendation tat 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 was 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 as opinion one way or the other. The learned judge had twice intimated to him his opinion, and that judge's report, which induced him to take the course which he had pursued, ended by stating that the murder was not premeditated, and that the judge did not think, when the criminal commenced the quarrel, that he intended that amount of violent* which he afterwards committed, and the judge was therefore of the opinion that the caws was not unfit for the exercise of the mercy of the Crown. After the recommendation of the jury, expressed not only at the time when the verdict was given, but since conveyed to him in stronger language than the original recommendation was couched in, and after the deliberate opinion of the judge that the ease was, in his opinion, not unfit for the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, he did not think that he could have taken any other course than the one he adopted, and the sentence was commuted to penal servitude tor life. Mr. D. Griffith asked whether the right hon. gentleman adopted it as a that he should give effect to the recomMendatioo soe noyal Commissioners before legislation had taken place on the subject. Mr. Walpole said that the hon, member had better give notice of his question.  prinWple  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. It 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 may ask what murders will be, so punished I